Movies That Have Had Something of a 180-Degree Critical Reappraisal

By the way, Terry Gilliam called...he wants his ductwork back...he wants to develop it into a biopic about Bose's brilliant design for it's exclusive Acoustic Waveguide technology behind the Wave Radio...

 

I saw it opening night and I actually fell asleep in the theatre. My date was not happy with me.

 

Life is Beautiful, (1997) was slated before it was released by an appalled press/TV that had not yet seen it, thinking it was a 'comedy' about the holocaust and was clear in how disgusting it was that someone had made it. It wasn't the film they imagined and became a critical smash, multiple Oscar winner etc.

Similar, but to a lesser extent was Titanic (1997) , seen as a joke - 'everyone knows how it ends' etc - and predicted to be an expensive flop while it was being made. Although it's become unfashionable in recent years, it won 11 Oscars and did $2bn box office.

 

Starship Troopers is maybe the definitive example. Badly misunderstood in its day -- many critics and scholars even treated it as if it was genuinely intended to be fascist, and this was the case even when I was an undergraduate (2002-2006). At best, it was regarded as an unusually gory, campy version of a '90s creature feature along the lines of Jurassic Park.

The last five years or so have led to a dramatic reappraisal of what Verhoeven and Neumeier were doing -- that is, the tendencies they were warning us about in American culture.

 

ATOLL K/UTOPIA is the least watchable due to Stan's decrepit appearance, but in terms of violating their established characters it has to be A-HAUNTING WE WILL GO(1942).

 

Not sure these count for the thread because they were only "panned" before anyone saw them.

As you note, both got good reviews once people viewed the films - they were just judged poorly before release, so there wasn't actually a "critical appraisal" involved since the negativity was basically scuttlebutt, not reviews...

 

The Shining definitely has Kubrick's very slow, measured style, which goes back more than a decade. Quite a few audiences said they felt that 2001 was dull. I literally fell asleep during Barry Lyndon, a Kubrick film that looks really beautiful but moves very slowly, plus has a total cad as the main character. Eyes Wide Shut kind of left me with mixed feelings -- not a film I'd like to see again. But The Shining has some really, really frightening moments: the twin girls in the hallway, the conversations between Nicholson and the ghostly bartender, the kid being chased by Nicholson with the axe, the very slow, methodical camera movements... that's a very suspenseful, scary movie (to me).

 

In what universe were these two films not appreciated when they came out? Everyone I know absolutely loved these upon release. I could care less for what critics think. Both have aged well.

The example I would give is Jackie Brown, which most viewers did not care (expecting another Pulp Fiction). I loved it from day one, and I think its his best film. I used to hear nothing about it, but lately I've heard more people watching and enjoying it.

Eyes Wide Shut would be another. Again, I saw it in the theatre and thought it was amazing. I couldn't understand the hate. Now slowly people are coming around.

 

Having read the book first, I was let down by the movie. But, I did visit the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, which was King's inspiration for the story. They give "ghost" tours to the public, including room 217 which is said to be haunted.

 

in this universe?

Office Space was a disappointment at the box office but became a cult classic after repeated showings on Comedy Central and via home video.

from Wiki:
Office Space was released on February 19, 1999, in 1,740 theatres, grossing $4.2 million on its opening weekend. That was eighth overall and second for new releases after October Sky.[13] Herman said he was elated after seeing the film in Los Angeles and hearing it had made $7 million, until friends more familiar with the movie business told him that was a poor performance.[10]

Suhrstedt saw it later in Burbank, and the theater was almost full. He assured Judge that word of mouth would slowly increase the audience. However, in early March Fox pulled it from three-quarters of the screens it had been on after it barely made a million dollars that weekend. The movie's grosses continued to decline precipitously, and after the end of March, when it pulled in less than $40,000 from 75 screens, it was pulled from release altogether.[3] According to Judge, a studio executive blamed the movie exclusively for the failure, telling him "Nobody wants to see your little movie about ordinary people and their boring little lives".[14]

It went on to make $10.8 million in North America.[3] The international release brought an additional $2 million.[2] On home release, 6 million copies in DVD, Blu-ray Disc and VHS sales[2] have been sold since February 12, 2006.[15]

 

IIRC Buster Keaton’s classic The General was originally panned by critics, in past because they felt it was inappropriate for a comedy to have scenes where someone gets killed.

 

A fantastic movie. I still remember my partner and I being the only people in the cinema watching it on first release.
Irony and satire don’t seem to fare well with most audiences

 

To be honest, I had been up for 24 hours straight before going to the movies that night (I worked a graveyard shift and didn't get any rest during that "day"), and the theatre was air conditioned, so anything short of a loud war movie was not going to keep me fully awake. I did "awaken" during the scene where Jack was chasing Danny in the snow maze and was completely confused.

 

But we're not talking about box office returns, we're talking about the reappraisal of films that were once panned. Seems like everyone who saw Office Space loved it, now and then.

In fact most great films that weren't box office hits had a second life in the rental market during the heyday of Blockbuster Video. I only saw a handful of movies in the theatre during a year, but would rent them every weekend. Same goes for everyone I knew.

I wouldn't call having more rentals than box office tickets a reappraisal. I mean we're talking a few months after the fact.

 

ok. i suppose what i am trying to say is it wasn't really appreciated on initial release because not many people went to see it but gained ground later. Fox must've pulled it because they were under the impression that the public thought it was pants because it wasn't putting bums on seats.

 

It's a thread about "critical reappraisal"!

 

Buster Keaton's silent classic The General (1926), lukewarm reception, now considered one of the all-time greats.

 

OK - It has become accepted theory that the Jack Nicholson character was too crazy from the beginning and I think it’s past time to look a little deeper. So, because it’s about -50 outside and there’s nothing on TV, here are some thoughts on the subject...

-If you accept that the portrayal was done poorly, you have to ask why. Was it Nicholson’s fault? There is a mountain of evidence regarding Kubrick’s tortuously slow pace and obsessive control of his actors to make it highly unlikely that Nicholson would have been allowed to craft a character arc that was unacceptable to the director. And, if this is the case, then it would have been Kubrick’s choice to have the role played this way.

-So then you have to ask why. The alternative would have been to have Nicholson arrive at the hotel acting like an average Joe and then slowly have the hotel drive him crazy and this would have been a “traditional” horror movie progression. But consider the source material (to which Kubrick was much more faithful than Stephen King would have you believe.) Jack Torrance, as King created him, was an alcoholic ex-teacher who had been fired for hitting a student and been guilty in the past of breaking his son’s arm in a drunken rage. He got the job at the Overlook as a last chance shot at redemption. (And, conversely, would it have been reasonable for the average Joe that critics prefer to take, or need, a job that involved being shut up alone in a secluded hotel for a winter?)

Bottom line - this was a very troubled guy from well before the beginning of the movie and it seems reasonable that Kubrick would choose to have him portrayed as such.

-So that brings up the question of why his wife would choose to stay with him, being clearly nuts and all, and sign up for the hotel gig. I don’t think it’s really an issue. Life is full of cases where spouses have held on to their abusive other, desperately hoping they can change. This was their last chance and, supposedly free from the temptation of booze, might well have seemed like a viable route to redemption.

So, I think Kubrick knew exactly what he was doing, and I think he was right. Jack Torrance was damaged goods and a winter of total isolation pushed him over the edge.

 

I get your point, and I understand why Jack T. should have some edge to him.

However, Jack N. plays him as too nutty right off the bat.

Not so much a guy with issues, but as a dude who slides smoothly into "homicidal maniac" without much prompting.

Was this what SK wanted? Almost certainly - as you note, he was a control freak.

But just because SK wanted it doesn't make it the best choice!

 

Well, he said he could care less ….

 

I wasn't gonna go there!

 

The scene in The Shining where they interview Jack Torrance for the job is so deadpan it makes you uncomfortable. I'm in the Jack was already nuts and trying to stay sane when he was hired camp. The more I watch it, the more I appreciate Shelly Duval. Her eyes radiate a fear that only a wife with an abusive husband would know. Kubrick would antagonize his actors while filming to keep them on edge. The baseball bat scene was filmed 127 times, so that exhaustion is real.

Duvall was awarded a Golden Raspberry for her work, but her acting chops in The Shining have since been reappraised.

 

It’s certainly worth discussion. I think I’ve just gotten tired of listening to Stephen King whine. When he got the chance to do it his way, in the miniseries, with Mick Garris directing King’s teleplay, we got a static, boring paint-by-numbers snooze fest.

 

That seems to be Stanley's luck; make a movie that's hated when it's released but gets more positive notices as time goes by.

 

She was nominated but didn't win.

Brooke Shields "won" for "Blue Lagoon"!

Nicholson didn't get nominated, but SK did!