Revisiting Old Friends

Sparked off by Jitendar's revisiting of Lethal Weapon 4, I started thinking about how much I revisit old movie friends.  Of course anybody who knows me knows I have a catalogue of comfort movies which I regularly revisit from time to time, but I was thinking of the movies that either I loved once and don't go near these days, the stuff I bought, watched once and popped on the shelf never to watch again, and the familiarity-breeds-contempt brigade which I've seen so often I can quote huge chunks of dialogue of and will puke if I have to sit through again.

This year I've been doing more revisiting than making new friends.  I don't know why - maybe age, maybe domestic diplomacy, maybe Hollywood's output just being crap these days - I haven't been buying new movies, and those I have bought have joined the watched once, never rescreened ranks.

The past fortnight, I've been revisiting the Carry On legacy, watching the pictures in strict chronological order from 1957's Carry On Sergeant.  I've just finished Carry On At Your Convenience (a long-standing personal favourite) and I'm hoping to slot Carry On Matron into proceedings in the next couple of days.  The Carry Ons had become part of the familiarity-breeds-contempt category for me, for as much as I love and admire them as icons of a sense of humour long-lost and as documents of working-class targeted entertainment, I'd lost the desire to watch them. That is until I happened to catch the last twenty minutes of Channel 4HD's transmission of  Carry On Constable.  An HD transfer sharp enough to correct your eyesight without the disturbing burning smell.  It set me thinking two things - "Wow, I'd love to see a Blu-ray of this" and "I don't remember this bit, or how funny it is."

So I started watching the Carry Ons again, and frankly I've been blown away by them.  It has also started me thinking about all those other movies in my collection that I haven't watched in years - and there are a lot of them.  Like Jitendar I have the Lethal Weapon pictures, the Die Hards, the Laurel and Hardy Collection, the Universal Horrors and the original Planet of the Apes.  I know there's a fair amount I can't really inflict on other family members with less resilient sensitivities, but I can always watch them in my personal quiet time.

Anybody else cracked open a dusty DVD case of some long-disregarded favourite and been startled by how much you'd forgotten of the movie, how entertaining it was or conversely what a pile of cack it had turned into?

Your Opinions and Comments

After becoming totally addicted to Army of Darkness Defence on my iPhone, I went from desperately wanting to see the movie again to wanting to see the whole trilogy. :)

So far I've watched the original special edition Evil Dead DVD, in it's proper aspect ratio (with a pretty good 5.1 re-mixed soundtrack), and the excellent Evil Dead 2 book of the dead special edition.

This Saturday it's finally the turn of Army of Darkness. I can't wait!
posted by RJS on 26/7/2011 00:45
10 / 10
It was the move to High Definition earlier this year that sparked off my rewatch mentality. I've been going through my older discs, movies that I haven't seen in five years or more, just to see what they look like on a bigger screen, with overscan turned off, and also to see how many I desperately need to rebuy on Blu-ray (surprisingly few).

The standards still work for me, I can easily watch a Die Hard or a Lethal Weapon, quoting the dialogue at the screen, and still be entertained. Some movies have been revelations on the bigger screen, some I'm worried to find, I've outgrown.

But I have found that the most pleasure comes from those films that I rarely watch, whether through runtime, or content. I've hardly had the time to rewatch Trainspotting, Memento, or Pulp Fiction, The Couch Trip or indeed Carry On Abroad, and it's the least watched films that fade the most from memory, which makes watching them feel like a rediscovery.

But for me, the big screen has made a difference to the whole experience. I've got A Passage To India lined up in the next few days, and I can't wait for David Lean on something approaching an appropriate sized display.

And Laurel and Hardy movies look great! I finally got through the boxset yesterday... Only took me 19 months.
posted by Jitendar Canth on 26/7/2011 10:59
I always have such a creakingly large pending pile (I'm a sucker for a good deal and boy, there have been a fair of few of these lately) but even so - occasionally a DVD will fall off the top of a pile, or something will make me want to watch it again. I watched Prince in 'Purple Rain' the other day. I don't know what I was thinking but I was shocked at how bad it was. It had that monotone John Waters style delivery, but with none of the irony. The music was good enough for me to dig out some dusty Prince CD's though so it wasn't a total waste. I too have recently run the Carry On marathon (in strict order) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Bizarrely I have also taken to watching some really old war movies (free in Newspapers eons ago) and am really enjoying replaying these too. What I've found is that any really modern films I buy (and I don't buy many) very rarely get watched twice. I don't know why that is. Maybe they need to season for a decade or two before they become a nostalgic pleasure trip!
posted by Stuart McLean on 26/7/2011 12:37
Purple Rain was a great film! The guy from The Time is hilarious and worth watching it for alone!
posted by RJS on 26/7/2011 12:57
Ah! True....a bit hammy perhaps but not bad. No - I was referring to Prince and Apollonia in particular...and the gals from Prince's band. Ouch. No oscars there!!
posted by Stuart McLean on 26/7/2011 13:12
Morris: Okay. What's the password?
Jerome: You got it.
Morris: Got what?
Jerome: The password.
Morris: The password is what?
Jerome: Exactly.
Morris: The password is exactly?
Jerome: No, it's okay.
Morris: The password is okay?
Jerome: Far as I'm concerned.
Morris: Damn it, say the password!
Jerome: What.
Morris: Say the password, onion head!
Jerome: The password is what?
Morris: [i]frustrated
] That's what I'm asking you!
Jerome: [i]more frustrated
] It's the password!
Morris: The password is it?
Jerome: [i]exasperated
] Ahhhhh! The password is what!
Morris: It! You just said so!
Jerome: The password isn't it! The password is?
Morris: What?
Jerome: Got it!
Morris: I got it?
Jerome: Right.
Morris: It or right?
posted by Si Wooldridge on 26/7/2011 21:56
That was a particularly sad re-working of a classic Abbott and Costello routine. Toe curling in the extreme. Occasionally that one fingered eyebrow smoothing jive talking was mildly amusing (as Rob says) but this particular routine was an absolute stinker in my opinion. God only nows how it made the final cut. On balance, 'Purple Rain' was a godawful confusing mess - with a few memorable laugh aloud highlights.
Back to the original thread, I also recently re-watched Space 1999. I seem to enjoy it more each time I watch it - and yet each time I watch it I see its many flaws. It' so confusing trying to be objective!
posted by Stuart McLean on 26/7/2011 22:10
Just noticed that Jits started the thread by referring to a re-visit of 'Lethal Weapon 4', Now that really was a BAD movie (in the original use of the word). It just reinforces the power of nostalgia. Jits probably watched that at an impressionable age and is now incapable of objective opinion on it. Like me and 'The Monkees'.
posted by Stuart McLean on 26/7/2011 22:13