What movie did you really not want to see but enjoyed?

[Rockydwiars]

Moulin Rouge ended up watching it 2 more times that night then I decided I must like this. Love the love song medly

[hobozombie]

Donnie Darko. All the pretentious kids were raving about it, so I was naturally hesitant to see it, however, the film and its backstory are among my favorites.

[Iechium]

Originally Posted by hobozombie

Donnie Darko. All the pretentious kids were raving about it, so I was naturally hesitant to see it, however, the film and its backstory are among my favorites.

Funny, I actually had the opposite experience with Donnie Darko. I was an indie kid and figured it must be worth a shot because tons of indie-ish people were saying how good it was. Then when I watched it I realized that it made absolutely no sense. It was dry and not funny, nor dramatic, nor interesting. It was just like a black hole of an hour and a half for me. I came to the conclusion that because it was so unwatchable, that's why the "pretentious kids" raved about it, because it was so against the grain that they adopted it as the holy grail of their anti-establishment. Either way, take away the hype and the raves, the movie stands on it's own as one big clusterfuck of nothingness.

But here's a few movies I never wanted to see but ended up becoming favorites.

Ocean's Eleven - I had ignored it when it came out because it looked stupid and an over-stylized chance for Hollywood actors to show everyone how slick they were (coincidentally that's what the sequel was about). But one day I saw it on TV and I was pretty impressed. The humor isn't obvious, it has a clever wit about it that always made me smirk. The plot was complicated but not confusing. The acting was solid, and every one of the eleven actors had atleast one moment where they completely stole the scene from everyone else. Oh, and I love the music to it. Hip but still good. Actually that's what I would say about the whole movie.

Dr. Strangelove; Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb - I had seen clips and read things about it all of which lead me to believe it was one of those ancient classics made when humor had absolutely no subtlety to it and the gravity of what was going on in the moment would be completely bogged down by the slapstick schlock. I was half right, as the humor often did hit you on the head. But the nuance of it is still there. The acting in itself is not over the top. Certain characters are in nature over the top, but the acting style in general is pretty mature. Also the politics of it stay relevant even today.

Shaun of the Dead - Oh how I avoided that movie for so long. I'm not a fan of monster/horror/zombie movies in any way shape or form. I figured the humor would be typical British humor, silly and needing a laugh track to tell you it's funny. But that movie had several poignant dramatic scenes, and the subtlety with which they handled the zombies as more of a back drop to their lives was spot on with what horror should be about. Not to mention I loved the book-end scenes where they repeated certain shots done in the beginning but this time with something horribly horribly wrong. It was all around good film making. Oh, and it was probably the only time I laughed at a racial slur in a movie (the scene where Ed pulls up in the car while the gang is running from zombies, gets out and coolly says "What's up ni...", yeah, you know what I'm saying. I almost universally scoff at slurs in movies but that one was just so completely silly and unoffensive that it had to be appreciated.)

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle - Not much to say about this movie, but holy crap is it hilarious. I'm not one for stoner movies, as they're usually not as funny when you're not a stoner (and I'm not). But this one even my 55 year old mother finds hilarious (she's not a stoner either, obviously). It's just all around a good spirited attempt at poking fun of everyone equally, and focusing on laughing about stereotypes rather than taking them seriously. Plus it's got that EXTREME white guy doing the pterodactyl impersonation, which cracks me up every single time I see it.

Any way, that was overly long, but I love movies and it's nice to be pleasantly surprised once in a while. Oh and we should totally make a new thread of movies that you wanted to see desperately and immediately hated them upon seeing them. Though, how many times could one repeat Star Wars Episode 1?

[walrasian]

Pan's Labyrinth was a movie I didn't want to see, thought it was a kids movie. Boy was I wrong on that one. I even recorded it on my DVR for my nieces and nephews to watch. Luckily someone made me watch it before I showed it to them.