Thirty-six Most Dated Movies
Like high school year-book photos and fashion, movies too age, often horribly. Some only improve with time and solidify their prestige like Casablanca or Gone With the Wind. Others go the way of the beehive and paisley shirts.
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- DirectorWilliam FriedkinStarsAl PacinoPaul SorvinoKaren AllenA police officer goes undercover in the underground S&M gay subculture of New York City to catch a serial killer who is preying on gay men.Al Pacino goes undercover as a Village Person. Enjoy.
- DirectorRoger CormanStarsPeter FondaSusan StrasbergBruce DernA disillusioned TV-commercial director is guided by his friend through an LSD trip, during which he evaluates his identity and his relationships with women.This must have seemed bold and timely back at the heyday of the drug-fueled counterculture. The modern equivalent would probably feature a senile version of Peter Fonda trying to figure out which one of his teenage grandkids is stealing his prescription Oxycontin.
- DirectorPenelope SpheerisStarsJoe PerrySteven TylerGene SimmonsDocumentary showcase, what life was like for the music artists living during the Los Angeles Heavy Metal scene in the mid and late 1980s.This was apparently before anyone realized how big of a joke hair metal bands were or that the music business was populated exclusively by hedonistic scumbags and oppurtunistic labels. Shocking expose at the time, though, I'm sure.
- DirectorCasper WredeStarsSean ConneryIan McShaneJeffry WickhamIn a Scandinavian country, national security chief Colonel Tahlvik is tasked to rescue the passengers of a hijacked British airliner while the British Ambassador is being held hostage at his residence by another terrorist team.Made back in the day when the people who hijacked airplanes were secular, white Europeans, who were only interested in cash, and would prefer to stay alive to use said cash.
- DirectorLewis GilbertStarsMichael CaineShelley WintersMillicent MartinAn unrepentant ladies' man gradually begins to understand the consequences of his lifestyle................................... (Spoiler) ...................................... The legalization of abortion and subsequent normalization of promiscuity render this movie a meaningless curiousity to modern audiences.
- DirectorNorman JewisonStarsJames CaanJohn HousemanMaud AdamsIn a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes is out to defy those who want him out of the game.This movie is so out dated even the 'futuristic computer' fonts and hideous orange-brown color schemes will elicit chuckles (and this is coming from a Cleveland Browns fan). The dystopian future schtick is a staple of Hollywood, but per usual the genre dates terribly. The tag line reads 'In the not-too-distant future, wars will no longer exist. But there will be Rollerball.' No and No. And no bell-bottoms or chest hair fetishes either. Sorry, James Caan.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsFernando ReyDelphine SeyrigPaul FrankeurA surreal, virtually plotless series of dreams centered around six middle-class people and their consistently interrupted attempts to have a meal together.I suppose it made sense in 1972, and may have even been considered funny, but so was The Brady Bunch. Today where debt, economic decay, disillusionment, and massive unemployment have decimated the director's native Spain, some might long for a time when the worst perils facing society were aristocrats snorting coke and humping each other. The influence of Catholicism, Franco and fascism is now only a distant memory for most of Europe, as is Bunuel and his tiresome surrealism. This film none the less denies the mundane & obvious allure of social status evident in a modern world where no self-respecting pleb can be taken seriously without the latest iphone and designer sunglasses. For all his contempt, he never offers any kind of criticism on human behavior that had depth or lasting resonance here. This genre had pretty much been run dry (and much more effectively) by the likes of Renoir, Struges, Welles, La Cava, countless Monty Python sketches, and Bunuel himself years earlier, but Bunuel was always one careful to repeat himself.
- DirectorJames BridgesStarsJane FondaJack LemmonMichael DouglasA reporter finds what appears to be a cover-up of safety hazards at a nuclear power plant.This movie was almost prophetic in its timing, released months before the Three Mile Island fiasco. Subsequent disasters at the Chernobyl and Japanese Fukushima Daiichi reactors now render The China Syndrome's crisis paltry in comparison. In thirty years this movie has been sapped of all its punch. We now oddly live in a detached resignation regarding the ticking time bombs in our back yards. In recent years the nuclear power industry has actually gained some popular support in the US. Kind of a scary thought.
- DirectorBrett LeonardStarsJeff FaheyPierce BrosnanJenny WrightA simple man is turned into a genius through the application of computer science.Virtual reality was a big fad in the early Nineties but horribly primitive. I've not seen this in about fifteen years, so my memory is hazy, but I'd not be surprised if there was a scene showing the protagonist drinking Crystal Pepsi and reading Omni magazine. ...Now I've really dated myself.
- DirectorEdward ZwickStarsDenzel WashingtonBruce WillisAnnette BeningThe secret U.S. abduction of a suspected terrorist leads to a wave of terrorist attacks in New York City, which leads to the declaration of martial-law.Designed as a cautionary tale, this movie is admirable in its ambition but pales in comparison to the absurdity and complexity of real life after September 11th. In fact it's actually quite a quaint, mundane, little movie to us modern viewers. What, no color-coded terrorism warning system? No 'freedom fries'? No underwear bombs? No 'truthers'? There were protests at the time by Muslim groups concerning their portrayal as terrorists bent on killing innocent New Yorkers, now an ironic footnote. Unlike the movie, real life has never returned to normal, and we seem uncomfortably flexible on the whole torture and detainment thing.
- DirectorJohn BadhamStarsJohn TravoltaKaren Lynn GorneyBarry MillerAnxious about his future after high school, a 19-year-old Italian-American from Brooklyn tries to escape the harsh reality of his bleak family life by dominating the dance floor at the local disco.Conceived as a drama, it became an unintentional comedy within a few years. And kitsch almost immediately.
- DirectorLeslie H. MartinsonStarsAdam WestBurt WardLee MeriwetherThe Dynamic Duo faces four supervillains who plan to hold the world for ransom with the help of a secret invention that instantly dehydrates people.See above.
- DirectorLarry CohenStarsFred WilliamsonGloria HendryArt LundRaised in Harlem, Tommy Gibbs becomes a successful mob boss but he clashes with the rival Mafia and his old enemy, dirty cop McKinney.With a bi-racial president, this movie appears not just dated, but offensive to all races (but, bizarrely, still enjoyable). A 'blaxploitation' remake of an older, equally mediocre crime flick, Black Caesar implicitly insinuates physical force is necessary to achieve success if you live in low-income areas, revenge is a natural reaction to oppression, and simply putting 'black' in the title is just as good as actually coming up with orginal, meaningful movies for cinematically neglected black audiences.
- DirectorBilly WilderStarsJack LemmonShirley MacLaineFred MacMurrayA Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.Clever as it was, Billy Wilder's Oscar winner seems bland by modern standards. Like Alfie, The Apartment speaks to certain era in time, and only that era. Its plot, today, seems perfectly appropriate for a CBS sitcom or Ashton Kutcher date movie. It was out of date within a decade.
- DirectorTheodore J. FlickerStarsJames CoburnGodfrey CambridgeSevern DardenWhen the overworked and stressed-out White House presidential shrink runs away, the CEA and the FBR scramble to retrieve him before he could be abducted by various competing foreign intelligence services.This largely forgotten movie has nostalgic value for me, so I'll be kind. The President's Analyst manages to capitalize on three largely passe trends of the Sixties: hippies, psychoanalysis, and the Cold War. Needless to say, time has not been so kind as I.
- DirectorAmy HeckerlingStarsAlicia SilverstoneStacey DashBrittany MurphyShallow, rich and socially successful Cher is at the top of her Beverly Hills high school's pecking scale. Seeing herself as a matchmaker, Cher first coaxes two teachers into dating each other.You could only really appreciate this movie if you grew up in the mid-Nineties. Movies who live by appealing to pop culture and youth sensibilities usually die by it. This movie for all its glory in that decade has had a rather short shelflife.
- DirectorBarry ShearStarsChristopher JonesShelley WintersDiane VarsiA young man gains significant political influence as the leader of a counterculture rock band with his rallying cry of voting rights for teenagers.This list seems to prove there is a tendency among Sixties counterculture types to make overtly political statements and impulsive choices without regard to future consquences, but with Nixon as president who can blame them. Wild in the Streets is perhaps the best look into the zeitgeist of those knee-jerk reactionaries. The plot is too silly to explain in detail; it includes LSD, lowering the voting age, and square authority figures. Time, ironically, has shown even when hippies take power they are square and awkward.
- DirectorJohn GlenStarsTimothy DaltonMaryam d'AboJeroen KrabbéJames Bond is sent to investigate a KGB policy to kill all enemy spies, and uncovers an arms deal that potentially has major global ramifications.Actually one of my favorite Bond movies, The Living Daylights is no more noteworthy for being dated than any other Bond film, except for one interesting aspect. The very idea of James Bond potentially sharing a foxhole with Osama bin Laden is too much for me to bear. That's right, James Bond battles along side a vague rebel force against the Russians in Afganistan. Obviously it's made up, but still.
There is also the cliched Cold War divided-Berlin, a giant 80's boom box, the theme song by one-hit wonder a-ha, and, if my recollection is correct, 007's last cigarette. I assume Brosnan-era Bond had a nicotine patch under the sleeve of his tux. - DirectorJean RenoirStarsJean GabinDita ParloPierre FresnayDuring WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.It's an unpopular but worthy observation to note this anti-war 'masterpiece' is gravely naive. Jean Renoir portrays war as futile, arbitrary, outdated, and elitist. WWII was precipitated by precisely this mindset of appeasement and baseless optimism. Aristocratic snobbery was the least of Europe's concerns in 1937. Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were all lower-class populists hungry for conquest, while the bluebloods Chamberlain and FDR dreaded the possibility of war. It was the jingoistic concepts of nationalism, duty, and honor (the very bane of Renoir and GI) that preserved Western Civilization and bailed-out France eight years later, contradicting many of this film's now celebrated platitudes. The centuries-old cycle of humiliation and hatred was only ended by outsiders after both Germany and France were rendered militarily and politically irrelevant. Although many claim it was too far ahead of its time to have made a difference, by my estimation, it was decades too late.
Though the melodramatic bromance between Boeldieu and Rauffenstein plays out unconvincingly, that's hardly the most ridiculous aspect. Negating the heroic escape, a middle-aged Rosenthal would likely have been shipped off to a concentration camp a generation later. - DirectorPeter YatesStarsBill CosbyRaquel WelchHarvey KeitelCompetition between privately owned Los Angeles, California ambulance companies is played for humor.Though funny, this film should make little sense to any jive turkey under forty.
- DirectorJay RoachStarsMike MyersElizabeth HurleyMichael YorkA world-class playboy and part-time secret agent from the 1960s emerges after thirty years in a cryogenic state to battle with his nemesis Dr. Evil.An ode to datedness itself, fittingly, the original Austin Powers is now synonymous with irritating impersonations and terrible fads from two non-consecutive decades.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsCelia JohnsonTrevor HowardStanley HollowayMeeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.Perhaps it was a revelation in war-time England that people are attracted to other people who aren't their spouse, but it seems laughably dated in an era where half of marriages end in divorce, and marriage itself has been largely stripped of whatever pretense of 'sanctity' it formerly possessed. In a modern update, the couple would have statistically split up regardless of infidelity sooner or later, then gone into years of fruitless counseling. And the two would-be-lovers would probably have wed eventually and lived mildly contented lives, anticlimactically, with lovers on the side.
- DirectorPaul MazurskyStarsJill ClayburghAlan BatesMichael MurphyA wealthy woman from Manhattan's Upper East Side struggles to deal with her new identity and her sexuality after her husband of 16 years leaves her for a younger woman.The problem, aside from it's irritatingly obvious need to appear hip and contemporary (e.g. lesbian analyst, obligatory & nonchalant signature Seventies' cinema tit shot, teenagers using 'grass,' impossibly spacious Manhattan lofts, disco songs, abstract 'color field' art, etc), is the fact the film feels overwhelmingly humorless, estrogen-soaked, and empowering, like a bad clone of a Woody Allen film by a feminist.
- DirectorStuart BurgeStarsLaurence OlivierFrank FinlayRobert LangGeneral Othello's marriage is destroyed when vengeful Ensign Iago convinces him that his new wife has been unfaithful.Legendary actor Laurence Olivier is renowned for his Shakespearian roles, and devotion to the craft, but this 1965 version of the classic play goes awry particularly as result of Olivier's depiction of the titular moor (traditional stage acting is notably histrionic, and the Othello role even more so). To start with, he is supposed to be a Mediterranean/Berber character but looks more like a Sub-Saharan African, or worse a Nineteenth century vaudevillian act. Even if his blacker-than-night make-up wasn't so distracting, he mugs and overreacts in nearly every emotionally intense scene he's in, practically thrusting himself in the spotlight, casting a flailing shadow on the more nuanced supporting roles, especially Frank Finlay's excellent Iago. This simply doesn't compare to any of the more immersive filmed versions of the play, Orson Welles's 1952 movie in particular. More recent versions put the great Olivier to shame.
- DirectorJames B. HarrisStarsJames WoodsLesley Ann WarrenCharles DurningAn obsessive, insubordinate homicide cop is convinced a serial killer is loose in the Hollywood area and disobeys orders in order to catch him.Count the clichés while watching this movie, you'll probably lose count by the second act. James Woods is one of my favorite actors but even he should've been smart enough to know he couldn't save this bomb. I suppose it is possible, considering the title and excessive & formulaic plot, that the creators were actually trying to make a satire. But I can't be sure, the whole thing is played with a straight face. Modern audiences would probably laugh at this today; barely beating out Cobra for most ridiculously clichéd Eighties cop movie.