Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

[Reed John]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

Gone With the Wind is one of those that gets called a classic because it was a massive hit and was cherished by a lot of people for a variety of reasons. (Not all of those reasons are good, in my view, since the whole thing sometimes seen as a bit of an apologetic for the Old South.)

But if you scrutinize it too closely, you'll see it's flaws. I always found it to be a bit ridiculous too, but I can see how it would have appealed to a lot of people especially in those early days of color film and I'd like to see it properly on big screen before judging it too harshly.

Titanic is a more recent instance of the same thing. Teenage girls liked it. The application of big CGI shots mixed with massive sets was unprecedented. And the ridiculous, overwrought romance (in both senses) of it does sort of appeal somehow, but only to a point.

I suppose It's a Wonderful Life might fit into this category too. It's more beloved, at least in America, than appreciated as cinema. It's on TV repeatedly around Christmas time every year and, along with Miracle on 34th Street and A Christmas Story has become one of the few bits of the American Christmas canon that neither the right-wing nor Wal-Mart can appropriate (although apparently Universal can. They bought the exclusive rights to showing it on their channels). Watching it is like looking at old super 8 home movies or pictures of your grandparents on vacation when they were young. It reminds us of a nicer time that never really existed.

Needless to say, I think it's way better than Gone With the Wind.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

Oh, the plot of Titanic was wholly preposterous, I'd agree, not least (but certainly for one reason) because the "Jack" character had to be contrived to be made American (couldn't he have been, you know, Oirish?).

But you have to admit, the CGI at the time, allowing the sheer capturing on film of something that couldn't possibly have been filmed in real life, was pretty special. I'd let that slip into my "classics" list for that reason alone.

For similar reasons I'd put the original Jurassic Park in there. Love it, hate it, bored of it before you even saw it, no-one can possibly claim that the first moment they saw the Brontosaurs eating from the trees, or when the T-Rex leans out of the bushes and goes "roar!", that they weren't sat up in their seats going "Fuck!"

[Reed John]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

Yes, Jurassic Park was a massive leap forward in technology and at the time it was remarkable and it was very obvious to everyone who saw it that it was the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't hold up, though. The CGI looks weak compared to what they can do now, but doesn't have the low-tech charm of, say, the original Clash of the Titans. (BTW, I just saw the new COTT. They really f'd that up.)

I'm obsessed with Tron for the same reason. Unlike Jurassic Park, few adults "got it" at the time. But I was 10 and somehow I understood at that time that it was a glimspe of the future and I was way into it. It looks kind of cheezy now and the premise doesn't make any sense, but it was still way ahead of it's time and was a huge leap of faith for Disney. According to the "Making of" doc, which I just saw very recently, the Academy refused to nominate Tron for any special effects awards because the feeling was that they had "cheated" by using computers (which wasn't even really true. Compared to now, very little of the work in that film was actually done with the computer. It was mostly painstaking layering of mattes, frame by frame.

[treibeis]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

Very possibly not a 'classic', but it certainly got a few relatively rave reviews on OTF some years ago: The Royal Tenenbaums.

I've tried to watch it three times and failed miserably on all three occasions. The first time, I left the cinema after 20 minutes. The second time, I fell asleep despite being neither tired nor drunk. The third time, I watched it all the way through, yet the only thing I can remember about it is Ben Stiller wearing a tracksuit.

On reflection, this may say more about me than about the film, though.

[Reed John]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

And yet, that's the only Wes Anderson film that I've been able to enjoy except until The Fantastic Mr Fox, which more than makes up for the ones he made that I thought were dull. I couldn't get more than 20 minutes into Steve Zissou and I did see all of Rushmore and all of Bottle Rocket, but didn't think much of either.

I don't think I have ever left a movie theater early in my life and yet I pull the plug (not literally. I have a remote control like most people do) on DVDs in about one in five cases, I'd estimate. I guess it's because I have so much more invested in going to the theater plus if I left, where am I going to go? Whereas at home I can usually just put in a different DVD since I get three Netflix at a time. Also, I generally only go to the theater to see something if I'm extremely confident I'm going to like it and/or it has giant robots, ninjas, monsters, etc.

[ian.64]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

So do I have a refined sensibility then? And this on When Saturday Comes!

Only in the way that Phil Jupitus has the potential to be an Olympic athlete. I'll have to do an embarrassing volte-face here and say that The Wild Bunch is one of the finest westerns ever made, as Leone's westerns - as you mentioned - are also prime examples of brilliance. Both Leone and Peckinpah (with The Wild Bunch) sung from the same songbook - tales of men with rigid, uncompromising rules of their own facing the consequences of their actions - but did it in different ways. Mind you, Leone could do misogyny up to a point - the women in his Man With No Name trilogy are either weird-looking hoteliers gurning with desire or shrieking townswomen who get shot off camera.

Lawrence of Arabia is ace.

[matt j]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

Lawrence of Arabia is brilliant, but I know several people it does nothing for.

For me, I don't really have a problem with most older movies being called classics, as even the ones that are pretty dire 'films' (such as Metropolis, which is borderline unwatchable I feel) still have enough value in what else they brought to the table at the time.

For me, a large number of the 'classics' of the last 20 years are nothing of the sort.

Gladiator, Braveheart, Pulp Fiction, etc... they just aren't that good.

Even movies I really like (Shawshank, Usual Suspects, LA Confidential), I'd be hard-pressed to give 'classic' status to.

[jason voorhees]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

I'll ignore any talk about Wes Anderson. Everyone knows I agree with Treibeis.

So did films actually slow down in that supposedly "golden era between the end of the studio system and the rise of the blockbuster?"

And I find a lot of contemporary "indy" films really slow and boring. So does that mean that the Miramax era brought about another great slowing down of the pace of films, perhaps because those movies are all inspired by the films of the 1970s?

JV would probably be the one to answer this with some technical precision.

Is the question about pacing of films in the decade ? Such as the rise of Cassavettes and films like A Panic In Needle Park ?

If so, you have to look at all factors, from acting styles to economics.

Method Acting was a massive revolution, and as in any revolution there's a commitment to see how far it could go in terms of placing a magnifying glass into a character's soul. Needlesstosay, a Bob Hope slapstick special or It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World would not be the style of film to do this.

In post-war Italy, with the rise of Neo-Realism, people were finding out they could make documentary-like films for very cheap, that delivered a much more powerful emotional product. Mix that with the raves for Brando's early stage appearances and films, from the Czech new wave, Antonini's post neo-realism films, and the post-Kurosawa Japanese wave and the transition away from epics and Hollywood grandeur was in full motion.

Kennedy's Assassination and Vietnam also led to America having a greater focus on itself and distrust in institutions. Filmwise, this led to a feeling of Hollywood as part of the "old, fake America" and the first major independent films as being "real, gritty reality."

Also, the advent of videotape in the late 60s led to a surplus of 16mm film cameras (from newsgathering of local tv stations to old WWII cameras.) This made it possible to finance a film for a few hundred/thousand dollars, while before it was impossible for anyone outside of a studio. Add in the fact that audiences hadn't seen anything like Cassavettes, and it felt so much more real than tv or studio acting up to that point, and that's a big part of what led to Kramer vs Kramer, Walkabout, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Conversation, etc.

Oh well, I tried my best.

[E10 Rifle]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

Woody Allen's Manhattan.

Oh yes, and Taylor's expanded on the reasons well. He's just phoning it in really isn't he? And if anything his whole ability to do 'homages to cities' has been put in further doubt by his execrable picture-postcard upper-middle-class portrayals of London and Barcelona in recent times.

Crimes and Misdemeanours is his masterpiece.

[G-Man]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

Method Acting was a massive revolution, and as in any revolution there's a commitment to see how far it could go in terms of placing a magnifying glass into a character's soul. Needlesstosay, a Bob Hope slapstick special or It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World would not be the style of film to do this.

Oh, I reckon these movies' genre and the world of method acting could have benefitted greatly from a mutual association. If only for the comic effect.

Or it might have ended up like De Niro's turns in Analyse This/That.

[David Agnew]

Worst movie to be described as "Classic"

hobbes wrote:

Word. The Godfather is ok, but it's too long and the acting outside the core cast is horrible.

same for Goodfellas. It's just a bit tedious. And it feels 40 minutes longer than it actually is.

Did we ever come up with a phrase for the opposite of Hobbesian Wrongness? Phoebian Rightness, perhaps? Because that's what that is.

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

evilC wrote:

Oh, and 'The Wicker Man'.

Take Britt Ekland out of the 'dancing naked' scene and imagine it's Bella Emberg instead. Now see if you like the film so much.

I tend to regard casting as being part of the film.

Quite. I mean, evilC, you might as well have said "let's cast Nicolas Cage instead of Edward Woodward, and instead of making him a virgin, we'll make him afraid of bees".

treibeis wrote:

Very possibly not a 'classic', but it certainly got a few relatively rave reviews on OTF some years ago: The Royal Tenenbaums.

I've tried to watch it three times and failed miserably on all three occasions. The first time, I left the cinema after 20 minutes. The second time, I fell asleep despite being neither tired nor drunk. The third time, I watched it all the way through, yet the only thing I can remember about it is Ben Stiller wearing a tracksuit.

On reflection, this may say more about me than about the film, though.

No, it's definitely the film.