Your Most Dated Movie Ever?
 

Some movies simply don't age well. Bad clothes, big hair, funky set design or strange dialog can either ruin a movie or make it a fantastic flashback to a bygone era. (Anyone remember those valley girl flicks of the 80's?).

I'd like to read about some of the movies you have in your collection that make you say, "What the F#@& were they thinking?"!! Please only include movies that have "accidentally" become dated over the years, not any that were purposely created to be cute or retro.

Don't forget to include whether the movie is GOOD or BAD because I might be persuaded to add it to my Netflix que.

"Sometimes stinky cheese is quite enjoyable!" - The French

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Here are a couple of movies that I find to be stuck in a different reality:

1) Roller Boogie - Starring Linda Blair
http://cdn.nflximg.com/us/boxshots/large/70002056.jpg

Oh my god, it looks like the 1970's threw up on the screen! Women in lycra, men in short-shorts, and everyone in knee-length tube socks with colored stripes!! I'm not sure, but I think this movie was trying to brainwash me into believing that the thigh is the most beautiful part of the human body (since everyone is practically nude from their knees to their pubic area)! Roller Boogie is enjoyable though and worth a rent if you enjoy movies like Xanadu (but with a little more storyline).

2) Can't Stop the Music - Starring Steve Guttenberg and the Village People
http://cdn.nflximg.com/us/boxshots/large/60024233.jpg

This flick is soooo bad they should have called it "Can't Stop the Movie"! I had high hopes that it would send me into retro overdrive, but all it did was put in a coma.

3) A Clockwork Orange
http://cdn.nflximg.com/us/boxshots/large/383466.jpg

Loved the movie, but Kubrick's idea of the future sure looks like the 1970's to me!! Remember Future World at Disney World? Remember how it didn't look like the future at all? That's what this movie's sets remind me of: a vision of the future that has turned into a much-dated reflection of the way people predicted things would look. At least Disney World has renovated Future World! Once again, I must say it's still a great movie!

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Now let's hear about your movies!

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I always get a kick out of the "big hair" in Star Trek III, apparently the 23rd century really got into perms!

i took two dates to the man who knew to little.....it was like a bad episode of growing pains

Fahrenheit 9/11 is pretty dated, everyone likes Bush now and terrierrism or war isn't a problem anymore.

Are you serious? (But it was always true that F9/11 would be slightly dated after the election. However, it remains an important subjective account of the time.)

Are you serious? Important? A DVD full of half-truths and information taken out of context by the biggest jackass of our time is just plain trash. The DVD will be a footnote in a few years and all but forgotten relatively soon.

Back on topic: Oh, and I find movies like Running Man that are supposed to be about the future to be kind of funny - They always have weird outdated fashion or some sort of trend that has yet to happen. There are several movie that fit this discription that is just the first one that comes to mind.

Calm down. I didn't mean to instill yet another debate on this subject. I meant "important" from a cultural standpoint. The film was very widely seen and discussed. It portrayed one side of a polarizing and popular issue that had (and continues to have) global implications.

Which leads us to another question on the topic of "dating": can works of art that either intend to capture a specific moment in time or acknowledge their inevitable ties to the time in which they were created, ever be "timeless"? Personally, I think so, and offer Hitchcock's "Psycho" as an example.

And my original question "are you serious?" (not directed to you, of course) was meant in earnest. I don't live in America and wasn't aware of any major shift in Bush's popularity. The post seemed sarcastic at first but as I've often discovered on this forum, statements like the one I was originally referring to occasionally are actually voiced in all seriousness.

A Clockwork Orange isn't necessarily set in the future. You are right about futuristic films looking dated though. In films like Bladerunner and Back to the Future Part II you see all sorts of crazy stuff like flying cars and shrink-fit jackets and androids and whatever else, all set in unrealistic dates like 2010 or worse, 1999. ;)

I thought there would be more, but the only one in my limited collection is Tim Burton's Batman. In the age of these new superhero movies, a pudgy Jack Nicholson dancing to Prince music just doesn't do anything for me anymore.

I think you were reading the guys post correctly. I think (and hope) he was being sarcastic about the Bush Popularity (right now his approval rating is even lower than Clinton's was WHILE he was being impeached). I think that other poster was just being uppity and defensive for no particular reason.


Anyways, back to the topic on hand.

Escape from New York - most likely because it starts the movie off with a date right away, but this seems so incredibly dated to me.

Logan's Run - really the same situation as Clockwork Orange. Most 70s Sci Fi seems to fall into this hole.

huh, I didn't think Nicholson was pudgy in Batman. He is now, but not then. And anyway, The Joker doesn't need to be all that impressive, visually. Batman's rogue's gallery depends more on its brains and/or insanity than strength or "super powers."

Are you kidding? People acting like dogs are ruining our cities! The way they run around on all fours, biting people's ankles, humping their legs, crapping on the sidewalks... I think the government should declare war on terrierism!

Oh, you mean "terrorism." Never mind.

RichC

I'm embarrassed that I ever liked "Around the World in 80 Days" (the 1956 version). It's racist, it's sexist, it's imperialist, and worst of all, it's not funny. Here's a movie that was a grand spectacle and the height of the cinematic craft 50 years ago, but which today almost serves as a primer for everything that was wrong with our political and cultural attitudes then -- and which produced the divided and intolerant political and cultural climate we live in today.

RichC

I second Logan's Run, but I think it's outdated look is leagues away from A Clockwork Orange.

i dont see how you can say everyone likes bush now, social security plan no one likes peole dont see the war made us an safer and has a low approval ratings

rotfl

This is the greatest forum on the net. People here have the best sense of wit and humor.

Dated? I'd say E.T. - that whole alien landing on earth thing was soooo 80's.

2001: A Space Odyssey - There's no rotating space station or a station on the moon. And there's no AI computer like HAL 9000. And Pan Am ain't around anymore. Plus there's no star child.




Just kidding. ;)

I'm gonna get clobbered for this, but Star Wars is majorly dated for some of the hair styles and clothing choices... attack of the mullets and poofy hairstyles on the guys especially!

rotfl

I don't want to get into the Bush discussion however I don't think everyone likes him or what he is doing LINK

On topic, I would say my Omega Man is a little dated as well as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Also I recently watched The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) and it seemed a little dated but still watchable.

Pardon me for not thanking the people who tried to turn this into a discussion regarding the pros and cons of George Bush, but I started this thread to discuss DVDs - not politics!

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BACK TO THE SUBJECT...

I agree with the previous post - The Omega Man was really dated!
http://cdn.nflximg.com/us/boxshots/large/822868.jpg

In addition, it was also really bad (in my opinion). Although I didn't turn it off early, I did fast forward through the second half! The whole idea of a "religious-like" cult of albino, pseudo-zombie, night-walkers really threw me off. The sets and the costumes really scream 1971, but I found myself screaming for having rented this flick!

I liked how you wrote this in really tiny font size

What's with people posting about movies in the DVD section all of a sudden?

This should be in Movie Talk.

beat's me, you got a point though

My copy of Fight Club gets asked out all the time. It's a big slut.

Streets of Fire but damn was Diane Lane a hottie.

:lol:

Driller Killer

Good point. After seeing what Batman Begins has to offer, it's gonna make the original Batman movies look a bit dated.

That said, the Superman movies are very dated in my opinion.

As for dated movies in my collection...I don't really have any major ones. If anything, a couple of the first few Star Trek movies are dated. By that I mean the tech level they used in those films have been surpassed by even the recent Enterprise series. This is one reason why I'm not a big TOS fan.

Most of my movies are fairly recent. 1990 and newer. The older ones are generally the historical epic types or Westerns that will never become dated.

The Final Countdown should be dated considering its age, but the film holds up quite well. I think it has a lot to do with the fact is was filmed on a real aircraft carrier, withe the Navy's participation, and not in a studio.

Bush has an approval rating hovering around 47-48%. About the same as it was during the '04 election.

The Social Security Plan (with private accounts) is being panned by the Congressional Democrats because they think that the people aren't smart enough to invest rationally. Just as they think of all people. The ironic thing is that they, themselves have had similar plans, called thrift-savings plans which went into effect in the early '90s, and yet they think that "the people" are too stupid to use the same retirement plan they use.

What they're really afraid of is that if people are allowed to invest in the stock and bond market that people will finally learn that they've been lied to by the Democrats all this time and it'll create an army of new Republican recruits.

As for the war, which war are you referring to? Iraq or Afghanistan? If Afghanistan, I can't help you there because there's nothing I could say to convince you that it helped to dismantle al Qaeda main base of operations. If Iraq, I can justify that war with one simple statement. Democracies don't attack democracies. Everyone talks about "world peace" but yet, no one on the Left have any ideas on how to achieve it. You do it by spreading freedom and democracy to the oppressed areas of the world, and sometimes it takes the forced removal of tyrannical dictatorships. WMD? Who cares about WMD? If Saddam didn't have them prior to 3-03, he'd reconstitute his program after sanctions were dropped and that's exactly what France was pushing for.

Sorry for the off-topic rant, but I just can't let ill-informed cheap shots go.

This thread is doomed.

If you liked the datedness of Roller Boogie, you may want to check out Prom Night if you haven't already...

* A disco prom!
* A makeout van!
* And Leslie Nielsen in a "serious" role!

To Live And Die In LA is pretty dated, IMO, but only because of the uber-80s soundtrack. The same goes for Fast Times.

I agree on A Clockwork Orange. It was/is one of my favorite movies, but over the years it has started to look 'dated' to me.


I'm trying to think what is it exactly that makes a movie seem 'dated' in the negative sense. Psycho is a great example of posessing a timeless quality. I always think of it as a movie that takes place in the 1960's rather than a movie that was made in the 1960's.

The Chaplin Collection- those are so old that there's no color, the guy in them is dead, and they don't even have SOUND!

Head, the 1968 Monkees movie

Soylent Green had the least technological future I've ever seen

I grew up during the Saturday Night Fever disco days. Now it just looks kind of silly

I can't even watch Tim Burton's Batman anymore.

It was great back in '89, but it's hysterically dated now.