Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed with?
 

Just watched WUSA with Paul Newman, a film I had been waiting anxiously to see for over 20 years (it just came out on DVD), and was shocked at how much I disliked the film...what a disappointment.

Anybody here have the same situation with a film?

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Showgirls

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Casshern

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

I wasn't waiting years to see that, but it was disappointing. I saw the US version which was cut by 25 minutes....I'm wondering if the full length version would help matters.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

From what I've read, it doesn't do anything but make a dreadfully slow movie slower.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

As someone who's seen the longer version of CASSHERN: Ditto.


As for me, I'd been wanting to see the Warner Bros. crime film, HIGHWAY 301 (1950) ever since I'd read the entry for it in Maltin decades ago. Warner Archive released it last year and I ordered it through Amazon, which cost way more than it was worth and took over a month to arrive, thanks to their shipping incompetence. So I sat down and watched it. And instead of it being a gritty WB crime thriller on a par with WHITE HEAT (made a year earlier and starring two of the cast from HWY 301), it was a cheap backlot gangster picture like something that Warner would have made as a B-picture in the 1930s. It started out promising, but then it became crap. And there were so many much better movies of that type made the same year. (Think ASPHALT JUNGLE, BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN, 711 OCEAN DRIVE, SIDE STREET, etc.) I was mad.

Also, back in 2000, I'd seen all the other Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott westerns but never SEVEN MEN FROM NOW (1956), so when it was announced as a screening at the New York Film Festival that year, its first in decades, I immediately bought a ticket. And Budd Boetticher was there for a Q&A. And, while it's an okay film, I had real problems with it. Lee Marvin is too much of a nice-guy villain, so there's a general lack of suspense or urgency. Other Boetticher/Scott westerns had such characters but balanced them with figures of real menace, e.g. TALL T. So I found the film pretty weak.

On the other hand, I pulled out a tape I'd bought well over 20 years ago and never seen and viewed it this month for the B-movie challenge over on the DVD Talk forum and it turned out to be great: SONG OF INDIA (1949), starring Sabu and Gail Russell. A real jungle adventure on a par with Tarzan movies, but set in India and featuring an all-Indian cast of characters. (Only one actual Indian in the cast, though--Sabu.) Interestingly, Gail Russell is also in SEVEN MEN FROM NOW.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

This. The shorter US cut is almost better simply because there's less.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

London After Midnight (The reconstruction, at least)
Hana-Bi
Rio Bravo
Top of the Heap (I always thought it would've been too far ahead of it's time. Now it's completely dated)
Copkiller (How could I go wrong with Harvey Kietel,Ennio Morricone and Johnny Rotten?)
A Better Tomorrow II
Baby Doll
Cat in the Brain
Privilege

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Salo

I expected to be shocked and disgusted. Instead, I yawned about 1000 times and almost fell asleep. What a shitty movie (pun intended). The internet has definitely desensitized me over the years.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

ugggh....I bought Highway 301 in the last Warner Archive sale but have not watched it yet. My expectations are now lowered.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

It's still an enjoyable crime flick. It's not top notch A list stuff like White Heat or Asphalt Jungle, but why would you think it was? It's a lesser known B movie that I'd not heard of until it came up on the Archive and that's what I expected.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

:mad: You just made my list.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Same experience. It's more boring than shocking or disgusting.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Gotta disagree with those 2. First time I saw them I was blown away.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

It's not about what I expect, but what I want, as unrealistic as that may be. After an exciting caper at the beginning, HIGHWAY 301 takes a sharp turn into Grade-Z material and devotes almost the entire second half of the film to the gang leader stalking the French chick through generic urban street sets that are supposed to be nighttime Richmond, Virginia, but look like...soundstage sets. At a time when crime films were moving out of the studio and into location filming, this one just looks unforgivably cheap! I bought the film hoping that with Steve Cochran in the lead it would be better than it was, since he was such a great heavy and never got the lead roles that would have made him a star. I recently watched him in Roger Corman's I MOBSTER (1958) for the B-movie Challenge and, while Cochran is very good in the title role, if a little too old, the script could have been much better. Another wasted opportunity.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Indy IV

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Blade Runner.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Below. It seemed like a great idea - you can always leave a haunted house, so what happens if you're stuck on a submarine? However, it failed to entertain me. Boring instead of tense with dull cinematography and "okay, look a bit scared, and ACTION" direction.

Only You. When it came out, I remember Marisa Tomei looking incredibly cute, Robert Downey Jr being incredibly funny, and all the reviews talking about the beautiful Italian scenery and Norman Jewison's great career. When I finally watched it, all four aspects I mentioned were still true, but the film was diabolically bad with one of the worst idiot plots I've ever had the misfortune of enduring. Seriously, woman - just ask to see a goddamn ID!

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Recently saw Kill Bill I & II for the first time and I have to say that I was so disappointed.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

The Holy Mountain

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Taxi Driver. I love Scorcese, and this was one of his older films I never got to see until I bought a DVD player. Maybe it was just too much of a depressing tone to the movie so it wasn't made for my tastes to begin with, but I thought it was an utter bore-fest.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

California Split

For the longest time the movie was unavailable on Netflix and OOP so the DVD was super pricey. I finally happened to come across a copy of the film and It wasn't bad per say, just didn't meet my expectations at all.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Bonfire of the Vanities

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

Johnny Mnemonic. I was a big Gibson fan growing up and was really looking forward to this prior to it coming out. Then I saw it. It's unbelievably terrible, tone deaf in general and misses the entire point of the short story. It also single-handedly killed any prospect of a big-budget hard sci-fi film being made in Hollywood for years afterwards. "Neuromancer", which would make a great movie, is now never, ever going to be made.

Watching this piece of shit, I had visions of the stupid studio suits tacking more and more stupid-ass explosions and "cool" shit into the film, then when it bombed blaming it all on sci fi.

Re: Any films that you were dying to see for years and ended up being disappointed wi
 

I was a little disappointed by Blade Runner after hearing years of hype about it. It certainly is no masterpiece, either cut.