I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but here goes.
Did you ever watch a movie when you were a kid (not necessarily a kid movie or a cartoon geared towards kids) and you loved it, I mean LOVED it that it was all you talked about all the time every day, and then years go by, you see it on TV and watch it for nostalgia sake and think to yourself, What was I thinking?
Freepers, please don't beat me for this, but....
"The Pirate Movie".
Yep. I know exactly what you're saying.
"The World the Flesh and the Devil" with Harry Belafonte was one of mine.
OMIGOD!
Ya know, I can see why a teen would just love this movie...but to an adult, eewwwww!
"What was I thinking?" Yea ... I had a moment like that when I saw "Animal House" last summer for the first time in 20 years.
Oh yea.
Poseidon Adventure
People of a certain generation grew up watching the Pirate Movie on HBO. Director Ken annakin is still alive in his 90s and Lucas named Darth Vader in his honor.
Oddly enough, the two movies I hated as a kid, but liked as an adult, and yet are rarely on TV, are "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" and "Mary Poppins". As a kid, they were wierd. As an adult, they are fun.
The movie "Easy Rider" was an important movie for the anti-war generation. I was probably about 11 or 12 when it came out, and all my brothers' hippie friends, like a lot of the early Baby Boom generation, thought it was absolutely the most poignant, right-on statement's of repressed youth versus the staid Establishment ever filmed! Then, about 15 years later, I was over at the home of a lot of those same ol' hippie pals to watch it on video. Everyone was so excited to see it, to relive the legend, to get back to basics! ....... We all settled down in the living room after dinner with wine and great anticipation. And the movie was SO EMBARASSINGLY LAME! It was such a sucky, stupid, vapid, ridiculous flick!You could see a kind of crestfallen look on everyone's face! I kind of snickered a bit, but kept it under my breath out of respect for those who sat there in shock; I was, after all, just a baby sis ... best and kindest to keep quiet while they absorbed the shock of total disillusionment ...!
Another time, in the mid '80s, I went to an Art Theatre, patronized by the very Hip, to see a screening of the ol Marlon Brando classic, "The Wild Ones." You know the movie: black and white, counter-culture hero Marlon Brando is the leader of a young motorcycle gang that takes over a small town, and enlightens the youth as to the futility of their present state, and the total hipness of rebelling against parents and rules.
The movie was way before my time, but it was a classic and there wasn't much else to do that night. The crowd was mostly the very early hippie and old Beatnik generation, looking grim and earthy.
The movie started. As it went on, it became more and more disturbing ... because Marlon Brando looked like a total GEEK, I swear, really! It was the way he was dressed, in Levis with the pantlegs rolled up!! And his sappy lines, and his stupid hat ... it was chilling. No one spoke; everyone in he audience pretended that he was just as seriously relevant as ever. I was attending with a friend, and in our usual tradition, we had snuck in with "hand grenades" (those mixed cocktails in cans that fit very nicely into large purses) and were getting a pretty good buzz.
My friend was about five years younger than me, into Cyndi Lauper and the whole New Wave movement and way too young to have any decent respect for what Brando represented to the gray-bearded, salt-and-pepper-pony-tailed rebels in the audience. She squirmed, tried to behave, and then she just couldn't hold back any longer. She leaned over to me, giggling, and whispered a little too loudly, "Look at his pants!"
You could have heard a pin drop! The audience was scandalized ... for about 20 seconds. Then you could hear other people snickering under their hands throughout the audience, and it remained that way for the rest of the movie. My friend had utterly broken the spell! She RUINED it for so many .. they looked broken and sad when the movie finished. It was hilarious!!!