REAPPRAISALS & REPRISALS, or: I CHANGED MY MIND, OK?

One of the potential topic ideas we once batted around for the podcast was along the lines of MOVIES I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT.  The idea didn't generate enough enthusiasm to move forward with (you might say we changed our minds!), but it started me thinking: As convicted, staunch and stubborn as I've become with my opinions, are they subject to change?

The more I consider it, I'm surprised to admit it happens more often than I would've expected.  The reasons can usually be traced to certain factors.

THAT AGED WORSE THAN I DID:  
It's been widely discussed that most of the films of John Hughes have not aged well.  Although his instances of racist and sexist humor may not have been maliciously intended, the passage of time now dictates unfortunate lapses in taste and judgment.  Well, "It was a different time."  As a teen in the 80's, I was the target demo and I saw most of them in theaters; it got me out of the house.  I can't say I remember really liking most of them, nor the other "Brat Pack" offerings like St. Elmo's Fire (1985).  Even Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), I suppose considered a high water mark, hit me as pretty dreadful then and outright cringe now.  (One exception: "You realize if we played by the rules right now we'd be in gym?"  I love that line.)

The only Hughes movie I actively championed, believe it or not, was Weird Science (1985).  The premise -- two horny computer nerds conjure living supermodel Kelly LeBrock from their PC -- was offensively nonsensical, but that's part of what made it fun at the time.  Its release coincided with a fleeting moment one summer when I was open to enjoying that particular silliness as it was intended.  (I saw it the same day I had just gotten my first set of contact lenses -- everything looked fresh and new!)  I think I dragged friends along to see it a second time -- I did the same with My Tutor (1983)!  What the hell was I thinking?  I'm embarrassed to even think about it.  Maybe I really was that easy to amuse...or chalk it up to the power of Caren Kaye.

TAINTED LOVE: 
I recently watched director's cuts of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), and though those films are beyond reproach, I couldn't help but feel a little sad, and maddeningly distracted.  Why?  No direction the franchise has taken since 1986 has measured up, and I've given up on it.  I can't unsee Prometheus (2012) or Alien: Covenant (2017), and while I will always love and appreciate the first two films, I can't completely clear that static of eventual disappointment from the back of my head while revisiting them.  Get out of my brain dammit!  (I hate that they introduced explanations for the origin of the Xenomorph, it was so much better not knowing!)  Same goes for Star Wars.  

I'VE GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS: 
There aren't too many cultural milestones I experienced during my lifetime that showed more promise than A New Hope, released in 1977 simply as Star Wars.  I'm sure I'll revisit the Original Trilogy, but with one mantra rolling in my head: Boy, did they fuck this all up.  Andor stands out among the waste and excess, but too late to rekindle my enthusiasm for the franchise.  

That said, in 2015 I was excited enough by The Force Awakens trailer that I was willing to overlook the New Hope plot retread.  Here we had the OT characters reunited, a fresh John Williams score to incorporate their leitmotifs, and a potential course-correct after the awful Prequel Trilogy (the first line of dialogue spoken by Max Von Sydow: "This will begin to make things right.").  

Two years later, it took me a minute after seeing The Last Jedi (2017) to realize how much I despised it, and since I was ready to embrace Rise of Skywalker (2019) as a make-good, I did so with an open mind and heart.  I felt relieved and rewarded!  I let it work on me, and it did.  I even teared up a couple times. I freaking wept.  (Never thought I'd be so grateful for Billy Dee Williams.)  But in hindsight... knowing that Rise was itself a desperate course-correct of Last Jedi, Palpatine's return was comical, the OT principals were ultimately wasted, Rey's Mary Sue heroics were unearned from the start, and the whole Sequel Trilogy was the product of cynical, pompous, overpaid Disney execs...well, maybe I was pollyannaish to like Rise as much as I thought I did, and the (still awful) Prequel Trilogy compares with more integrity.

TOO MUCH OF ANYTHING: 
Is it possible to see a favorite film too often, to the point it loses its luster?  John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) was, of course, a revelation and became a midnight theatrical tradition for years.  On a more recent viewing, I found I was so goddamn familiar with each beat, jump scare, musical cue and sting, that I couldn't help feeling distanced from it.  

Conversely, seeing Escape From New York (1981) on its first release was disappointing; Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was fresh in my memory and I kept comparing them, rather unfairly.  Now I can embrace Escape fully for what it is.  I'm not suggesting it's a better film than Halloween, but I can appreciate it without suffering the comparison to Spielberg.  And certainly my esteem for Halloween III (1982), which at the time struck me as a fairly depressing, if curious, way to kill a franchise, has grown enormously.

MAXIMUM EXPECTATIONS: 
The summer of 1985 saw the releases of two highly anticipated movies: Day of the Dead and Maximum Overdrive.  I felt so let down by both of them that I recall a cloud of depression over that entire summer (A View To A Kill certainly didn't help, but then I hadn't expected the Roger Moore 007 entry following Octopussy to be any good).  

As the capper to Romero's "Dead" Trilogy, Day was largely humorless, unrelentingly bleak, and lacking the revelatory quantum leap forward that Dawn of the Dead (1978) represented just ten years after Night of the Living Dead.  Whereas the first two films served as brilliant canvases for Romero's social commentary, in Day it felt obligatory, banal and forced.  Well, we know it's not the film Romero had in mind to make; his original vision was way more ambitious.  But his refusal to compromise on the gore would result in another unrated release, which major studios wouldn't touch, resulting in a hamstrung budget.  Revisiting Day years later, I can enjoy it on its own terms.  It will always be the most disappointing of the OT, but it still has the virtue of being a brutal, uncompromising Romero zombie film -- a treasured endangered species in hindsight, and light years better than Land of the Dead (2005) and Romero's dismal later sequels.

In contrast, I wasn't expecting Stephen King (in his directorial debut) to make Maximum Overdrive an outright lampoon.  The movie's basis comes from one of my favorite King short stories, "Trucks," which is dark and cautionary.  For King to betray the essence of his own story, in favor of a dumb throwaway low-budget B-movie, was incomprehensible.  Was it the cocaine, or was he more invested in creating a showcase for an AC/DC concept album?  Now, in hindsight, I'm reminded that King has always regarded the written word as gospel, and movies as a very different animal.  Not necessarily a lower form of storytelling, but more collaborative and compromised by commercial priorities.  As for fidelity to the source material, I'm reminded that the story's far more faithful adaptation, Trucks (1997), was not nearly as colorful or memorable.  So we can have both the original story and a gonzo adaptation, in this case the best of both worlds.

EARNED INTEREST: 
Another directorial double bill: Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and Vertigo (1958).  I first saw Psycho at the age of nine, and it has always been on my top ten favorites list.  By the time I saw Vertigo on re-release in 1980, I had heard it lauded to the heavens as Hitchcock's buried masterpiece, so my expectations were high.  I remember being numb in my seat when it ended: That's it?!  That...actually...sucked!  Its structure frustrated the hell out of me.  I couldn't understand the mechanics of it -- why reveal the mystery so long before the climax?  Hitch, WTF?  And what a downer ending!  I sat through two hours for that?!

Well, on second viewing, not being so hung up on the plot, I softened to it, and started to internally dialogue with the characters in a way I wasn't accustomed to.  That was unique.  So I revisited again, found a deeper exchange, and more so every time.  No other movie I can think of has worked that way on me, in what I can best describe as a profoundly moving, personal interactive relationship, evolving and enriching over time -- and of course with Vertigo, this is not unique to me.  So Psycho may still be in my top ten, but Vertigo is now in my top three.  Quite a leap from that first viewing.

So yeah, it's possible for me to break from initial opinions and change my mind over time.  It hasn't happened often, and I doubt it will happen much in the future, but I find it comforting -- in fact, liberating -- that I can sometimes have an open mind, and that having the capacity to reconsider my opinions can give them even more validity.