Movies you catch on TV and won't leave the room or turn the channel

I haven't seen 3 in years, but I'm in with those who thought it was a big disappointment compared to the first two, but not a horrendous film.

I think it suffered horribly by losing Winona Ryder and replacing her with Sofia Coppola. For the story to work you had to believe that Andy Garcia's character would throw everything away to be with the girl. Winona could have pulled it off. Sofia Coppola couldn't.

 

I love it how 'conventional wisdom' has evolved to the point that Winona Ryder is some kind of towering master thespian who could have single-handedly saved the movie.

I don't think Sofia Coppola actually did that horrible playing Mary Corleone, who was supposed to be a spoiled pampered isolated stuck-up mama's girl so very likely would indeed act aloof, oblivious and stilted a huge percentage of the time. I doubt Ryder would have sold it much better.

The whole problem of course was when they couldn't (or in any case, didn't) re-sign Robert Duvall for the role of Tom Hagen, making it necessary to write him out of the storyline where pretty much all of the events of GF II had pointed in the direction of a dramatic showdown of loyalty between Hagen and Michael Corleone.

When the Tom-Michael showdown went poof, the Vincent-Mary storyline, which should have been at most a very minor theme in the overall story (if not ditched completely), was suddenly inflated up to one of the major plotlines of the whole movie.

If they bring back Duvall and 75% of the movie is devoted to the Tom-Michael showdown, Mary Corleone is cut to about 15 minutes of screen time and nobody really cares that much whether Sofia Coppola or Winona Ryder plays her.

 

The 13th Warrior.
Under appreciated Antonio Banderas flick. Used to show it on Sci-Fi every weekend.

 

Whoops. There's another one for my list.

 

Your mention of Banderas reminds me that whenever Assassins is on I can't tear myself away.

 

The Train
Day of the Jackal
Double Indemnity
The Dirty Dozen
The Great Escape
In the Heat of the Night
Birdman of Alcatraz
Erin Brockovitch
Rear Window
Dial 'M' For Murder
Anatomy of a Murder
Some Like it Hot
National Lampoons Vacation
Bonnie and Clyde

 

Road House
Red Dawn
There's Something About Mary
Pretty In Pink
True Lies (only the first hour)
Office Space
Rounders
Varsity Blues
For Love of the Game
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

 

Josey Wales
Animal House
Dumb and Dumber
Caddyshack
A Christmas Story
Die Hard
Office Space
Red Dawn
Home Alone
Any Bond movie
Star Wars
Rambo: First Blood

 

Let me add a vote for Drop Zone, though that movie is never on television. I understand why it isn't... but still... Wesley Snipes, Gary Busey and skydiving.

 

Scarface. Probably wouldn't pull me in had I not lived down there for 26 years.

That being said, I'll definitely leave the room or turn the channel when one of those 15-commercials-in-a-row binges gets going (yes, I counted once).

 

Not sure why there's been such a revisionist backlash against Dances With Wolves over the years. A lot of folks seemed to retroactively decide they didn't like DWW years later after Costner made all those lame self-indulgent post-DWW movies that made him so hateable (Waterworld, the Postman, Robin Hood, etc.).

Personally, I thought Dances With Wolves was a damn good movie when I saw it back then, and my mind wasn't changed in later years. Hands down, the best 1990 movie was definitely Goodfellas, which plainly should've won the BP Oscar. But I do believe I'd place DWW as the second best flick I saw from that year.

GF3, on the other hand, I mostly just remember for what a disappointing movie going experience it was. And I don't believe I've ever re-watched the whole thing since then.