I recently saw ‘Don’t Look Now’ (1973). Good picture, a little slow perhaps by today’s standards but worthy of any movie enjoyer’s time! So this movie was shot in Venice. Venice itself being an already beautiful spot to film even today. The way we get to look in a time capsule of Venice in the 70s makes the movie that much better!
People in the 70s could not in fact appreciate it the same way we do now. Concurrently we also can’t do it for today’s movies. Some movies can only be truly appreciated over time is what I believe. This matter can be expressed in both the movie’s message or, as I did, its cinematography. Hence my question now to you.
Road to Perdition has some of the best cinematography I have ever witnessed.
Demolition Man, they even predicted exactly how covid would work and when.
Although it was most likely for humor, if I had to guess how it would work in their world, it’s probably akin to silverware, where each shell is used for a different poop texture.
Nearly everything Terry Gilliam made has aged very well for me. He creates strange and interesting visual worlds that never really seem dated because they all sort of exist in their own time-space.
Also anything Jim Henson company touches seems to become immortal. Dark Crystal and Labyrinth are masterpieces.
And to a lesser degree Don Coscarelli has made some pretty timeless films. Beastmaster is still very watchable.
Gah! Now I need to go watch Dark Crystal again. That’s such a good movie, and I recently watched Labyrinth. I’ll cue it up, and then stick Brazil right behind.
Have you seen the Netflix Dark Crystal series? If not do yourself a favor- it’s great.
I hadn’t, but I was nervous given how many of the reboots and extension series attempts seemed to miss the mark. Maybe I should give it a try, anyway.
Loved that series. The only downside is it’s kind of depressing because, given that it’s set before the movie, you know how it ultimately has to end for the gelflings.
I was going to mention Brazil because it’s one of the great distopian films. And I don’t know how to describe 12 Monkeys, it’s just really good.
The movie It’s a Wonderful Life still holds up pretty well.
It still is hard to save up $5000.
This is a very interesting situation.
So does Casablanca.
I saw Alien 1 just a couple of weeks ago for the first time and I was amazed how good it still looked. The design of the spaceship and the alien itself still looked amazing in 4k on an OLED TV. And also the story still seemed like a fresh idea. Of course there are moments with stupid acting people, but all in all the decisions made felt plausible and logical, not the normal stupid horror movie group. And also the story twist came (for me) as a real surprise and not like a thing you knew after the first 5min. (And I’m also surprised that after all these years it’s still a surprise, cause everybody knows the alien but not the story of the first movie?)
Alien 1 is in 4k?
Yes, I think it was the 40th Anniversary release. Aliens is also supposed to be getting a 4K release soon.
Film is actually capable of holding way more detail than 4k. This is the crux of complaints when cinema projectors started to change from film to digital. I love it when old films get remastered in ultra high definition. It makes you realize that what the original audiences actually saw was much more high quality than what we associate with old films, like grain, burn spots, blur and stretching distortion, etc.
Though often it was limited by grain size, rarely much more than hd quality.
The Back to the Future films
The Goonies
I Showed the Goonies to a couple of young teens in my fam and they thought it was boring and weird… :( . Sucks to be them, missing out on this gem of a movie!
I wonder if young teens is too late? I think 8-10 is the prime range for that movie.
Excellent point! A new fam batch is brewing ages 2-4 right now, i’ll try again in a year or 6 😊
I’m going to tweak the OP a little bit to drop my movie unpopular opinion that I haven’t gotten to share here and say:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a damn fine, and more importantly, fun, addition the the franchise that deserves maybe a tenth of the hate it gets online. It’s pulpy, it’s cheesy, the writing swings between passable and unbelievable, and the plot is all of the place, both in tone and in narrative, but you know what: SO ARE ALL THE INDIANA JONES MOVIES!
I honestly think that if that vine swinging scene never left the editing bay that movie would be looked back on a lot better.
Contrary to popular opinion, the infamous fridge scene is good. The second half of the movie is forgettable.
I envy your opinion and sadly cannot share it. It’s ok, I’ll just love the first three and take it as it comes.
Yeah, no.
I’ll defend the fifth one, even if the opening feels like you’re watching somebody play a Naughty Dog Indiana Jones game, but not the fourth.
The fucking CGI gopher alone is enough, let alone the swinging with the monkeys bit or the fridge nuke. And even if you take all that out, it’s just not very good.
1 > 3 > 2 > 5 >>> 4
Just re-watched Jumanji 1995 and I thought it held up mighty fine! Some of the CGI is lighted a bit flat, the monkeys specifically (and they get some real screen time too so you can judge extra harshly and at your leisure, but all of the perfomances are at least good and most are great or exceptional. I Also love the plot idea and it’s executed really well.
Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Peak Expressionist cinema with a solid story
Every day, Idiocracy is getting further from absurd comedy and closer to documentary.
Welcome to Costco. I love you.
Jurassic Park. Those dinos beat many of today’s CGI films. Mixed in with the animatronic ones they just blend in so well. The story is simple (to quote Dr Malcolm) God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. There are so many quotable lines, as shown just now, and the music is pretty unforgettable too.
I would say a lot of Spielberg’s work. It just doesn’t seem to age. I watched Munich a few weeks ago, and to me it could have come out yesterday. Same for Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List.
IMO, the early 90s was a golden age for movie effects. There was CGI but it was so primitive and expensive it was used sparingly. Like you mentioned that blend of practical and special effects was amazing.
Another great example of this is Terminator 2. They obviously used CGI for the T-1000 but then they actually flew a helicopter under a highway overpass, drove a semi-truck off a bridge into the LA river, and blew up an office building.
Absolutely. I saw it for the first time maybe a year ago and went in not knowing anything about it, not even the synopsis, and that was the perfect way to experience it. What a ride.
12 angry men is like a Life Pro Trick sitting unused since 1957
It aged so well because the scene and camera work are relatively simple but the writing and acting are absolutely stellar.
This is a fantastic film. I love it. Hitchcock’s Lifeboat is another great film that only has a single setting.
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) — hard to say anything without spoiling the plot
Blair Witch Project (1999) — I just admire how great idea / concept extended beyond the movie itself. No-one can ever watch it again for a first time during ‘99 but it is iconic and great as a case study of having almost no budget and making something really impactful / special
Her (2013) — this one is my answer for the same question but asked in 2061…
I saw Her and thought it was an instant classic but was floored people I recommended it to thought it was dark or unrealistic or other things. It was almost contemporary when it came out!
Oh! I didn’t see it when it came out. I saw it around 2002 — and let’s just underline one thing here, some people in my family can really pull proper pranks. With this movie (all this is not happening in the US) my cousin made the whole introduction for me and others “this movie is not actually a movie, it was not played in many cinemas, it was banned almost instantly, you can not buy it or rent it, I ordered this tape via a magazine about unresolved police investigations from around the world and this is just a montage of what was found there… I saw it only once, it is pretty disturbing, weird. I don’t believe in anything supernatural but fuck, this movie makes me question some things now…” — like… come on! I heard and read so many different versions of this story from others and their experiences almost always boiled down to the same conclusion for me, the movie was just a possibility to make everything around the movie so much more impactful than the movie in itself, urban legend for creating more urban legends. Next level sneaky move. On the other hand, “Yeah I saw it, it’s all fake and made up, someone explained to me how it’s all a hoax, really nothing special, stupid, boring and not scary at all” — how circumstances can change everything.
The other, similar one was during “The Ring” where my uncle was calling from his cellphone on their home landline every time the phone rang in the movie. They were so boggled about it to the point where they were rewinding the movie to test it… They didn’t finish it. One of family legends was born on that night…
