Have you ever sat watching an all time classic or personal favourite film, and arrive at the conclusion that although this is a great flick, enough is enough ?
… shocking, perhaps, but I’ve done this one to death … and as ground breaking, and exciting as it was when I first saw it on a double feature with ‘Every Which Way But Loose’, (another one I never need see again, but for very different reasons) back in 1980 at the tender age of 14, it really doesn’t do a thing for me anymore … in fact it’s beginning to look it’s age, a little dated and even juvenile.
This is just intended as a bit of fun - but it will be interesting to hear from anyone else who’s fallen out of love with a classic.
The Exorcist.
Not sure if it fits the theme or intention of your thread, but it is considered a classic film yet I found it so laughably dumb, boring and bad, I really… don’t ever need to see it again
Me and my unpopular opinions, but Corbucci’s Django
I don’t care about it that much, sorry I started to feel sick and anxious, my heart was racing, hands shaking and I wanted to cry while watching the hand-crushing scene. If a film makes me feel so terrible, it’s an immediate sign that I don’t want to see it ever again.
It may be heresy, but ‘A Clockwork Orange’. I know it’s a classic, but I watched it so many times in the late 80s/early 90s (via a French VHS as the film was withdrawn from distribution for decades) that by the time I finally saw it on the big screen in March 2000 I was pretty much done with it. The film seems somewhat dated now in comparison to the magnificent ‘Barry Lyndon’.
That’s what I’m looking for … I’m feeling the same about ‘The Shining’, while on the subject of Kubrick, which at one time was a top 20 fav’ … it fascinated and scared the hell out of me, but not now … Not a thing wrong with the movie, I’ve just seen it way too many times.
One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Saw it my Senior Year of High School for film class and felt depressed afterwards. I adore Jack Nicholson, and both he and Louise Fletcher earned their Oscars, but the whole thing is too much.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? - I can’t understand the allure to this one at all; the characters Jane and Blanche are unlikable, and are just sad, repressed people with too many skeletons and demons in the family closet. Both Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are in top form in their performances, but the atmpsphere is too mean-spirited and bleak.
2001: A Space Odessey - Visually the film is a masterpiece and very beautiful to look at for the first 90 minutes or so, but after that it just gets too weird. I love it when directors include allegory and metaphor for films, but Kubrick went too deep and too far down the rabbit hole even for me.
98% of the Joe Besser Three Stooges Shorts: Joe Besser was great in a lot of stuff, but a Stooge he was not. Only two of his shorts are worth watching.
Re. The Exorcist and The Shining, if it’s not horrifying, it’s not working. I’ve seen the former once, and also couldn’t take it seriously enough to become immersed. It remains of interest as a cultural artefact, but not as something I’d relish seeing again. I’ve seen The Shining a couple of times and think I could still be carried by its atmospherics. The chase scene in the maze towards the end never worked for me. It’s one of the few Kubricks I wouldn’t rule out rewatching. Could anyone still sit through 2001 A Space Odyssey?
Hammer horror moves, on the other hand, l could watch any number of times… for everything but the horror.
Generally, if it’s a classic I’m against it, until it proves me wrong. This may be why I’ve yet to watch The Godfather!
Never seen Apocalypse Now either, partly because I have an aversion to the idea of it.
I bought Last Year at Marienbad years ago but can’t motivate myself to watch it. I fear l’ll be bored and annoyed by it.
But back on topic… there are dozens of art movies I once enjoyed but don’t think I could watch now, e.g. Down By Law, Ghost World, and most of Wim Wenders early work (still love Kings of the Road). I think the few mainstream classics which I liked the first time I could still enjoy.
Edit to add: makesthemovie, I posted before I read yours…
One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - didn’t like it the first time.
2001 - unlike most folk I guess, I’d sooner watch the ‘through the stargate’ footage than the rest of the stultifyingly slow techno fetishism or daft opening ape scene. HAL 9000 is the only saving grace.
These two have been lauded so much for so long that I’d hesitate to recommend them, as they’d undoubtedly be underwhelming after hearing all the hype.
‘The Godfather’ is certainly entertaining … ‘Apocalypse Now’ seemed like a big deal at one time, but all the re-edited versions have ruined that feeling for me … plus, it was borderline pretentious to begin with … The last version I saw came over as an unfunny black comedy.
I could watch ‘The Godfather’ again, and Part 2 is more interesting, but ‘Apocalypse’ I don’t need to see again.
I suspect you’re right - I would enjoy the Godfather and I may finally get around to watching.
I recall the buzz when Apocalypse Now was released and how that fueled my antipathy towards it. In the context of the indescribable suffering to the Vietnamese people caused by Americans, an American-made multi-million dollar blockbuster movie focussing upon the American experience as a trippy, drug-hazed hell with award-winning Hollywood performances seemed an obscenity.
Maybe I’d be forced to reconsider if I watched it.
Coppola himself has said, “An anti-war film cannot glorify war, and Apocalypse Now arguably does.”
Glorifying war for art, entertainment, or any reason, is indefensible.
I found Saving Private Ryan disagreeable for rather different reasons. No doubt Spielberg intended to convey the horror, but the technical brilliance with which he produced a convincing surface realism seemed to work entirely against this. The dynamic, pyrotechnic spectacle of war is so lovingly recreated we admire and are dazzled by it… from the comfortable safety of our cinema seats. For me at least, it had the distancing effect of a video shoot 'em up game.
To me, No… because I have never watched it excepted once but shortly because I didn’t like the movie… but I was with my mother and we watched but I didn’t stayed to watch with her…
And the trouble is not only the movie…
I could live without seeing those again … especially, ‘Schindler’s List’, which I never re-watched since seeing in the cinema on it’s first release.
‘Forrest Gump’ I wasn’t much into TBH … and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is wildly overrated in my opinion, plus the whole early 1970s trying to look futuristic is a bit of a daft idea to start with, as it now looks extremely unsophisticated and unstylish.
For me ‘Apocalypse Now’ (and ‘The Shining’ for that matter) still hold up remarkably well. I purposely avoided the subsequent re-edits; albeit with the fleeting exception of the ‘Redux’ version. Similar to ‘Fitzcarraldo’, the making of feature documentary is just as essential as the film itself. Although I could have done without the late Eleanor Coppola’s hippie bulls**t about the slaughtering of the water buffalo. A contemporary reviewer once wrote that Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’ was far more persuasive [than ‘Apocalypse Now’] as a journey into the heart of darkness. Tarkovsky’s film is one arthouse classic I never need to see again.
Watched it again a little while back as part of my chronological journey through cinema self imposed project and it really left me flat. I put the disc on my discard pile after watching
I started to feel sick and anxious, my heart was racing, hands shaking and I wanted to cry while watching the 