Movies that used to be really big - but they aren't anymore

[kennermike]

[QUOTE=palitoy;837822]Mostly "Stuff I couldn't sit through"

funny but very true!

[Nostalgiabuff]

top gun....never did get the appeal of that one

Star Wars prequels

[johnmiic]

The French Connection, An Officer and a Gentleman, The Crying Game.

A little iffy on these: Terms of Endearment, Prizzi's Honor, Air Force One, Hunt For Red October, Speed, Interview with a Vampire.

[samurainoir]

terminator 2 was big in its day for sure. so was true lies

Much 80's action stuff seems to have slipped away.

Although Terminator 2 and Aliens still packed the house at recent theatrical debuts of their digitally projected incarnations in my city.

I can't think of any other Arnie film other than Predator or Conan having similar staying power as the first two Terminators.

Certainly True Lies, Commando, Red Heat, and most other Arnie flicks have fallen off the radar.

Most of Stallone's stuff other than Rocky or Rambo. van Damme seems largely forgotten... universal Soldier, Bloodsport, hard target were all cult flicks back in the day.

Do kids even know Animal House? Any Bill Murray film outside of Ghostbusters? Grease? Saturday Night Fever? Flashdance?

[Hector]

It's all generational.

How come all of us have not mentioned flicks like Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane, etc???

Or folks from even further back in time...growing up watching The Gold Rush, The General, Metropolis, Birth of a Nation, etc...?

I bet folks from those eras are saying..."These damn bloody new movies like Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, and Rocky, what a bunch of lame new crap..."



I can see it down the road now...when we are all 80 years old and plus...we are going to be hearing middle aged people say..."Why can't filmmakers make classics like Transformers and the Twilight saga anymore..."

[johnmiic]

It's all generational.

How come all of us have not mentioned flicks like Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane, etc???

Of these I have only seen Citizen Kane. You should take a film class Hector you would enjoy it. Citizen Kane is considered the greatest American film of all time now, (Gone With the Wind, pah!), but when it came out-it bombed. There are a lot of reasons for this. Mostly it got bad press or no press from media mogul William Randolph Hearst-which the film is based on. His gossip lackey Louella Parsons,(?), gave the film a bad review but didn't actually sit through the whole screening, (rumor has it her cheauffer did and liked it). Even tho it's highly regarded now, even my film class prof. tried to cut the film down for it's use of deep focus shots. Rather than seeing deep focus as innovative she felt it was wasteful. It seems to me if it hasn't been done in a film before it's new and inventive. You might also note very few films ever use any of the deep focus techniques from Kane. I can think of maybe 2 films that use some of that style: Seconds & Dick Tracy,(1990). (Another good topic would be great films that were not well revceived or bombed when first released: Citizen Kane, Wizard of Oz. Fantasia, It's a Wonderful Life, Back to the Future).

Or folks from even further back in time...growing up watching The Gold Rush, The General, Metropolis, Birth of a Nation, etc...?

I think most of those people are dead. There are to few to be heard complaining. Tho I have seen Metropolis & Birth of a Nation.

[Hector]

You should take a film class Hector you would enjoy it.

I was a Film Major at San Francisco State way back in the 80s...before I switched majors (Mass Communications, then Liberal Arts, then...oh heck, I didn't know what the hell I wanted to study, lol)...took tons of classes...one of the first flicks I was exposed to were Birth of a Nation and Un Chien Andalou...Citizen Kane was of course standard fare...everybody was exposed to that one (as you know)...lol...

[Hector]

I think most of those people are dead. There are to few to be heard complaining.

Originally Posted by Hector
Or folks from even further back in time...growing up watching The Gold Rush, The General, Metropolis, Birth of a Nation, etc...?

True...but you know what I meant...

[ctc]

>Certainly True Lies, Commando, Red Heat, and most other Arnie flicks have fallen off the radar.

This kinda ties in with our "Conan" discussion. "Commando" is a great example: it's the film that durned near EVERY action film that came after riffed on. The cartoony action, the lines, the fact that there's a hidden gun cache in the back of a store.... it's all there. (Remember that PRIOR to Commando action flicks were all "Death Wish" and "Dirty Harry.") SO even though the actuial film has disappeared, and would be considered a weird ripoff by a current fan it's still there.

>van Damme seems largely forgotten...

So.... there's an UP-side to this sort of thing?

Don C.

[johnmiic]

I was a Film Major at San Francisco State way back in the 80s...before I switched majors (Mass Communications, then Liberal Arts, then...one of the first flicks I was exposed to were Birth of a Nation and Un Chien Andalou...Citizen Kane was of course standard fare..

I took 2-3 film classes. I can't recall how many because they were all with the same prof. Her tests were fatal-total essays for each film-must do 3 of them! She wouldn't allow us more time to write out the essays. I was out sick on the day we screened Un Chien Andalou. I recall, among many, Intolerance, The Bicycle Thief, Greed, The Casket of Dr. Caliagari, Nosferatu, Battleship Potempkin. I wish I had been out sick for some of those old Silent Russian films. Man those were tiring to watch. My friend also took a class with a prof. named Royal Brown and from what I heard this guy was a real trip.

[David Lee]

I was thinking more about the Movie events we seemed to have as a kid...

The Wizard of Oz is a good example of this... it came on once a year and it was a big durn deal, you made it a priority and we yes "we" gathered around ye old Cathode Ray Tube and watched it! There were others too, The Sound of Music, Gone with the Wind, Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments... we just waited for them and we watched them when the Networks doled them out and the alternatives were dim...

I think the key now is that they are available on demand all the time anytime and that makes them less "Big". Availabillity takes the shine off of them. Don't get me worng they are still great, it's just that they have become part of the instant gratification we demand now... The lesser generations have no concept of this... they don't have to wait for Rudolph or Frosty to come on, or endure missing them if they are't prepared... just fire up Netflix or grab the DVD.

Dang now I feel old...

where's my paper? who are those kids on my lawn?

-Dave

[samurainoir]

Speaking of forgotten films, film wonks out there should check out Hugo... The trailer does it a great disservice. The 3-d also works particularly well for the clips of early cinema they use.

[Mikey]

I remember when Conan came out everybody hated it.

For some reason over time people's opinions changed

Same with Highlander

[samurainoir]

I was thinking more about the Movie events we seemed to have as a kid...


Dang now I feel old...

where's my paper? who are those kids on my lawn?

-Dave

I agree with you a hundred percent Dave. Plus keep in mind pre-video, films would often get rereleased in theaters for a new generation to discover as if they were new. Even when Disney films bombed, they eventually did well by the time the were rereleased a few times.

As a kid, I remember each year they kept rereleasing Star Wars (I'm guessing this might have been regional dependent) every year, and that was a huge annual highlight for me.

Cinema was an event back then rather than a "window" in a rapidly sped up cycle of theatrical/DVD/cable/download/network. Even when certain movies debuted on network Tv. Cable, PPV, home video really changed all that in a rapid succession.

Remember the bell commercials of the nineties with Tom Selleck's voice over? It predicted so much... "imagine watching what you want, when you want"

There is a reason why the current generation has taken this a step further with YouTube and their own broadcasting.

[samurainoir]

Although sometimes it's easy to see why some survive and others don't... Just look at the Stephen Speilberg spresents stuff from the eighties. Goonies would be horribly dated while somehow, creatures like The Gremlins seem timeless.

And Don is totally right about the knockoff factor... just look at ET or the Matrix. Arguably hugely innovative and successful films that seem so cliche now because they have been ripped off and parodied so universally.