First times watching classic movies

[Nikaer Drekin]

A Meat, go watch M.

I'll second this, M is terrific. Also, Coppola's The Conversation is amazing, and not generally brought up as one of his best (probably because he made it in between the first two Godfather movies, and those tend to get all the attention). Also, Bonnie and Clyde is a must-see. And so is Apocalypse Now. And Twelve Angry Men. And I could keep going all night but I'll stop myself now.

[Cleretic]

"Luke, I'm your father" would probably blow your mind if you didn't know about it beforehand

the usual suspects too

I'm not even sure how I avoided the Usual Suspects twist until I saw it at a friend's place a couple years ago. I think maybe I did hear it, but jokes about it are so often separated from what movie it actually is.

I think the biggest and most successful twist I know that hasn't been spoiled through pop culture is the original Saw.

[Emperor Jack Chick]

A meat, I would love that.

Watch Psycho. It is a heist movie that is built as vehicle for Janet Leigh. You will be SUUUUUUUUPER stoked you did.

Watch Blade Runner. It's a fun sci-fi romp. also pay attention to how the layering in the score coincides with the layering of the cinematography hngggggggggg

Friday the 13th (the first one) is also pretty good for a rad format skew for the first time you watch it.

[Sun Smasher]

I wonder how many of these movies are harmed by the fact that they are considered classics. To explain, I feel like some people go into watching movies that everyone seems to love with really high expectations, only to be disappointed because it wasn't a life changing experience, it's just a good movie. Same thing goes for movies we saw as a kid, loved, and now trying to get people to see them who are part of an older generation just ends up with them not liking it much (because it's a kid's movie). For example, I never saw the Goonies until last year, and it was alright, but that's because I saw it last year when I was in my mid-twenties. My husband had never seen Star Wars until about two years ago, and he really didn't care for them, which I find kind of hilarious. He had actually seen the first three episodes first, before the originals.

I've never seen Psycho or Citizen Kane, or many other movies that should be in this thread, but I know how well regarded they are. It's just a wandering thought of how going into things with high expectations can often leave you disappointed.

[Emperor Jack Chick]

None of them are hampered because they are classics. They are hampered because the contextual time and zeitgeist is radically different than it is when the work is initially produced.

Star Wars is a great example. The film (a new hope) has a cliched story, one-dimensional characters, wooden acting, etc. It is a great film because it completely changed Sci-Fi film. It has a huge scope, the universe feels lived in, there are mysterious superhero types who are exceedingly rare and essentially remain unseen, the story starts in the middle of everything. All of this parallels the boy passes into adulthood and their world expands, quite literally. This is why luke as a main character is an excellent arc.

I don't like star wars, but it was absolutely a great film due to context. None of the advantages I mention above were things before it came along. Now we take them for granted.

[EYE OF ZA]

Ran into that talking to someone who didn't like Mad Max: The Road Warrior.  They said they thought it was really boring stock post-apocalyptic settlements and cliche raiders.  Which is true, but they're cliches because of Mad Max.

Road Warrior is better than Beyond Thunderdome though.

[Victor Laszlo]

None of them are hampered because they are classics. They are hampered because the contextual time and zeitgeist is radically different than it is when the work is initially produced.

Star Wars is a great example. The film (a new hope) has a cliched story, one-dimensional characters, wooden acting, etc. It is a great film because it completely changed Sci-Fi film. It has a huge scope, the universe feels lived in, there are mysterious superhero types who are exceedingly rare and essentially remain unseen, the story starts in the middle of everything. All of this parallels the boy passes into adulthood and their world expands, quite literally. This is why luke as a main character is an excellent arc.

I don't like star wars, but it was absolutely a great film due to context. None of the advantages I mention above were things before it came along. Now we take them for granted.

I missed seeing you at Citizen KaneCon this summer, Jack.  I wish you had seen my Mr. Bernstein costume, it was top shelf.

[Emperor Jack Chick]

None of them are hampered because they are classics. They are hampered because the contextual time and zeitgeist is radically different than it is when the work is initially produced.

Star Wars is a great example. The film (a new hope) has a cliched story, one-dimensional characters, wooden acting, etc. It is a great film because it completely changed Sci-Fi film. It has a huge scope, the universe feels lived in, there are mysterious superhero types who are exceedingly rare and essentially remain unseen, the story starts in the middle of everything. All of this parallels the boy passes into adulthood and their world expands, quite literally. This is why luke as a main character is an excellent arc.

I don't like star wars, but it was absolutely a great film due to context. None of the advantages I mention above were things before it came along. Now we take them for granted.

I missed seeing you at Citizen KaneCon this summer, Jack.  I wish you had seen my Mr. Bernstein costume, it was top shelf.

dude you KNOW i couldn't make it because I was at CannibalCon. Stop fucking rubbing it in!

[Sun Smasher]

Star Wars is a great example. The film (a new hope) has a cliched story, one-dimensional characters, wooden acting, etc. It is a great film because it completely changed Sci-Fi film. It has a huge scope, the universe feels lived in, there are mysterious superhero types who are exceedingly rare and essentially remain unseen, the story starts in the middle of everything. All of this parallels the boy passes into adulthood and their world expands, quite literally. This is why luke as a main character is an excellent arc.

Which is what I told him when he said he didn't like them. I also feel like there's a pretty big draw to them when you've watched them when you were younger too, since Star Wars also sort of brought around the whole having a bunch of action figures from a movie thing into popular culture.

[Tiny Prancer]

the first time I saw The Shining, Poltergeist, and The Exorcist, they were all though livestreams a friend was doing and I had a great fucking time because (1) they are fantastic horror films, (2) my friend is a big horror fan and my reactions to stuff were exactly on point for what both movies were trying to do, so she got the enjoyment of seeing me hit those moments and I got the enjoyment of sharing the movies with her, and (3) as both went on we talked about why both movies worked so well and how they worked well compared to other movies. We'd also watched Jack Frost (the terrible family film, not the horror film) right before watching Poltergeist, so we had some choice words about how Poltergeist was much better at actually bothering to make the characters likeable.

we also had the added bonus of her trying to look up screenshots taken of the split-second demon faces in The Exorcist, and got so frustrated with google not getting her what she was looking for that she typed "THE ONE WITH THE FACE AND SHIT" into a google search, and the result gave her.... the IMDB page for Pulp Fiction.

The first time I watched Robocop it was with a friend who'd seen it before, and I was so excited about how much stuff was going on that I kept talking about it and then getting mad I was missing stuff because I was talking, and she got to learn new stuff about it because I was catching all the stuff about the 80s it was parodying that she hadn't caught that before. I got to replicate the experience when I showed it to a friend and she had her mind similarly blown over it.

The first time I saw eraserhead it was with several friends and their friends, and unfortunately the friends of friends were kind of the worst people to watch it with because they kept asking questions about what things were supposed to mean, but it also led to the most hilarious moment of the night when we got to the scene where Henry started cutting the wrappings off the baby, and one girl turned to her friend who had been asking question the entire time and said "okay, this will explain everything"

The room descended into silence until the credits rolled, and her friend said "...that explained nothing". I laughed and said "and you BELIEVED her!"

[Emperor Jack Chick]

Star Wars is a great example. The film (a new hope) has a cliched story, one-dimensional characters, wooden acting, etc. It is a great film because it completely changed Sci-Fi film. It has a huge scope, the universe feels lived in, there are mysterious superhero types who are exceedingly rare and essentially remain unseen, the story starts in the middle of everything. All of this parallels the boy passes into adulthood and their world expands, quite literally. This is why luke as a main character is an excellent arc.

Which is what I told him when he said he didn't like them. I also feel like there's a pretty big draw to them when you've watched them when you were younger too, since Star Wars also sort of brought around the whole having a bunch of action figures from a movie thing into popular culture.

yeah the thing that fucking confuses me is that people get SUPER into star wars these days.

[Nikaer Drekin]

Star Wars is a great example. The film (a new hope) has a cliched story, one-dimensional characters, wooden acting, etc. It is a great film because it completely changed Sci-Fi film. It has a huge scope, the universe feels lived in, there are mysterious superhero types who are exceedingly rare and essentially remain unseen, the story starts in the middle of everything. All of this parallels the boy passes into adulthood and their world expands, quite literally. This is why luke as a main character is an excellent arc.

Which is what I told him when he said he didn't like them. I also feel like there's a pretty big draw to them when you've watched them when you were younger too, since Star Wars also sort of brought around the whole having a bunch of action figures from a movie thing into popular culture.

yeah the thing that fucking confuses me is that people get SUPER into star wars these days.

I am sort of a giant Star Wars nerd so I may not be the most objective about this, but there's still a lot coming out that continually brings new people into the franchise. Say what you will about the prequels, but they're the way a lot of people around my age first got into the series, and more recently there have been the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series (the latter of which is really excellent) that parents who grew up with the original films are watching with their kids. Star Wars isn't just a fixed moment in movie history, it really does expand and evolve.

E: Also, Jack, I don't know how you think the original Star Wars has wooden acting, unless you've been watching Attack of the Clones by mistake all this time

[A Meat]

I just watched Psycho for the first time. While I did like a whole bunch of things the movie did, I did have a few problems with the movie and it perhaps didn't age best, but it's all in all a good movie, but not as excellent as I heard people describe it as.

I legitimately didn't know the twist, but it wasn't too surprising, especially since being exposed to American culture almost makes you expect this kind of twist by now, but I assume it was much more novel at the time.

I'm sure that if I knew more about movie making I'd appreciate the movie even more, but I did like how some of the scenes were filmed, and I presume there's even more subtlety that I didn't get.