Do you ever regret going back and watching favorite movies from your past?

Submitted by modernmartialartist t3_z7buyo in movies

I've been having a lot of fun watching some of my old favorite movies lately, but man some of them just do not hold up at all! I just watched one of my favorite comedies from childhood, Hot Shots Part Deux, and WOW is it bad! A few gags got a chuckle but mostly I was just rolling my eyes.

I don't even think it's a maturity thing because I still really enjoyed about 50 percent of Kung Pow, Enter The Fist when I rewatched it. "Please ignore Wimp Lo, we taught him wrong on purpose, as a joke." That shit's still hilarious to me even if the cow fight is cringey.

Instead I think it might be that the jokes are just too predictable now. I've seen too much media and I know the punch line already so it's just irritating.

Have you guys found the same, even with stuff like action, adventure, or romance? If so, why do you think that is?

Have you found the opposite, that you get a way more adult meaning from some movies and they're even better?

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kingzilch t1_iy5qms0 wrote

I mean, back in the 80s I was a big fan of Revenge Of The Nerds; now I watch it and they're straight-up sex offenders.

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cmmosher t1_iy656t2 wrote

I rewatched Caddyshack a few months ago. Chevy Chase was a bit of creep not as bad as the Nerds though and damn was Rodney Dangerfield just obnoxious.

Bill Murray and gopher still made my laugh.

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scooterboy1961 t1_iy6yrfz wrote

I came here to rag on Caddyshack.

I liked it back in the day but I tried rewatching it a few weeks ago and other than Rodney Dangerfield it's not good.

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cmmosher t1_iy7abz6 wrote

I remembered it mostly for the Gopher and Bill Murray but I would have been under ten in the 80s and probably watched it on the Canadian equivalent of HBO.

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kingzilch t1_iy6ec5k wrote

lol right? Even Monty Python has blackface and a lot of gay jokes. That's just how comedy was, you have to just kind of scroll twitter when Graham Chapman comes in dressed as an "African tribesman" stereotype, and wait to get to the cheese shop sketch.

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Scarns_Aisle5 t1_iy5ucx2 wrote

felt kind of the same rewatching Rush Hour. I used to hold these movies up as a gold standard of comedy but watching them with a more critical lens, the jokes were insanely lazy. Im mainly talking about the second one. I hate the whole "you can't make it today" sentiment. comedy movies have gladly moved on from that form of comedy

theres other movies from around that era that are still really funny to me like Austin Powers so this isn't really a matter of comedy tastes changing

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ricardo9505 t1_iy5ydkn wrote

Saw Police Academy and Naked Gun movies recently and they still hold up. But I agree many don't.

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TheRealProtozoid t1_iyaer6t wrote

Rewatched Top Secret recently and that one is also still hilarious.

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NorrinSparrow223 t1_iy6iq5w wrote

Snow Dogs was a LOT better upon watching it when I was much younger and had no idea what good movies were. Just rewatched it last year and WOW, I can see why it’s not very well-known. The dogs are still cute though.

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HardSteelRain t1_iy5ywx1 wrote

French Connection..watched it after about 30 years,maybe more. Every movie and TV series that copied it over the years makes it seem more cliche than cutting edge

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TheRealProtozoid t1_iyaf0tt wrote

Yeah. It's no longer fresh, but it's still a great movie. Same with To Live and Die in LA, and The Exorcist. Friedkin was so influential it's hard to look at those movies today and understand which parts of them were cliches at the time and which ones were fresh ideas.

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Oncemoren2thefray t1_iy62dod wrote

Stephen Spielbergs 1941 and Mel Brooks Space Balls. Loved them when I was a kid but to me they definitely did not age well.

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Competitive-Finger26 t1_iy648az wrote

I want to watch Career Opportunities again but I worry watching Jennifer Connelly on that horse might not be quite the same at 50 as it was at 19.

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Tek-no-musik t1_iy6tdip wrote

Rewatched Boondock Saints. I used to think it wars very cool, now it was just very violent and tacky. Had to turn off midway through

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chichris t1_iy7mimk wrote

It was always a amateurish film. Never got the appeal and the documentary on the director was way more interesting.

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Asplashofwater t1_iy8tvsu wrote

About once a month Troy Duffy yelling on the phone “I’m Hollywoods next hard on!” Enters my head and makes me laugh. Fame goes to a lot of peoples head quickly but it went to his before he even had it.

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Liftin-Larry-92 t1_iy6jn7g wrote

I re-watched "Hardbodies" (1984) recently and it's literally not funny at all. Just an excuse to get women to take off their shirts and let their breasts jiggle. So many 80's comedies were like that. I feel embarrassed I used to spend money renting stuff like that, although I was a horny teen at the time.

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mickeyflinn t1_iy8bdss wrote

> I re-watched "Hardbodies" (1984) recently and it's literally not funny at all. Just an excuse to get women to take off their shirts and let their breasts jiggle

That would be because it was originally meant for the Playboy Channel and later was bought by anther company for theater distribution.

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FNG_Red t1_iy5s4cg wrote

Lol man I just saw Kung Pow for the first time last month, that is probably the single worst movie I have ever fucking seen in my life.

As for regretting seeing older movies again after a long time, not really, don't regret rewatching.

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VectorJones t1_iy5wnno wrote

I started watching HBO and other movie channels in the mid 80s when I was like 8 or 9. I would come home from school and just watch whatever was on there, often over and over again. There is a whole slew of movies they used to show all the time back then that don't hold up well at all. One that I recently revisited for the first time in decades was Vibes, starring Jeff Goldblum and Cyndi Lauper.

Actually, the first part of the movie where they're essentially doing tryouts for a team of clairvoyant people is still okay. Picture a bunch of oddball people from NYC with weird abilities all in one room, intermingling in awkward ways. Of course, Goldblum as a guy who gets psychic visions by touching things is at his usual quirky best.

If they had made the movie about some kind of clairvoyant research institute and all the wacky people who are studied there, that might have been good. Unfortunately, they move the story to South America and get into this weird Inca mysteries thing that doesn't work at all.

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RandChick t1_iy63ora wrote

I don't regret it. I prefer to face the truth. I have higher standards for story structure, development, and characterization now.

"Lost Boys" and "Young Guns" have held up well , but "When Harry Met Sally" did not. I was shocked. It's very mediocre and boring to me now. I used to actually think that was a good movie.

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NLiTNd t1_iy8hvaa wrote

In my experience it’s yes and no.

I’m cautious of doing it now, the few times I’ve tried.

It can be hit or miss. Can be enjoyable or can be like what did I ever see in this… Some things are better left in your memory I think, as it was a different time, u were different etc

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phadrus56 t1_iy63jli wrote

Casablanca is always excellent.

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Low-Cantaloupe9426 t1_iy69vem wrote

A Christmas Story feels a bit darker to me watching it as an adult.

There are still genuine laughs, such as the absurd lamp drama and the burned out Santa Claus. But some of the violence against kids bothers me more than it used to.

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NorrinSparrow223 t1_iy6ynhq wrote

IIRC, the violence was just between the kids, wasn’t it? It’s been a while since I’ve seen the film, but I do remember the bullying scenes, which was more common in that era, hence why it might’ve been so prominent.

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TheRealProtozoid t1_iyafqql wrote

This seems to hit comedies particularly hard. Ghostbusters used to be my favorite movie, and now I don't even think it's very funny. Some good jokes, sure, but now it feels kind of lazy and I don't think the casual misogyny comes across as self-aware as they think it does. In fact, I'm not sure if it's self-aware of that at all, or people just make that excuse for it today.

Same with Back to the Future. I feel like the sexualization of Lea Thompson's character is pretty gross today. First of all, her character is a minor for most of the runtime. She's given zero agency. And then there's the image of her being sexually assaulted in the backseat of a car and... is that being played for laughs?! Also the stuff about Chuck Berry getting his music from a white boy does not work today at all. I think Back to the Future works because of a very charming cast and a terrific musical score, but the movie itself is kind of a turd.

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