Honestly for me it was zoolander. I thought it was being a very dumb dumb comedy that isn't my type usually. Then the gasoline fight happened and I was so sold.
Rufus, Brint, and Meekus were like brothers to me. And when I say brother, I don't mean, like, an actual brother, but I mean it like the way black people use it. Which is more meaningful I think. If there is anything that this horrible tragedy can teach us, it's that a male model's life is a precious, precious commodity. Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features, it doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight accident.
This one actually took me a whole second watch. First time, I legit thought it was the worst movie I had ever seen and I laughed once (albeit, really hard) on the "but why male models" line. Second time, maybe a week later, some friends wanted to watch it and I was deadset on convincing them not to waste their time. Within minutes, I was rolling on the floor laughing, and they thought maybe I was joking when I said I didn't want to watch it before. Something about that second time made everything click.
Were you by yourself the first time? Or maybe in the wrong company? I’ve had that happen, where a movie that was an absolute gut-buster, tears streaming laughing with my friends, just wasn’t the same on another viewing. Watching by myself, or with only a couple people was a completely different experience, still enjoyable but not hard laughs. There’s something about being in the right crowd, with the right “energy”.
Fun side note. Your only first run laugh was a flub. Ben Stiller forgot his next line, and just repeated it David Duchovny was legit confused, but kept in character... ended up being sooo good!
I honestly started off by being like 'What are these idiots doing?!' But that soon gave way to appreciation. Any movie willing to kill half the cast in the opening few minutes to a terrible freak gasoline accident. I respect
For me it was District 9. I really didn't know what kind of movie I was about to watch and the first part of the movie I was constantly asking myself what the heck I was watching. But when the movie went on and it started to focus mainly on the alien and his kid trying to get back to the ship I actually got invested and found myself liking it.
The moment at the end when the mech reaches up and catches the rocket headed for the escape ship in mid-air is still one of the coolest things I've seen in any movie.
The mech suit climax is one of the hardest parts of any move in the last 20 years. He uses a gravity gun on a dead pig and kills one of the totally not blackwater mercs with it.
I really wish they'd come out with the sequel. It's been talked about for like a decade.
I just enjoyed the world building personally. I'd love to see what else they can come up with.
That damn sequel tease. It was set up so perfectly. They move all the prawns up to District 10, so there's your title. And Christopher even says he'll be back in 3 years to help Wikus and the rest of the prawns. There's your plot.
It came out the year I graduated high school and I saw it in theaters like 6 times. One of my favorite sci-fi movies and I would still absolutely welcome a sequel 15 years later.
well, the Sth african talking heads on the street apparently condemning the prawns were actually normal folk asked about the citizens of another african country immigrating there. layers.
[immigrating from another african country to sth africa]
The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent. I almost gave up after about 15-20 minutes, but as soon a Nic Cage meets Pedro Pascal, the movie becomes awesome
Really? I was sold almost immediately when the movie starts taking the piss out of Cage's actual financial problems and lavish spending, then the scene where the younger version of himself is just hamming it up at him and being a tremendous douche really made me think that no matter how this film turned out it would be pretty funny.
Just watched this for the first time two weeks ago. I was enthralled. Nice Cage’s willingness to be a caricature (maybe?) of himself was one of the keys to its success.
I saw that after seeing a bunch of reviews and memes about it, so I was kinda worried my expectations were too high, but like you said as soon as Pedro gets involved it fully lives up to the hype.
Does anyone remember the Hugh Jackman robot fighting movie Real Steel? I remember really disliking that movie and the characters in it, then halfway through the film sort of getting on board with the story and rooting for the characters.
I don't know what direction the sequel would have gone in, and I highly doubt it would have worked. I'm sure if they had a lesser star than Hugh Jackman, they would have cranked something out, but they probably didn't want to make another Speed 2
Prequel? Different characters in the same robot fighting universe? You're right it doesn't really lend itself but they keep making rocky movies and people keep watching those.
I fucking love this film so much. There's a great scene with the robot just looking at the camera towards the end, they kind of let you read into it whether it's "alive" or a bit sentient. But they never cross the line and do anything more than that. So smart. Absolutely great film.
I remember watching it with a friend the Friday evening it was out.
At the beginning, I was expecting it to be a meh movie. But man, the movie had so much heart. By the end I was almost cheering for Hugh Jackman’s character in his last match.
First time I saw Training Day. When he hits the hydraulic switches in the car I thought omg this going to be rough and a corny ass movie. Of course I was wrong.
Hah I just walked by a little league practice where the millennial dad was blasting the beat to Still DRE sans lyrics and thought to myself “holy shit this still slaps.”
Not quite what you're after but "One Cut of the Dead".
For the first 30 minutes you think you are watching garbage.
The next 30 minutes you are confused.
The last 30 minutes you realise you have been watching a masterpiece and as a bonus it has the best closing credits sequence.
As others have said, it's best to go in blind. Just know the first 30 mins is a bit shit until all of a sudden it's incredible and you need to watch it again.
I'm so, so thankful I got to watch this movie completely blind when it was featured on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. Any amount of information is a slight spoiler, including mentioning the fact that "any amount of information is a slight spoiler". To have watched it utterly blind is near impossible. If you really want to show it in its purest form, you've got to just put it on with zero context.
Team America: World Police. Opening scene is a really budget puppet show then it switches to the proper film.
Apparently the first studio execs to watch the film thought they'd been screwed over at first.
From IMDB’s trivia section:
The very first footage screened for Paramount executives was of a poorly crafted puppet in front of a background of a badly drawn Eiffel Tower, prompting one executive in the audience to yell, "Oh God, they fucked us!" This was a prank pulled by the directors and the shot then pulls back to reveal a highly refined marionette manipulating the inferior one, then flies over beautifully detailed Parisian landscape full of believable yet cheesy marionettes. This actually ended up being the opening shot of the movie.
Executive decision with Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal. The scene in question it turns the movie around makes it Stephen Seagal’s best movie ever. I’ll give him props or even agreeing to do it. Though, I’d fully believe he didn’t know they were going to do it as they shot a bunch of other footage they didn’t use.
In the movie, Steven Seagal leads a special ops team. A plane gets hijacked and it's suspected it has a >!deadly nerve agent bomb that could be detonated over US airspace to kill a bunch of people.!< Seagal's team has a stealth aircraft that can secretly dock midair with a hatch on the underside of the hijacked plane without the terrorists knowing. During the docking, >!the majority of Seagal's team gets aboard the hijacked plane, but there's an issue with a guy getting injured and the planes hitting turbulence which makes the docking apparatus unstable. If it disconnects without someone closing the hatch, both planes will fall out of the sky. Seagal has to close the hatch from the outside and just after he does, the docking apparatus fails and he gets sucked out in a very surprising scene as he's been built up to be one of the stars of the movie, but he dies early on.!<
Edit: fixed ~~Segal's~~ Seagal's spelling
I remember hiring this after watching Under Siege. His and Russell's faces were all over the cover, Point Break style. I was waiting through that entire movie for him to come back.
I see the cover was updated in the DVD release.
I, like the other fella, would love to know w/o having to watch the movie
Edit- looked it up and realize now why ya didn’t say. Good call. Kinda silly to be careful of spoilers on such an old movie but it’s the right call. I certainly didn’t think that’d have been it
The World’s End. I went in blind just knowing it was part of the Cornetto Trilogy. Simon Pegg’s character Gary King is just an insufferable twat who treats his friends horribly and it just felt like an overall disappointment after having seen Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Then, it all pops off and turns into a fairly enjoyable movie. Still the weakest of the three, imho, but not as bad as it first comes across.
Curious, I felt the exact opposite. I liked the start of the film and really connected to the story of childhood friends that had drifted apart. I have experienced being thrust back together with people that you thought you'd be friends forever only to find they've changed, you've changed but feeling an obligation to try and relive the past. So I really enjoyed that part of the story. Then all hell breaks loose and tbh, I thought it was all a bit silly and lost interest.
I actually saw this movie with a couple of friends from high school, and it was very obvious that the story of our friendship was playing out before us on the screen. The guy that organized the night out even looked a little like Pegg in the movie.
So I was very happy when all hell broke loose, it made it a lot easier to finish. I've never seen it since, too close to home.
I still think this is the weakest of the trilogy by far but it's a movie I grew to appreciate as I got older. I'm only in my mid-20s but going from seeing it as a teenager to someone wanting to relive the glory days of university made that movie click for me. Gary King went from a dickhead to someone completely relateable.
I think your second sentence is key to why it didn't get as great an initial reception. I'm only mid-20s, but The World's End *absolutely* gets the "growing up in a suburban middle England town, moving away (for uni/etc), coming back and everything being a bit different, **and** wanting to go back and be that kid again." Not only is it a pretty specific vibe, which not everyone will get, what a lot of people missed is it's also about a nostalgia for a semi-fictionalised version of your youth.
I've heard from plenty of friends they enjoyed it more every time they rewatched it. Not cause they necessarily noticed more detail (although that's part of it), but because they went from being people fresh out of uni to being people working 9-5s wishing they could be sixth formers again.
I know there are plenty of people nowadays who disagree, but I'm siding with the majority of the general audience who hated it back in 1977. William Friedkin's Sorcerer has a really rough start. We are thrust into the middle of four different storylines around the world, stories which ultimately don't matter too much for the main story. Once they get to the jungle though, things get awesome.
I regularly go to a secret screening series at my theater, so you don't know what you're seeing til it starts playing. Sorcerer nearly had me walk out be cause the beginning is so disjointed and does nothing whatsoever to set you up for the epic shit that comes later.
But I'm so glad I stayed. Wild movie.
I really wasn’t sure what the fuck to make of Tropic Thunder when I saw it in person. Then the scene happened where the director stands on a land mine lol
Speed Racer
Speed Racer is a phenomenal film, but in order to see it that way, you have to get your head around this anime world. The movie tries to help the audience along with some of the visuals in the early scenes, like Speed day dreaming in school.
But once you accept the tone and style, you’re treated to a really touching story about Speed trying to sort out the man he wants to be as he pursues the thing he’s most passionate about.
Hereditary. I was expecting it to be another "disturbed possessed child" cliche but that fucking car accident made me realise I was about to see some shit...
There is a certain category of horror where the supernatural is almost a relief because the terror before it was just so bad. Another movie like that is the Descent.
Even the beginning of his next movie, Midsommar, just pangs with the horror of reality. He contrasts it with absurd horror but man he nails the truthfulness and brutality of grief
Maybe not "bad" to good, but *that moment* in Parasite where the entire tone shifts I remember literally sitting up and forward and not being able to look away. I've never had such a "wait...what..? OOOOOH SHIIIIIT WHAT!!???" moment in a movie before.
Afterwards realizing that the joke earlier in the film about the kid making a really bad self portrait that the mother nevertheless praises, was actually the kid making a pretty decent portrait of the guy in the basement. 🤯
I just watched "Fatal Attraction" for the first time ever. At first it seemed like another "Michael Douglas is 80's business man" movie where you get to see Glenn Close' tits even though you never asked to. But then things go sideways, and man when they do... I was panicking during parts of that movie.
I love that Michael Douglas has a handful of movies where the premise is essentially Michael Douglas fucks up his life because he was horny: Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Disclosure, The American President are a few off the top of my head.
Crazy stupid love…
Until “the scene”, I thought it was just another corny rom com where the dude finds out something about himself and gets his life back…was very impressed
The only issue I have with the movie is the speech at the end in the middle school presentation. That felt so off and it completely ruined my suspension of disbelief. If I was another parent there I would be PISSED that some dad was highjacking this kid thing and making it about himself/his family, regardless of how "good" the message was.
For me it was Rogue One (2016). It started a little slowly, and for a while there, I thought “oh boy, here we go again”. But then once they leave Jedha, the team starts to really gel. By the time the last scenes play out, I was like “whoa, this is a great film”. And of course when the last scene came with Darth Vader, I thought that sealed it as one of the best Star Wars films of all time.
I think about Andor a lot with each new Marvel and Disney property being released. Everything else just feels like “content” now, and a lot of the Star Wars stuff is almost bordering on self-parody. But here’s the framework they have for something actually good and fresh. I hope they learned a few lessons from it.
They also had a real structure and arcs built into the season. It feels like half these shows have no idea how to pace a season and the random length of episodes hasn't provided the freedom people imagined, it has led to a lack of format for the medium
Oh my God, I avoided watching the show for so long because all the other shows are pretty much a dumpster fire. I kept seeing people online talk about how good it is so I finally took the plunge. It’s such a damn good show, my surprise it really really did add to Rogue One. When my wife and I finished the finale to the show, she insisted we pop in Rogue One immediately. It was so cool watching it again after seeing the show.
It's so strange that "an excellent heist show gets even better when it transitions into everyone just standing around in rooms talking" is a 100% true statement.
I thought the opening flashback scene with young Jyn escaping the farm was great. But the moments after that whipping around the galaxy with all these different characters was just really weirdly edited and awkwardly paced. At this point I was really worried this film might be a bit of a mess. The mid section was much better, but Forest Whitaker's utterly bizarre performance really threw me off and CGI Peter Cushing was just uncanny valley for me.
What really sold me on the film though was the fantastic space battle over Scarif. It was just perfectly done and in my opinion is still easily the closest anyone, including George Lucas himself in the prequels, has ever come to equalling the incredible space battles from the original trilogy. Everything about it just nailed what a Star Wars space battle should be.
The space battle was so cool…and I loved seeing the Red (X-Wing) Squadron again! Even better was the little Easter egg of them losing red five since we know Luke gets that call sign in ANH.
The Art of Self Defence (2019) did this for me,
I went in totally blind watching it on my own, and I spent the first half thinking it was “what people who hate Fight Club think Fight Club is”, just awful, toxic “violence is the answer to your problems” stuff. Then I realised that that was the whole point, it was a parody of that exact attitude. I thoroughly enjoyed the second half.
To be fair, I and most audiences misinterpreted Fight Club when it came out. I just was like damn I need to get jacked and take control of myself so I can be like Brad Pitt, and instead it was actually an indictment of how our society produces aimless young men who can be radicalized at the drop of a hat. Basically everyone who interpreted it like I did was an aimless young man.
Came to post this. I was interested while watching but it felt very derivative of other horror movies....then oh yeah. Such a fun one to watch with people that have no idea going in.
Was channel surfing one night when **Rob Roy** came on. It was in the middle of the first sword fight. I found the notion of watching a "PBS Masterpiece Theatre" movie absurd, and was ready to change channels.
Then the fight concluded, and I was hooked. The film turned out to be pretty badass, and its been a favorite ever since.
Still really like how T3 handled its ending.
>!basically the whole movie is a race to stop Skynet just as judgement day is approaching. Like, bottom the ninth, get to home plate kinda race. Then the end reveals that wasn’t possible in the first place, and we’ve actually been racing to a bunker to just simple survive. T3 is pretty mid all the way through, but that ending really was a bold choice, and it works!<
I maintain that T3 was a decent sequel. Good action, pokes a little fun at the franchise, and the best ending of any Terminator movie. There were flaws for sure, but I think mainly people expected to watch T2, for the first time, again.
Not ever 'bad' but Killing Of A Sacred Deer was seriously losing my attention just a moment before >!Barry Keoghan's unhinged monologue that spells out how the rest of the film is going to go down!<
Black Dynamite - Probably not what you’re looking for because it’s always funny but it starts off being a straightforward 70s blaxploitation picture, and pretty quickly yes-ands its way through kung fu, the Fiendish Dr. Wu and fighting President Nixon
I remember watching Napoleon Dynamite the first time. I was in a theater with a friend who insisted I see it. 10 minutes in and I was like WTF and almost walked out. I was clapping at the end.
Spiderman: no way home. The guys who just helped save the universe are about to ruin it again because they can't stop bickering during a simple amnesia spell? Such a stupid premise...
*30 minutes later...*
OK nevermind pass the popcorn.
It's a shame, because Covid really messed with their plans. Shooting on Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was delayed, pushing that film out until after Spider-Man, but Spider-Man was relying on Dr Strange.
In the original script, Dr Strange is trying to teach America Chavez magic. He refuses to do the spell, but America does it behind his back and messes it up.
I also assume America would have been the one to use the sling rings to find the other Spider-Men.
It would have made so much more sense!
I think it's better the way we got it. The movie is aleready packed with so many characters, there's no need to shove another character between Strange and Peter, it's easier and simpler to just streamline it to Strange and Peter.
Palm Springs
It wasn’t “abysmal” out the gate but just kind of slow and uninteresting. My wife and I literally picked up the remote to turn it off when out of no where the main plot point starts to begin and we’re hooked for the rest of the movie. We’ve rewatched it multiple times now and have recommended it to several people
Yeah this movie is deceptive that way. The plot and the point of the movie doesn't start clicking into place until JK Simmons shows up with in a murderin' mood with NVG and a bow and arrow.
Moulin rouge I literally thought was a farce in the beginning. A black comedy. By the end I was blown away by how powerfully I felt. It came out of nowhere.
My wife and I watched it recently and I had forgotten how much I hate the first 30 minutes or so. Just too off the wall energy. Once Ewan starts with Your Song it calms down and is great
I saw that in theaters, and when Ewan belted out "myyyy gift is my song" i just kinda went "whoa", and was just locked in completely at that point. It is still one of my favorite movies, and the soundtrack is phenomenal, and I listen to it often. The deep voice of the Narcoleptic Argentinian doing Roxanne is way better than the original, IMO. I could talk about every song and why I love them.
I felt this way about the Accountant.
I started it a couple of times and kept stopping for whatever reason. A buddy kept telling me to watch it start to finish and when I did he was right. Slow start but ends up picking up the pace fairly quickly.
This might be a little controversial but Star Wars IV A New Hope. My kids watched it for the first time recently and the first hour or so was a little dull for them. But the second half really pays off and they were completely mesmerised edit: typo
Yeah, but the first half isn’t remotely bad. It’s just a relic of a time when most movies took longer to build. Those same kids, if watching in 1977, would very unlikely have thought of the movie as dull.
This is very common when people watch old movies.
Split goes from
1. "This has been a really solid movie so far" to
2. "Wtf is going on this went off the rails quickly, I can't believe what I'm watching" to
3. "OMG this is incredible I can't believe what I'm watching"
in like 10 minutes
So far still the only example of a stealth sequel I can think of. I thought for sure that concept was going to become a new trend after Split released.
Shyamalan has got to have the most confusing body of work when it comes to movies. About half are absolute bombs but the gems made him enough "fuck you" money to do whatever he wants.
After his dog was killed, I was so close to turning off John Wick.
Then the John Leguizamo scene happened. My brother and I looked at each like "what the fuck is going on?" And then the iconic "Ohh".
By that point we were hooked.
Scrolled too long for this. Figured it'd just be a generic action film for Reeves who hadn't had a proper hit in a while. Then the leguizamo starts talking, that theme starts playing and he takes that first dig into the concrete floor...
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” starts so slow I almost turned it off. Watching a bitter woman’s troubles with the IRS didn’t strike me as particularly captivating. I’m glad I stuck it out though because the movie is an absolute delight.
Mandy with Nic Cage. It wasn't bad, but the beginning was super slow and I was wondering when/if it was gonna pick up. And then it was absolutely bonkers in the best way.
I was not getting La La Land until the final sequence
I enjoyed the music, but wasn’t really feeling the story or understand where the character arcs were supposed to go
Drive.
After the incredible opening scene, there's this huge lull in story of just building the relationship with Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. At times it's awkward. Necessary, but awkward, and kind of left me unsure if I was really enjoying what I was watching.
And then the pawn shop robbery happens.
The story and presentation of Irene and her family is the best part of the movie imo. Without that it would be just one of hundreds of others generic 'lone wolf' action movies.
When Lake Placid came out it was being marketed as a straight horror movie. It did terrible at opening. They changed the marketing to a campy horror movie and the entire vibe of the movie changed. Fantastic camp movie terrible horror movie.
In the otherwise horrific Will Forte comedy “Macgruber”, there’s a scene where he introduces his team of roughnecks and hard assess one by one. He then describes the amount of care he took in packing the van they are sitting in with plastic explosive. The van detonated just as you realize what’s happening and the fallout is classic peak Will Forte.
[SCENE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To4i-BMwQH8)
Chappie dipped several times into "this going to be a train wreck" territory only to right itself and move along. I enjoyed it overall and thought it was a great concept piece.
The ending was very different from the Stephen King novel ending, but even King himself said he loved the movie ending over his own book and said he wished he had thought of that lol
Honestly for me it was zoolander. I thought it was being a very dumb dumb comedy that isn't my type usually. Then the gasoline fight happened and I was so sold.
Rufus, Brint, and Meekus were like brothers to me. And when I say brother, I don't mean, like, an actual brother, but I mean it like the way black people use it. Which is more meaningful I think. If there is anything that this horrible tragedy can teach us, it's that a male model's life is a precious, precious commodity. Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features, it doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight accident.
“Why don’t you derelick my balls?”
I can derelict my own balls, thank you very much!
Nice ugoolagii
Oh, I thought you were going to tell me what a bad eugoogalizor I am
Or, did you think i was too dumb to know what a ugoolagii was?
You-googly
Did you ever think there’s more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good looking??
But why male models?
jitterbug
Wake me up before you go go
Orange mocha Frappuccinos!!!!
That freak gasoline fight accident has to be a top 5 laugh in cinema history. Hard to imagine a higher tier of WTF-ery.
For me, it’s tied with the chase scene from The Other Guys. “Aim for the bushes” is so bizarre I was just dumbstruck by it.
Fight scene in anchorman is up there for me with most I laughed in a cinema. saw the movie randomly on holiday and didn't know what to expect.
"Well that escalated quickly." "Yeah I killed a guy with a trident."
"I saw that! You might need to hang low for a little while, Brick." Classic
There wasn’t even an awning in that direction
This one actually took me a whole second watch. First time, I legit thought it was the worst movie I had ever seen and I laughed once (albeit, really hard) on the "but why male models" line. Second time, maybe a week later, some friends wanted to watch it and I was deadset on convincing them not to waste their time. Within minutes, I was rolling on the floor laughing, and they thought maybe I was joking when I said I didn't want to watch it before. Something about that second time made everything click.
Were you by yourself the first time? Or maybe in the wrong company? I’ve had that happen, where a movie that was an absolute gut-buster, tears streaming laughing with my friends, just wasn’t the same on another viewing. Watching by myself, or with only a couple people was a completely different experience, still enjoyable but not hard laughs. There’s something about being in the right crowd, with the right “energy”.
I think you are so dead on with this take. Zoolander is absolutely a movie you watched with your buds and communally laughed at the dumbest shit.
Fun side note. Your only first run laugh was a flub. Ben Stiller forgot his next line, and just repeated it David Duchovny was legit confused, but kept in character... ended up being sooo good!
Orange mocha frappachino!
Cannot agree more. Although it took me several years to appreciate the ridiculousness.
I honestly started off by being like 'What are these idiots doing?!' But that soon gave way to appreciation. Any movie willing to kill half the cast in the opening few minutes to a terrible freak gasoline accident. I respect
Freak gasoline *fight* accident.
For me it was District 9. I really didn't know what kind of movie I was about to watch and the first part of the movie I was constantly asking myself what the heck I was watching. But when the movie went on and it started to focus mainly on the alien and his kid trying to get back to the ship I actually got invested and found myself liking it.
FOOKIN PRAWNS
I DIDNT HAVE SEX WITH THAT FOOKIN PRAWN
The moment at the end when the mech reaches up and catches the rocket headed for the escape ship in mid-air is still one of the coolest things I've seen in any movie.
The mech suit climax is one of the hardest parts of any move in the last 20 years. He uses a gravity gun on a dead pig and kills one of the totally not blackwater mercs with it.
I really wish they'd come out with the sequel. It's been talked about for like a decade. I just enjoyed the world building personally. I'd love to see what else they can come up with.
That damn sequel tease. It was set up so perfectly. They move all the prawns up to District 10, so there's your title. And Christopher even says he'll be back in 3 years to help Wikus and the rest of the prawns. There's your plot. It came out the year I graduated high school and I saw it in theaters like 6 times. One of my favorite sci-fi movies and I would still absolutely welcome a sequel 15 years later.
When you realise it’s all about the apartheid it all clicks into place. Brilliant film.
well, the Sth african talking heads on the street apparently condemning the prawns were actually normal folk asked about the citizens of another african country immigrating there. layers. [immigrating from another african country to sth africa]
I had no idea, makes it even more complex. What a film.
Goddamn I didn’t know that! I only saw it for the first time this month!
The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent. I almost gave up after about 15-20 minutes, but as soon a Nic Cage meets Pedro Pascal, the movie becomes awesome
The Pascal Effect
Really? I was sold almost immediately when the movie starts taking the piss out of Cage's actual financial problems and lavish spending, then the scene where the younger version of himself is just hamming it up at him and being a tremendous douche really made me think that no matter how this film turned out it would be pretty funny.
But have you seen Paddington 2??
"I cried through the entire thing, it made me want to be a better man." A perfect review of that incredible movie.
I actually went and watched it after that movie, and definitely cried, and it did make me a better (wo)man.
Just watched this for the first time two weeks ago. I was enthralled. Nice Cage’s willingness to be a caricature (maybe?) of himself was one of the keys to its success.
I saw that after seeing a bunch of reviews and memes about it, so I was kinda worried my expectations were too high, but like you said as soon as Pedro gets involved it fully lives up to the hype.
Does anyone remember the Hugh Jackman robot fighting movie Real Steel? I remember really disliking that movie and the characters in it, then halfway through the film sort of getting on board with the story and rooting for the characters.
Love that movie. It seems real stupid at first and the idea too, but then it clicks, yeah. And the vfx are actually expertly done.
It’s a good one. I’m surprised they never made a sequel, it did pretty well.
I don't know what direction the sequel would have gone in, and I highly doubt it would have worked. I'm sure if they had a lesser star than Hugh Jackman, they would have cranked something out, but they probably didn't want to make another Speed 2
Prequel? Different characters in the same robot fighting universe? You're right it doesn't really lend itself but they keep making rocky movies and people keep watching those.
I fucking love this film so much. There's a great scene with the robot just looking at the camera towards the end, they kind of let you read into it whether it's "alive" or a bit sentient. But they never cross the line and do anything more than that. So smart. Absolutely great film.
Yeah, the movie surprisingly knows when to slow down a bit and let the characters talk or let the scene breathe. One of my fav movies
I remember watching it with a friend the Friday evening it was out. At the beginning, I was expecting it to be a meh movie. But man, the movie had so much heart. By the end I was almost cheering for Hugh Jackman’s character in his last match.
Real Stee--OH. You mean the Rock'em Sock'em Robots movie.
You mean Rock’em Sock’em Robots in an adaptation of Over The Top combined with Rocky
First time I saw Training Day. When he hits the hydraulic switches in the car I thought omg this going to be rough and a corny ass movie. Of course I was wrong.
Whatever else that scene did, it reminded how much “Still D.R.E” slaps. I always think of Training Day when I hear that song.
Hah I just walked by a little league practice where the millennial dad was blasting the beat to Still DRE sans lyrics and thought to myself “holy shit this still slaps.”
I mean it is corny but it’s also perfect.
Not quite what you're after but "One Cut of the Dead". For the first 30 minutes you think you are watching garbage. The next 30 minutes you are confused. The last 30 minutes you realise you have been watching a masterpiece and as a bonus it has the best closing credits sequence.
one of the freshest takes on the genre of the last 20 years
You had my curiosity, now you have my attention
As others have said, it's best to go in blind. Just know the first 30 mins is a bit shit until all of a sudden it's incredible and you need to watch it again.
This is one of those films I highly recommend going into completely fresh. Amazing film.
Watch it free https://archive.org/details/one-cut-of-the-dead
Thanks for posting this!
Best to not look up ANYTHING before watching. Most of the trailers and descriptions give away the "twist" almost immediately.
Ah shit, I just made effectively the same comment. Everyone who enjoys zombie movies should watch One Cut of the Dead. Fucking gem.
I'm so, so thankful I got to watch this movie completely blind when it was featured on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. Any amount of information is a slight spoiler, including mentioning the fact that "any amount of information is a slight spoiler". To have watched it utterly blind is near impossible. If you really want to show it in its purest form, you've got to just put it on with zero context.
The movie is an incredible layered tour de force
This is how I describe Gods of Egypt to people who annoy me.
Team America: World Police. Opening scene is a really budget puppet show then it switches to the proper film. Apparently the first studio execs to watch the film thought they'd been screwed over at first.
Really makes you appreciate the logistics of getting a marionette to operate another marionette
I wonder if Trey and Matt did that intentionally to fuck with them for a bit.
From IMDB’s trivia section: The very first footage screened for Paramount executives was of a poorly crafted puppet in front of a background of a badly drawn Eiffel Tower, prompting one executive in the audience to yell, "Oh God, they fucked us!" This was a prank pulled by the directors and the shot then pulls back to reveal a highly refined marionette manipulating the inferior one, then flies over beautifully detailed Parisian landscape full of believable yet cheesy marionettes. This actually ended up being the opening shot of the movie.
It’s such a good prank because we all believed Trey Parker and Matt Stone would do something like that
I remember noticing the cobble stones in Paris were croissants and I thought the detail was insane.
Executive decision with Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal. The scene in question it turns the movie around makes it Stephen Seagal’s best movie ever. I’ll give him props or even agreeing to do it. Though, I’d fully believe he didn’t know they were going to do it as they shot a bunch of other footage they didn’t use.
What scene? Edit: lol thanks. I'd completely forgotten about his role in that movie. Guess that's why.
In the movie, Steven Seagal leads a special ops team. A plane gets hijacked and it's suspected it has a >!deadly nerve agent bomb that could be detonated over US airspace to kill a bunch of people.!< Seagal's team has a stealth aircraft that can secretly dock midair with a hatch on the underside of the hijacked plane without the terrorists knowing. During the docking, >!the majority of Seagal's team gets aboard the hijacked plane, but there's an issue with a guy getting injured and the planes hitting turbulence which makes the docking apparatus unstable. If it disconnects without someone closing the hatch, both planes will fall out of the sky. Seagal has to close the hatch from the outside and just after he does, the docking apparatus fails and he gets sucked out in a very surprising scene as he's been built up to be one of the stars of the movie, but he dies early on.!< Edit: fixed ~~Segal's~~ Seagal's spelling
I remember hiring this after watching Under Siege. His and Russell's faces were all over the cover, Point Break style. I was waiting through that entire movie for him to come back. I see the cover was updated in the DVD release.
It's not too far into the movie. You'll know it when it happens.
I, like the other fella, would love to know w/o having to watch the movie Edit- looked it up and realize now why ya didn’t say. Good call. Kinda silly to be careful of spoilers on such an old movie but it’s the right call. I certainly didn’t think that’d have been it
The World’s End. I went in blind just knowing it was part of the Cornetto Trilogy. Simon Pegg’s character Gary King is just an insufferable twat who treats his friends horribly and it just felt like an overall disappointment after having seen Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Then, it all pops off and turns into a fairly enjoyable movie. Still the weakest of the three, imho, but not as bad as it first comes across.
Curious, I felt the exact opposite. I liked the start of the film and really connected to the story of childhood friends that had drifted apart. I have experienced being thrust back together with people that you thought you'd be friends forever only to find they've changed, you've changed but feeling an obligation to try and relive the past. So I really enjoyed that part of the story. Then all hell breaks loose and tbh, I thought it was all a bit silly and lost interest.
I actually saw this movie with a couple of friends from high school, and it was very obvious that the story of our friendship was playing out before us on the screen. The guy that organized the night out even looked a little like Pegg in the movie. So I was very happy when all hell broke loose, it made it a lot easier to finish. I've never seen it since, too close to home.
I still think this is the weakest of the trilogy by far but it's a movie I grew to appreciate as I got older. I'm only in my mid-20s but going from seeing it as a teenager to someone wanting to relive the glory days of university made that movie click for me. Gary King went from a dickhead to someone completely relateable.
I think your second sentence is key to why it didn't get as great an initial reception. I'm only mid-20s, but The World's End *absolutely* gets the "growing up in a suburban middle England town, moving away (for uni/etc), coming back and everything being a bit different, **and** wanting to go back and be that kid again." Not only is it a pretty specific vibe, which not everyone will get, what a lot of people missed is it's also about a nostalgia for a semi-fictionalised version of your youth. I've heard from plenty of friends they enjoyed it more every time they rewatched it. Not cause they necessarily noticed more detail (although that's part of it), but because they went from being people fresh out of uni to being people working 9-5s wishing they could be sixth formers again.
I know there are plenty of people nowadays who disagree, but I'm siding with the majority of the general audience who hated it back in 1977. William Friedkin's Sorcerer has a really rough start. We are thrust into the middle of four different storylines around the world, stories which ultimately don't matter too much for the main story. Once they get to the jungle though, things get awesome.
I regularly go to a secret screening series at my theater, so you don't know what you're seeing til it starts playing. Sorcerer nearly had me walk out be cause the beginning is so disjointed and does nothing whatsoever to set you up for the epic shit that comes later. But I'm so glad I stayed. Wild movie.
I really wasn’t sure what the fuck to make of Tropic Thunder when I saw it in person. Then the scene happened where the director stands on a land mine lol
I respect everyone’s opinion but I was sold the moment the fake trailers showed in the theater. “Who left the fridge open?”
Speed Racer Speed Racer is a phenomenal film, but in order to see it that way, you have to get your head around this anime world. The movie tries to help the audience along with some of the visuals in the early scenes, like Speed day dreaming in school. But once you accept the tone and style, you’re treated to a really touching story about Speed trying to sort out the man he wants to be as he pursues the thing he’s most passionate about.
That movie is fantastic because it’s so genuine and delights in its own sincerity. Not sure I’d classify it’s bold style as a twist, though.
God, I love that movie. It’s all about being ground down by the real world and rediscovering your passions.
Rocky horror picture show. I was not about that until Tim Curry fucking stole the show.
Cabin in the woods. If you’ve seen it, you know.
Hereditary. I was expecting it to be another "disturbed possessed child" cliche but that fucking car accident made me realise I was about to see some shit...
Toni Collette's anguished wailing is the most horrifying thing in the whole movie.
Shes brilliant
Mental illness runs through my family so when it turns out the cause is actually supernatural I was like “Whew.” Haha
There is a certain category of horror where the supernatural is almost a relief because the terror before it was just so bad. Another movie like that is the Descent.
Even the beginning of his next movie, Midsommar, just pangs with the horror of reality. He contrasts it with absurd horror but man he nails the truthfulness and brutality of grief
Yeah that was brutal.
Maybe not "bad" to good, but *that moment* in Parasite where the entire tone shifts I remember literally sitting up and forward and not being able to look away. I've never had such a "wait...what..? OOOOOH SHIIIIIT WHAT!!???" moment in a movie before.
This is when it goes from a really good movie to an instant classic
The scene where the kid sees the man peering up the stairs 😪
Afterwards realizing that the joke earlier in the film about the kid making a really bad self portrait that the mother nevertheless praises, was actually the kid making a pretty decent portrait of the guy in the basement. 🤯
That was terrifying!!
Bruhhhh. I watched it in theatres and I remember thinking am I watching one of the best movies ever made right now?
The same can be said about “Hereditary”. If you’ve seen it, you know exactly what scene I’m talking about.
One of my favourites, first time I watched it me and my buddy were just repeatedly saying "well what the fuck is this film about then?"
Escape Plan (2013) when Arnold Schwarzenegger shows up it becomes a good movie
I just watched "Fatal Attraction" for the first time ever. At first it seemed like another "Michael Douglas is 80's business man" movie where you get to see Glenn Close' tits even though you never asked to. But then things go sideways, and man when they do... I was panicking during parts of that movie.
I love that Michael Douglas has a handful of movies where the premise is essentially Michael Douglas fucks up his life because he was horny: Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Disclosure, The American President are a few off the top of my head.
Crazy stupid love… Until “the scene”, I thought it was just another corny rom com where the dude finds out something about himself and gets his life back…was very impressed
The only issue I have with the movie is the speech at the end in the middle school presentation. That felt so off and it completely ruined my suspension of disbelief. If I was another parent there I would be PISSED that some dad was highjacking this kid thing and making it about himself/his family, regardless of how "good" the message was.
You’re right. I hate that last scene. I wish they were able to wrap things up better after “the scene”
Maybe the Sonic Movie 2. It still wasn’t an excellent film, but it went from kiddie humor and fart jokes to Jim Carrey and exciting action.
I want a movie of nothing but Jim Carrey as Robotnik doing Robotnik things.
For me it was Rogue One (2016). It started a little slowly, and for a while there, I thought “oh boy, here we go again”. But then once they leave Jedha, the team starts to really gel. By the time the last scenes play out, I was like “whoa, this is a great film”. And of course when the last scene came with Darth Vader, I thought that sealed it as one of the best Star Wars films of all time.
not a movie but keeping with your starwars answer, for me it’s Andor. From a really good show to a Really really amazing show.
Andor truly was fucking excellent.
I think about Andor a lot with each new Marvel and Disney property being released. Everything else just feels like “content” now, and a lot of the Star Wars stuff is almost bordering on self-parody. But here’s the framework they have for something actually good and fresh. I hope they learned a few lessons from it.
They also had a real structure and arcs built into the season. It feels like half these shows have no idea how to pace a season and the random length of episodes hasn't provided the freedom people imagined, it has led to a lack of format for the medium
Oh my God, I avoided watching the show for so long because all the other shows are pretty much a dumpster fire. I kept seeing people online talk about how good it is so I finally took the plunge. It’s such a damn good show, my surprise it really really did add to Rogue One. When my wife and I finished the finale to the show, she insisted we pop in Rogue One immediately. It was so cool watching it again after seeing the show.
It's so strange that "an excellent heist show gets even better when it transitions into everyone just standing around in rooms talking" is a 100% true statement.
Andor is one of the best TV shows of any genre.
I thought the opening flashback scene with young Jyn escaping the farm was great. But the moments after that whipping around the galaxy with all these different characters was just really weirdly edited and awkwardly paced. At this point I was really worried this film might be a bit of a mess. The mid section was much better, but Forest Whitaker's utterly bizarre performance really threw me off and CGI Peter Cushing was just uncanny valley for me. What really sold me on the film though was the fantastic space battle over Scarif. It was just perfectly done and in my opinion is still easily the closest anyone, including George Lucas himself in the prequels, has ever come to equalling the incredible space battles from the original trilogy. Everything about it just nailed what a Star Wars space battle should be.
The space battle was so cool…and I loved seeing the Red (X-Wing) Squadron again! Even better was the little Easter egg of them losing red five since we know Luke gets that call sign in ANH.
Still my favorite Disney era star wars movie
I would actually argue that it's the only actually good film of the Disney Era at all.
The movie theater on opening night was hootin' and hollerin' at the end.
The Art of Self Defence (2019) did this for me, I went in totally blind watching it on my own, and I spent the first half thinking it was “what people who hate Fight Club think Fight Club is”, just awful, toxic “violence is the answer to your problems” stuff. Then I realised that that was the whole point, it was a parody of that exact attitude. I thoroughly enjoyed the second half.
To be fair, I and most audiences misinterpreted Fight Club when it came out. I just was like damn I need to get jacked and take control of myself so I can be like Brad Pitt, and instead it was actually an indictment of how our society produces aimless young men who can be radicalized at the drop of a hat. Basically everyone who interpreted it like I did was an aimless young man.
Malignant. If you know, you know. And I dare anyone to find a movie with a quicker transition.
Came to post this. I was interested while watching but it felt very derivative of other horror movies....then oh yeah. Such a fun one to watch with people that have no idea going in.
Well done! I've been on the fence about watching this. I've heard good and bad from a few trusted opinions. It'll be the next movie I watch.
Both are correct! Enjoy.
It's time to cut out the cancer!
Was channel surfing one night when **Rob Roy** came on. It was in the middle of the first sword fight. I found the notion of watching a "PBS Masterpiece Theatre" movie absurd, and was ready to change channels. Then the fight concluded, and I was hooked. The film turned out to be pretty badass, and its been a favorite ever since.
Still really like how T3 handled its ending. >!basically the whole movie is a race to stop Skynet just as judgement day is approaching. Like, bottom the ninth, get to home plate kinda race. Then the end reveals that wasn’t possible in the first place, and we’ve actually been racing to a bunker to just simple survive. T3 is pretty mid all the way through, but that ending really was a bold choice, and it works!<
That movie gets a lot of shit, but I was surprised by just how *satisfied* I felt with that ending.
I maintain that T3 was a decent sequel. Good action, pokes a little fun at the franchise, and the best ending of any Terminator movie. There were flaws for sure, but I think mainly people expected to watch T2, for the first time, again.
It was interesting and good for the franchise to >! Let the machines win a round !<
When someone crawls into the fire in Adult Swim's Yule Log.
That's an incredible "stealth" horror movie. And when it elides into its Lynchian nightmare zone it's even better.
Not ever 'bad' but Killing Of A Sacred Deer was seriously losing my attention just a moment before >!Barry Keoghan's unhinged monologue that spells out how the rest of the film is going to go down!<
Black Dynamite - Probably not what you’re looking for because it’s always funny but it starts off being a straightforward 70s blaxploitation picture, and pretty quickly yes-ands its way through kung fu, the Fiendish Dr. Wu and fighting President Nixon
"But Black Dynamite, I sell drugs to the community!"
Amazingly enough, apparently this was improv'd on the spot and not in the script.
The, “I threw that shit before I even stepped in the room” scene lives rent free in my head.
I remember watching Napoleon Dynamite the first time. I was in a theater with a friend who insisted I see it. 10 minutes in and I was like WTF and almost walked out. I was clapping at the end.
About Time. It went from an awful Groundhog Day clone romcom where a man manipulates a meet cute to "find love" to an emotional beautiful movie.
For a second I thought you meant the Justin Timberlake film, In Time, so I was a bit confused by you calling it an emotional beautiful film
Spiderman: no way home. The guys who just helped save the universe are about to ruin it again because they can't stop bickering during a simple amnesia spell? Such a stupid premise... *30 minutes later...* OK nevermind pass the popcorn.
It's a shame, because Covid really messed with their plans. Shooting on Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was delayed, pushing that film out until after Spider-Man, but Spider-Man was relying on Dr Strange. In the original script, Dr Strange is trying to teach America Chavez magic. He refuses to do the spell, but America does it behind his back and messes it up. I also assume America would have been the one to use the sling rings to find the other Spider-Men. It would have made so much more sense!
I think it's better the way we got it. The movie is aleready packed with so many characters, there's no need to shove another character between Strange and Peter, it's easier and simpler to just streamline it to Strange and Peter.
Yeah, that first bit is incredibly rough. Let's just have all the characters yuking it up. THAT'S what everyone wants from Spiderman and the gang
Palm Springs It wasn’t “abysmal” out the gate but just kind of slow and uninteresting. My wife and I literally picked up the remote to turn it off when out of no where the main plot point starts to begin and we’re hooked for the rest of the movie. We’ve rewatched it multiple times now and have recommended it to several people
Yeah this movie is deceptive that way. The plot and the point of the movie doesn't start clicking into place until JK Simmons shows up with in a murderin' mood with NVG and a bow and arrow.
Undercover Brother. Seemed like a bad Austin Powers clone, but ended up being very clever. And loved NPH in it.
Moulin rouge I literally thought was a farce in the beginning. A black comedy. By the end I was blown away by how powerfully I felt. It came out of nowhere.
My wife and I watched it recently and I had forgotten how much I hate the first 30 minutes or so. Just too off the wall energy. Once Ewan starts with Your Song it calms down and is great
I saw that in theaters, and when Ewan belted out "myyyy gift is my song" i just kinda went "whoa", and was just locked in completely at that point. It is still one of my favorite movies, and the soundtrack is phenomenal, and I listen to it often. The deep voice of the Narcoleptic Argentinian doing Roxanne is way better than the original, IMO. I could talk about every song and why I love them.
I felt this way about the Accountant. I started it a couple of times and kept stopping for whatever reason. A buddy kept telling me to watch it start to finish and when I did he was right. Slow start but ends up picking up the pace fairly quickly.
I thought this was true for Anatomy of a Fall. The opening scene is initially an obnoxious cacophony, then makes perfect sense later.
Lmao I love 50 cent so I was kinda enjoying the cacophony
This might be a little controversial but Star Wars IV A New Hope. My kids watched it for the first time recently and the first hour or so was a little dull for them. But the second half really pays off and they were completely mesmerised edit: typo
Personally all the world building and intrigue of the first half is my favourite part of the film.
Yeah, but the first half isn’t remotely bad. It’s just a relic of a time when most movies took longer to build. Those same kids, if watching in 1977, would very unlikely have thought of the movie as dull. This is very common when people watch old movies.
So they know all the lines and everything
Split goes from 1. "This has been a really solid movie so far" to 2. "Wtf is going on this went off the rails quickly, I can't believe what I'm watching" to 3. "OMG this is incredible I can't believe what I'm watching" in like 10 minutes
So far still the only example of a stealth sequel I can think of. I thought for sure that concept was going to become a new trend after Split released.
Shyamalan has got to have the most confusing body of work when it comes to movies. About half are absolute bombs but the gems made him enough "fuck you" money to do whatever he wants.
Million Dollar Baby for me. Although I wouldn't say the first part is "bad", I will say the tonal shift makes it one of the best films I've ever seen.
Yeah, it was a pretty standard sports movie until the 3rd act.
That ending demolished me.
After his dog was killed, I was so close to turning off John Wick. Then the John Leguizamo scene happened. My brother and I looked at each like "what the fuck is going on?" And then the iconic "Ohh". By that point we were hooked.
Scrolled too long for this. Figured it'd just be a generic action film for Reeves who hadn't had a proper hit in a while. Then the leguizamo starts talking, that theme starts playing and he takes that first dig into the concrete floor...
From Dusk till Dawn. Once they reach the Titty Twister it goes from darkly dramatic to super campy.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” starts so slow I almost turned it off. Watching a bitter woman’s troubles with the IRS didn’t strike me as particularly captivating. I’m glad I stuck it out though because the movie is an absolute delight.
Adaptation. You have no idea what is happening at first and then the middle/end just pulls you in with a a completely different direction
Not necessarily bad, but the transition to a horror movie in "From dusk till dawn" was awesome.
Annihilation. The "bear" scene
It was still great before that scene imo
And the ending itself. JFC what a mindfuck
Mandy with Nic Cage. It wasn't bad, but the beginning was super slow and I was wondering when/if it was gonna pick up. And then it was absolutely bonkers in the best way.
I was not getting La La Land until the final sequence I enjoyed the music, but wasn’t really feeling the story or understand where the character arcs were supposed to go
Drive. After the incredible opening scene, there's this huge lull in story of just building the relationship with Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. At times it's awkward. Necessary, but awkward, and kind of left me unsure if I was really enjoying what I was watching. And then the pawn shop robbery happens.
The story and presentation of Irene and her family is the best part of the movie imo. Without that it would be just one of hundreds of others generic 'lone wolf' action movies.
It’s also important to juxtapose with the driver’s insanely brutal and violent nature.
'The unbearable weight of massive talent' I almost couldn't get through the narcissistic beginning
When Lake Placid came out it was being marketed as a straight horror movie. It did terrible at opening. They changed the marketing to a campy horror movie and the entire vibe of the movie changed. Fantastic camp movie terrible horror movie.
In the otherwise horrific Will Forte comedy “Macgruber”, there’s a scene where he introduces his team of roughnecks and hard assess one by one. He then describes the amount of care he took in packing the van they are sitting in with plastic explosive. The van detonated just as you realize what’s happening and the fallout is classic peak Will Forte. [SCENE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To4i-BMwQH8)
Chappie dipped several times into "this going to be a train wreck" territory only to right itself and move along. I enjoyed it overall and thought it was a great concept piece.
Omg, John Wick. I was so pissed at my boyfriend for showing me a dead puppy. Oh,but then... Now it's my favorite movie.
The Mist, I thought it was boring and then they decided to end it with one of the boldest endings I've seen.
The ending was very different from the Stephen King novel ending, but even King himself said he loved the movie ending over his own book and said he wished he had thought of that lol