I say Showgirls. Another may say Goodfellas. The movie may have been universally dismissed or universally praised but, no matter the universals, it probably deserves a fair shake outside of the critical mass. So let's take a second look at...

What? Submit a movie from the low end of the spectrum (we'll do the high end later) and let's make a stab at seeing something that we may have missed for all the crowd noise. My pick would be my top-10-of-the-nineties Showgirls (of course... I'll never tire of defending this outstanding film) but this is by no means the only worthy submission.

Submit a movie, gather some willingness and let's watch something that didn't get a fair shake the first time around.

How about "I Know Who Killed Me"?

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Street Fighter: The Movie.

Seconded, i'd also make a case for Super Mario Bros.

Have any of these movies been misunderstood?

My vote goes to Equilibrium.

I think Street Fighter has.



But my submission is for Waterworld.

Severely.

Isn't the point of this exercise to wipe the slate clean and go into these movies without preconceived notions of what they are?

The ending of A.I.? People have been coming around to it, but so far the majority believes that it's too happy/sappy (it's actually quite dark), that there are aliens (there aren't, that would be stupid) and that Kubrick would have ended the film at the statue (he wouldn't. Kubrick already storyboarded the complete end. Spielberg isn't responsible.)

I also appreciate Heaven's Gate. It's long been derided for its excess, but there's a really great movie somewhere in there.

Speaking of Cimino, how about Year Of The Dragon? Hardly anyone ever talks about that film, I actually kinda prefer it over Deer Hunter.

There have been many movies that include a final scene that some view to be superfluous or even contrary to the rest of the movie. A.I. is one example. Psycho and There Will Be Blood are a couple others. Some argue that the movies would be tidier if these scenes had been cut, but I find that they often end up being some of the most fascinating scenes in the movies.

I think it was James Kunz who recently posted a capsule for Bigger Than Life on another thread, and argued that the film's initial reading (dismissal by the critics) was actually the correct one. I think Vertigo deserves a similar reevaluation.

Vertigo is a good movie in its own way, but let's face it; it flopped for a reason, and the reason wasn't just because audiences "didn't get it." I think they got it and thought it was something between too lame and too damn weird. That's an accurate evaluation, I think, in terms of its relation to Hitchcock's career. Mann knew how to keep just the right amount of likability in a Stewart character so that an audience could actually enjoy the darker elements of his personality without feeling too uncomfortable. Hitchcock took things too far by making him into a creepy necrophiliac stalker. It doesn't really work, and the film is pretty boring to boot.

Please pick Vertigo first so I can tell MGamesCook, in detail, why his reading is full of hooey.

This may court some derision, but I caught the 90's big screen version of Casper the other day, and, despite being essentially a rather obvious big-budget effects extravaganza, it holds a certain charm. Also, not unlike a similarly panned fantastical film from the 90's, The Pagemaster, it features a rich cast (Casper, for one thing, features a lion's den of star cameos) and some rather impressive SFX work for its time.

Yes. You're right. I managed to forget that in all of two posts.

This is why I think we should work with either Street Fighter or I Know Who Killed Me. I'd like to do the Lohan movie but the consensus seems to be for Street Fighter. That works, too.

Vertigo is out for this round but it would work with the high-end half of this exercise. A.I. deserves a second look but... neh. Heaven's Gate is a great selection. Pity it's 17 hours long.

I would LOVE an excuse to watch I Know Who Killed Me and not feel guilty about it, so that's got my vote

Nice to know that people are interested in "I Know Who Killed Me" It's fascinating because of how strange it is, it's like a dark and demented fairy-tale.

So is Fire Walk with Me, that's like the David Lynch movie even a lot of his fans won't apologize for, yet Slant Magazine (and me) think its brilliant.

True, and I think it's one of Lynch's better films, mostly because of Moira Kelly(i'm mostly familiar with her role as Karen Scott on One Tree Hill), but it's still too pretentious for it's own good.