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#1
27th April 2009, 05:43 AM
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Movies you thought you wouldn't like...
but were pleasantly surprised.
Yep, I was inspired by this thread.  Sin City: Everything about this movie looked terrible to me. I was sure the stylized black and white would get on my nerves and since I had never read the graphic novels, I thought I would get lost. Instead, it turned out to be one of my favorite movies and I re-read the novels several times a year. Iron Man: First off, Robert Downey, Jr. irritates me. Secondly, stupid little engineering or scientific mistakes really ruin suspension of disbelief for me (For example, Batman Returns: the ginormous microwave-on-an-e-train vaporizing millions of gallons of water a hundred feet away while leaving the nearby hero and villain alive.). Because of this, I was sure I'd hate it. Nope. I had so much fun watching it that I bought the DVD. It really felt like a comic book. 
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#2
27th April 2009, 06:35 AM
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Sling Blade. A movie written by Billy Bob Thornton? How good could it be? As it turns out pretty damn good. Not great and a little predictable but much better than I gave credit for.
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#4
27th April 2009, 07:40 AM
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#5
27th April 2009, 07:47 AM
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It rocks.
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#6
27th April 2009, 07:52 AM
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The Prestige. I saw the other magician movie, that Ed Norton knockoff, in the theaters and was like wtf. But I loved the Prestige.
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#8
28th April 2009, 04:42 AM
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Dodgeball I hate stupid comedies, I hate wotsisface - Ben Stiller. There was no way I was going to like this film. But it actually makes me laugh out loud, and has done on each of the 4 occasions I've seen it so far.
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#10
28th April 2009, 06:46 AM
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'Must Like Dogs'. I've been humoring my SO by watching her chick flick movies, and this one wasn't bad at all. As long as I resign myself to not expecting tits, explosions or car chases, I can get into one of these, and be honestly interested in the characters and what is going to happen to them.
And she has watched 'Buckaroo Bonzai', 'Repo Man', and 'The Meaning of Life' with me without complaint.
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#12
28th April 2009, 11:28 AM
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I may be missing out, but I hardly ever watch a movie if I suspect I won't like it. It also seems that whenever a movie gets bad reviews, but I think I might like it anyway, I end up regretting renting it (see the recent "Black Dahlia", or rather, DON'T).
I looked over my Netflix rental history, and found one exception. My wife chose to rent "Aeon Flux" because she was a big fan of the animated series. I liked the animated series as well, but had read reviews of the movie that led me to believe that I would think it was pretty horrible. It turned out to be pretty good. It had it's flaws, but in general I liked it. I also liked "Friday the Thirteenth" better than I expected to - well, I didn't really care for it that much, but it was much higher quality than I expected based on my experiences of the sequels. "10,000 BC" was also not as bad as I had expected, but I wouldn't say I actually liked either movie.
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#14
28th April 2009, 11:32 AM
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#16
28th April 2009, 02:26 PM
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Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.
I'm in the completely wrong demographic for stoner movies, but this one cracks me the hell up. I didn't think I'd like it, but I was wrong. Both of the actors are funny and perfect in their parts, and it was fun to see both of them at different times on House. I haven't seen the sequel yet, but sometimes I play the trailer on youtube just to see the bit where the airline passenger woman imagines that Kumar is a bearded, turbaned terrorist laughing in glee at her as he mimes crashing the plane. Hysterical!
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#17
28th April 2009, 02:29 PM
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I totally thought Star Wars was going to suck. (I was 10 or so.) I saw ESB first, and got sucked in around the time Vader says "Luke, I am your father!!" and I was all, "Nooooo... Waaaay..." and demanded to see the other movies. The rest is history, obviously.
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#18
28th April 2009, 02:36 PM
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#19
28th April 2009, 02:56 PM
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#20
28th April 2009, 03:19 PM
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The Emporer's New Groove. I thought it would be some stupid little Disney flick that didn't appeal to anyone over the age of 10. It turned out to be more like an extended Tex Avery cartoon. I rarely laugh out loud in the movies, but I laughed nonstop for the last 20 minutes of this one.
Enchanted. I went into the theater expecting to spend 90 minutes looking at my watch. I came out of the theater smiling and singing.
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#21
28th April 2009, 04:36 PM
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I absolutely did not want to watch Secondhand Lions but then I loved it once I did.
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#22
29th April 2009, 02:00 AM
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What's Love Got To Do With It - The Tina Turner biopic. I thought it was fantastic. I hated the liberties taken the truth, notably making Ike seeming like some struggling hack who was going nowhere before hooking up with Tina rather than an astonshing misical pioneer in his own right.
I thought the best I could reasonably hope for would it would be campy rubbish. But I was uterly blown away by the performances of Angela Bassett & Laurence Fishburne, neither of whom I'd seen in anything before but were both mesmerising. Also BASEketball which I thought was going to be juvenile rubbish. Ha, way to miss the point entirely, Promethea. Hilarious from start to finish.
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#23
29th April 2009, 06:00 PM
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Matrix. Didn't know anything about it going in, didn't hear any buzz (good or bad) and in fact was a little bit apprehensive because it starred Keanu Reeves, not really one of my favourite talking heads. But I had two hours to kill so what the heck.
Left the cineplex quite satisfied (was impressed with the special effects, not so much with Reeves performance). And I second Emperor's New Groove. I thought it was gonna be stupid instead of the laugh out loud road movie that it was. I think it's the first Disney animated feature that gave the funny lines to the two main characters. Usually they relegate the comedy to the sidekicks.
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#24
29th April 2009, 08:21 PM
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I'm almost embarrassed to admit this -- is there a raffer confessions thread yet? -- but when I watched Shall We Dance I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even the wife was surprised.
On that note, I showed my mom Beer League, and she liked it so much she went out and bought her own copy.
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#25
29th April 2009, 08:25 PM
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Moonstruck. A movie starring Cher and Nicholas Cage? Urgh. I was duped into watching it at a friend's house on cable TV. Hate to admit but I really liked it. Partly because they incorporate the opera La Boheme into the plot.
A Walk In The Clouds. Keanu Reeves as a haunted WWII soldier? Give me a break. Nonetheless, I watched this from start to finish. Anthony Quinn added a nice touch. Kissing Jessica Stein. I had high hopes it would be like Bound (Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly!  ), but it wasn't. But the dialogue hooked me and I watched the whole movie.
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#26
29th April 2009, 11:10 PM
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Super Troopers. The first 10 minutes were pure genius, the rest I stuck around for and it was okay.
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#27
30th April 2009, 06:05 AM
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The Bucket List was better than I expected. (My father-in-law rented it). I didn't think it would be a bad movie, but a movie about a couple of elderly men having their last hoorahs wasn't exactly appealing to me. But it was a lot funnier than I thought it would be, and I finished watching it with a smile.
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#28
30th April 2009, 08:39 AM
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I didn't know what to expect of The Emperor's New Groove. I was most amazed at the timing of it: the movie had a rhythm, a snap to it, you could almost dance to the beat of the comedy.
Mostly, I am apprehensive any time somebody urges me to see a movie. "Oh, you must see this, you'll love it, I know you'll just love it, you have to watch it and tell me what you think." I hate that. I'll be the judge of what I must like. Case in point: Dead Again. I went into the theater prepared to resent the film, simply because I had been set up by so many people by this line. As it turned out, it was a pretty good film, but that doesn't make me any fonder of the "you will love this!" I get.
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#29
30th April 2009, 09:47 AM
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The 40 year old virgin. I thought it would make me cringe, but I had never seen Steve Carell in anything before, never even heard of Seth Rogen. I laughed so hard I nearly chundered! I had assumed The Office: An American Workplace was going to suck too because I often judge remakes, but knowing Carell was in it got me watching, and then I was hooked. That guy is so funny.
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#30
5th May 2009, 04:13 PM
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Another vote for The Emperor's New Groove. Between the stupid title and my complete loathing of David Spade, I stayed far far away when it was in theaters. Then my kids got into the Disney channel spin-off show, which I found pretty funny, which inspired them to borrow the DVD from the library. I ended up laughing my ass off. Easily the best non-Pixar thing Disney's done in the last 10 years.
Ghost looked like an awful chick-flick, and I reluctantly accompanied my girlfriend. But Vincent Schiavelli rocked as usual, the ending was good and violent, and those demon-things that dragged the bad guys down to hell freaked the crap out of me. So I ended up mostly liking it. ("Ditto" was still lame)
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#32
6th May 2009, 05:17 PM
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I was super sure that Super Bad would be just that. But I thought it was not only very sweet but actually hilarious too.
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#33
7th May 2009, 06:00 AM
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#34
7th May 2009, 06:04 AM
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I also enjoyed The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Don't judge me!
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#36
7th May 2009, 06:17 AM
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#37
7th May 2009, 06:23 AM
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Thought of another: I can't say I really loved Bewitched (the movie) -- it was OK, but just OK -- but somehow Nicole Kidman left me just looking at the screen with big puppy eyes. And my wife was watching it with me. [cue Jon Stewart singing "Awk - ward . . ."].
Someplace near the end they had Will Farrel's character remembering Nicole's via a montage of clips showing Nicole doing all these quirky and endearing faces throughout the movie. It was at that point I nearly rose out of my seat as I exclaimed: "Tom Cruise is a FOOL!" My wife looked very curiously at me, to say the least. So that surprised me.
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#38
7th May 2009, 06:31 AM
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I didn't intend to watch 'The New World' because I hated The Thin Red Line so much. It was one of those things where I didn't change the channel fast enough and got hooked. I thought it was amazing. It was both visually beautiful and captured the wonder of two cultures colliding very well.
The other one mystifies me. I didn't expect to like "The Golden Compass". I loved the books, though I am emphatically not one of those people who needs the movie to follow the book, but the reviews were tepid at best. I was more than satisfied with the movie. The young lead was exceptionally good and I liked Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter. I am dissapointed that they don't appear to be pursuing the sequels.
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#39
7th May 2009, 08:25 AM
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#40
7th May 2009, 08:43 AM
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I then watched Anchorman, which I had consigned to the Will Ferrell Is Rubbish pile, and loved that too!
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#41
7th May 2009, 03:03 PM
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Just Married was surprisingly fun. Not a deep movie by any means, but enjoyable.
I wasn't looking forward to seeing Juno, but it also was alright to see on the small screen. The remake of The Women was OK. Certainly not the grand movie the original was, but better than the 50's remake.
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#42
7th May 2009, 08:56 PM
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My husband has a big ol' man crush on Will Ferrell. He tries to deny it, but he's got practically every one of his dumbass movies, and the ones he doesn't have, he rents and makes me watch. Was I happy when he went to get Hairspray and came back with Ricky Friggin' Bobby?! No, I was not, but I'm a good sport. Dear sweet baby Jesus!! That movie was funny! Now I quote it as much as he does. Shake and bake, baby!
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#43
10th May 2009, 12:30 PM
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Dumb and Dumber. It's press was so bad when it came out that I promised myself I would never waste MY time with it. Somehow caught it on the tube a couple of years later and actually liked it. Still do. Same goes for Napoleon Dynamite. Dumb as dookie but I like it.
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#44
10th May 2009, 03:11 PM
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Mine was To Kill a Mockingbird. Even though this movie is nearly as old as I am, I had never seen it. I resisted as long as I could. I kept pushing it down on my Netflix queue for over a year. I finally screwed up and it got shipped. I let it sit on top of the TV for weeks before I finally sighed and said "Let's get it over with". After all, what was the point? It speaks to a philosophy I've always believed in anyway. It's old, how truly relevant can it be? It features young children, which I can only barely tolerate in real life and never in a movie. I did not want to watch this film.
It was superb. Brilliantly produced, directed, and acted. Not only will I watch it again, I intend to read the book this summer. Notch another victory for the voices in my head that keep telling me to not be so damn stubborn all the time.
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#45
10th May 2009, 08:11 PM
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Another vote for Zoolander. I think the trick with the "stupid" movies is that the actors have to take it seriously. No winking at the camera -- winking ruins it.
I like all the Adam Sandler movies. And David Spade's movies, especially Joe Dirt (although he does wink a bit). Lazlo, I didn't think I'd like Sin City either, but I've watched it three or four times. It's dense and rich, like a gooey fudge brownie. I've watched the Shaft remake a couple times recently. The plot is ridiculous but there are so many good actors in it, and so much action, it's actually pretty fun.
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#46
15th May 2009, 09:32 PM
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I have two more. Seconding Enchanted which was about the only time in my life I've ever walked into a cinema and bought a ticket for a movie knowing nothing about it except it was starting in the next dew minutes. I'm really not a Disney fan at all so when the House of Mouse stuff appeared my heart sank to my boots. But it only shows what a flinty hearted old bag I am because it is of course, hugely charming and pretty funny.
The other is the Howard Stern auto-biopic Private Parts which I thought from the trailers looked so crass and dreadful. But I actually found it extremely funny and very likeable. And it also has a fantastic early turn from Paul Giamatti as Kenny, the boss who would seek to keep him down.
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#47
15th May 2009, 10:04 PM
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I'm just drunk enough to admit that I (unironically) enjoyed Dirty Dancing, which my sister forced me to watch.
I also agree with those who mentioned The Emperor's New Groove. I was predisposed to hate this movie, because I was really looking forward to the film this was originally supposed to be (Kingdom of the Sun) and was dismayed that it was being turned into some kind of wacky comedy with David Spade. Turns out it was actually pretty smart and funny. Who knew?
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