One might classify a movie as “that rocked”. The same classification system might include “that sucked”. And last night Laralee and I decided there must be another classification called “that wasn’t as good as I remember”.
We have the DVD of “Victory”, which is a 1980’s-era movie starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, and the quintessential thespian Pele. And yes, it’s Pele of Brazilian soccer fame– probably the only professional soccer player anyone not familiar with soccer can name. But as it’s a soccer movie (more or less) it features Pele quite prominently.
In any case, we slogged through the movie and at the end I said, “wow, that’s not something I’ll ever need to see again.” And Laralee’s response was, as you may have guessed, “that wasn’t as good as I remember”. Of course the last time she’d seen it was when she was about thirteen and perhaps back then it was truly at the pinnacle of Hollywood magic. But by today’s standards– whatever they may be– it was pretty much a cheesy film filled with mundane acting, a rather dull plot, and several instances of obvious attempts to elevate concern for the characters or situations that in fact were so blatantly artificial they were more amusing than emotion-provoking.
As we talked about movies that were much worse the second time than we remembered them being the first, I couldn’t help but think of “The Dukes of Hazzard” which was one of my favorite childhood shows. When I saw it as an adult– shortly after graduating from college– I was saddened by how absolutely terrible it was. So ended a longtime nostalgia about Bo, Luke, the General Lee, and (of course) Cooter.
So beware of those movies or shows you saw twenty years ago and remember fondly. You may see them again– either through the magic of $6.99 DVD’s or reruns on TNN– only to say at the end, “huh, that wasn’t as good as I remember.”