Have you ever had the moment when a film’s final credits roll, and you say to yourself, “well I won’t be watching THAT again!” For whatever reason, we found the experience dull, uninspiring, bitter or even outright pointless. Sometimes this experience is marred by our own personal mood, and other times we just have high expectations for a given project that fails to deliver. Despite this, we cannot seem to shake that niggling feeling we get some six months later, when said film reaches the home cinema market and we begin to doubt whether or not we actually DID dislike the film originally.
If you are anything like me, then your IMDB ‘watchlist’ is almost a mile long, and your Amazon ‘wish list’ is even longer. Most of us do not have unlimited time and funds to watch and purchase every film we kind of, sort of, might have liked. So only the best of the best make it out on top.
Recently, however, I have been unable to access my own back catalogue of blu-rays, and have not had the time to get down the cinema or even purchase new films. So I have been left to my own devices with nothing but an online streaming account at my disposal. This has been both a blessing and a curse, but what this has forced me to do is to revisit some of those, “I’m not so sure about that”-films I would have once considered tripe.
In doing this, it has come to my attention that sometimes it is worth revisiting those lukewarm experiences again. Sometimes, we get it wrong. Sometimes, those films which we walked away from slating, are actually very good films indeed. Sometimes, we were just plain wrong, and it is time to make up for lost ground.
Here is my list of 10 films that I have re-watched despite initial indifference or disappointment, and to my pleasant surprise, realised they were actually splendid examples of great cinema.
You could say that limited resources and boredom have contributed to my sudden appreciation of these films. But I am inclined to suggest that it has simply facilitated an opportunity to set aside prejudice. Sometimes, a second chance is all you need.
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6 Comments
3rd last paragraph: it’s Plainview and Sunday. Not Church.
Yes you are 100% right. I knew that, and can only excuse such a snafu as a brainfart.
There Will be Blood was great from the start.
Smokin’ Aces I feel deserves a spot on this list. It was advertised as a wildly unapologetic shoot ‘em up, and the epic shootout wasn’t the centerpiece of the film. Indeed there were elements of psychotic criminals in masse on this one character, but it wasn’t the story which I felt was about Ryan Reynold’s faith and spirit cracking under everything just going wrong. One of his best pieces, but man this film required a second viewing to know what to expect. Mr. Carnahan I’m sorry I ever doubted you.
Also, Skyfall might be added to the list. I’m not saying it was bad first time around, but this film was so full of depth and subtleties and etraordinarily complex emotions that you miss a lot because you’re focused on the action and gunplay.
Probably too old now to be considered contemporary, but I used to hate Silence of the Lambs. A couple years ago I found an out-of-print copy of the Criterion Collection DVD for really cheap, so I picked it up and gave it a second chance. I was blown away. The performances, the script, the direction, the score, everything fit together so perfectly, I couldn’t believe that I didn’t like it before. Hell, I don’t even remember why I didn’t like it before.
| thought Ang Lee’s Hulk deserved a mention here. I for one hated when i first saw it like a lot of Marvel fans but I’ve watched it again and have come to appreciate how brilliant it is.