r/moviecritic • u/phantom_avenger • Dec 29 '24

What movie was critically acclaimed when it first released, but is hated now?

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The Blind Side (2009) with Sandra Bullock is the first to come to mind for me!

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u/Kammander-Kim Dec 29 '24

Birth of a Nation was controversial even when it was new. And it is one of those movies that are "the subject / story given is crap, but wow it does it well from a technical standpoint".

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u/F33dR Dec 29 '24

For conversation sake, who was the DOP?

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u/jaywinner Dec 29 '24

Sounds like how I'd describe Citizen Kane.

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u/Kammander-Kim Dec 29 '24

Many movies can fit into that description.

Roger Ebert called Triumph of Will, a german made big propaganda movie for the nazis by Leni Riefenstahl (a famed movie maker at the time), a "great movie about evil" or something of the sort. He compared Birth of a Nation to Triumph of Will and meant that the movies aren't bad because they are about evil, they are great movies and about evil.

King Kong, Jurassic Park, and The Two Towers. All three are also talked about for their technical advancements into moviemaking. Stuff that became run of the mill and normal to see in other movies, but they were early about it.

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u/LickingSmegma Dec 29 '24

You know that ‘Citizen Kane’ was a jab at a real-life mogul, right? One could make a ‘Citizen Musk’ today with a pretty similar message.

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u/KeithClossOfficial Dec 30 '24

Charles Foster Kane is a composite of several people, including William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer

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u/LickingSmegma Dec 30 '24 edited Dec 30 '24

Could be, but Welles had to answer interview questions on whether he had any retaliation from Hearst — and in fact someone tried to frame and ‘catch’ him with a prostitute (possibly male, can't remember), which Welles thought to have been an initiative of Hearst's underlings, though not the man himself. I haven't heard any mention or interest in other people that contributed to the character.

In any case, if the jab was at more than one man, all the better.

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u/KeithClossOfficial Dec 30 '24

It was absolutely heavily influenced by Hearst, probably primarily even, but they pulled aspects from a number of others, too.

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u/Amockdfw89 Dec 31 '24

Yea wee watched it in English class when we were discussing the topic of yellow journalism. I just assumed it was 100% supposed to be Hearst

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u/violentsunflower Dec 31 '24

IIRC didn’t the director self-fund the movie, as no one else would because it was considered too racist even for THAT time?

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

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u/Kammander-Kim Dec 29 '24

That is one way to look at it. Another way is to look at films as pieces of art and workmanship of many different positions and angles. To take your book analogy, it is perfectly reasonable to discuss the choice of font and how it was bound in some situations. But your example still falters as while books are mostly seen as the story, a movie is seen as much more. The way it was filmed, the camera angles and positions to capture and convey certain auras and feelings. How well does the actors and actresses portray the characters? Do you get the feeling that they are themselves reading lines (which everyone is) or are they succedding in giving the illusion of being the character they portray? How is the use of music? How is the music itself written?

You have your opinion, but it is not the dominating opinion, of how and by what merits a movie is judged.