How Do You Rate Films You Saw as a Kid?
The purpose of that particular site is to give you recommendations, so I would go with how much you connect with them today.
If there’s a film I loved as a child but wouldn’t like now, I would qualify what I say. For instance, ‘Great when you’re a kid’. But since the purpose of Criticker is to gauge your current taste I’d probably just leave it off.
The purpose of that particular site is to give you recommendations, so I would go with how much you connect with them today.
That’s not always easy to answer, though. There’s a bunch of John Wayne war films that I haven’t seen since I was about ten years old. I know I’ve seen the films (e.g. The Longest Day), but I can’t really say much more than that.
If there’s a film I loved as a child but wouldn’t like now, I would qualify what I say.
Let me give you some other examples. I’ve been praising Rob Reiner, but I haven’t seen many of his films since high school (e.g., The Princess Bride, Stand by Me). I loved the films when I saw them, but I’m not sure how I would react to them if I saw them now. And there are many more like this. See what I mean?
Rewatching movies I saw as a kid is a win-win for me. Sometimes they hold up surprisingly well and can still be enjoyed as an adult (The Muppet Movie / Love at First Bite), while others lose the charm they had once you grow up (Oh, Heavenly Dog / Zorro, The Gay Blade). Even the later type will have a degree of nostalgic value for me. So I can’t in good faith rate these kind of films until a rewatch as an adult.
If you remember them well enough, then rate them how you remember them. If you feel like you can’t remember them well enough then don’t rate them. Sometimes you rewatch them and your opinion totally changes.
If I haven’t watched the film again as an adult, it has to be a film I watched multiple times as a child. Also, if it is a site unlike mubi (I quickly jumped on criticker to check it out, but don’t know much about it) where you can’t write a review, post on forums, or explain your rating to someone, then I wouldn’t rate it either. Quite a few of my childhood favorites have received ratings on here, but I might factor nostalgia into the rating, or I might rate the film based solely on my childhood remembrance of it, which I don’t have problems with since I post on my page that I don’t have a clear-cut rating system but would be happy to discuss any rating I’ve given to an interested person.
But then I wonder if the type of film matters in this as well. For example: The Lost Boys (with Kiefer Sutherland) was one of my childhood favorites, as was Creepshow, but those aren’t exactly movies made for kids. But Little Giants and D2: The Mighty Ducks were also two of my childhood favorites and those films are definitely in the Children/Family category. So maybe I would factor that in, maybe I’d rate films in Children/Family category based on not only my feelings but if I think it is more successful in that genre in general.
I generally don’t.
I thought that the Abbott and Costello movies I saw as a kid were great until I re watched them. Words failed me.
@Bijoux
If I haven’t watched the film again as an adult, it has to be a film I watched multiple times as a child.
But even then, that can be tough. For example, your comment made me think of The Wizard of Oz, which was a film I looked forward to watching every year (as it would come on TV once a year). Until a few years ago, (when I watched part of the film), I hadn’t seen the movie since I was about nine or ten. I loved the movie as a child, but I’m not sure how much I would love it now. Additionally, for child-oriented films, if you don’t think highly of them as an adult, should you conclude they’re not very good? That can seem a bit curmudgeonly. Then again, there may be some movies for children that I would enjoy or at least think highly of.
@Francisco
I thought that the Abbott and Costello movies I saw as a kid were great until I re watched them. Words failed me.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever watched an entire Abott and Costello film. I know most of my experience with them have been via movie clips. The films where they encounter a monster (e.g., Dracula) looked silly, even when was a kid though.
@Brad
Love at First Bite
Really? I remember watching that several times on HBO. I can’t imagine liking that now, unless there were some clever social commentargy/gags, that I missed as a kid.
@Jazz
So, I’m gathering from this and other recent discussions that horror parodies are not your thing? (Please prove me wrong and tell me you love Young Frankenstein.)
Unless a gentle ribbing of the disco era counts, there is no social commentary in Love at First Bite. Nor do I consider it a great movie, but it’s the exact kind of silliness that gives me the giggles and that’s enough for a fond three-star rating from me.
@jazz : Regarding your Wizard of Oz example, let me give one of my own. The Lion King. I watched the film so much when it was released that I still : know the words to every song, can recite large chunks of the script, remember the overall look of the film and remember the main characters, their attributes and their contribution to the plot. I feel that is enough to rate the film now, even though I haven’t seen it in at least ten years. But I’ve also had experiences that might be similar to Francisco’s Abbott and Costello one. There have been films I remember enjoying, usually because I found them hilarious, but I can’t remember specific scenes or lines, so I could very well not see the humor in these films anymore. So I really have to remember a lot of the film to decide it doesn’t need a rewatch before I rate it.
We have to remember that tastes change over time. That’s the only answer I can give for this is a difficult question to answer. Probably the best thing to do is to re-watch those movies again; that’s what I would do. A rewatch can change a view drastically.
If the film is destined to children and i see it now: same rating no matter if i still like it or not (example: E.T)
If the film is destined to adults: same rating (example of good rating for a movie i liked as a child and haven’t re-watched: Forrest Gump)
If the film is destined to adults and i have re-watched the movie: new rating (example: Terminator. It sucks)
@ Dude : But I think if we remember enough of the film we have a better idea if it still fits with our taste while also adjusting for other factors without requiring another viewing.
Bijoux said, So I really have to remember a lot of the film to decide it doesn’t need a rewatch before I rate it.
This is a sensible approach, and basically the one I use.
@Alex
If the film is destined to children and i see it now: same rating no matter if i still like it or not (example: E.T)
Here’s the thing, though: there are some children’s movies that I’ve rewatched that I think are good and some that I don’t think are good. If this is the case, if, as an adult, I don’t like a children’s movie, is saying it’s not good reasonable? Or are only children allowed to judge films made for them? (Just something to throw out there.)
@Brad
So, I’m gathering from this and other recent discussions that horror parodies are not your thing? (Please prove me wrong and tell me you love Young Frankenstein.)
Strangely, I actually like Young Frankenstein—or at least a lot of it (“Sedagive!!” Man, I don’t even know if I’ve watched the film until the end.). But I don’t know if I dislike horror parodies so much as I don’t like Mel Brooks or the Zucker brothers. (I believe YF was mostly a Gene Wilder probject—but it’s definitely in the Mel Brooks’ ballpark.) Would Scream count as a horro parody? I don’t think so, but I liked that.
2 of my earliest movie memories…and I still love ’em…
and this one…not so much…
Jackie Gleason? Gay Parade? yikes!
Young Frankenstein was a joint effort between Brooks and Wilder. Scream pokes fun at the genre and had some funny moments, but it was more of an actual horror film IMO.
For the most part, I still feel pretty confident rating on memory. The exceptions for me are mostly Chuck Norris films, most of which I now find all but unwatchable.
@Brad
Scream pokes fun at the genre and had some funny moments, but it was more of an actual horror film IMO.
Really? Horror as in revealing something horrible about society, not horror as in scarying audiences to the core, right?
@Matt
What about all those Disney films, especially the live action ones (e.g., Herbie, Kurt Russell, Don Knotts and Tim Conway)? I loved those films as a kid. I tend to think I wouldn’t think much of them now.
“What about all those Disney films, especially the live action ones (e.g., Herbie, Kurt Russell, Don Knotts and Tim Conway)?”
Yeah . . . The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes and all those—actually I was thinking about those as I was typing up that post, and almost included them as exceptions. But really I don’t have strong feelings about those films one way or another, even though I enjoyed them at the time. Not compared to something like seeing *Blade Runner as an eleven year old in an almost empty theater in 1982.
@Jazz
Your last Scream comment kind of confused me.
>>What about all those Disney films, especially the live action ones (e.g., Herbie, Kurt Russell, Don Knotts and Tim Conway)? I loved those films as a kid. I tend to think I wouldn’t think much of them now.<<
I’ve given these rewatches for nostalgia sake and they generally don’t hold up (Boatnicks was FAR funnier when I was 8). The exception was The Apple Dumpling Gang, but only for some Knotts/Conway schtick.
@Brad
Shoot! For some reason I thought you were talking about YF and not Scream! Scratch that, I know what you’re saying. (Yeah, it’s not really a spoof I guess.)
The exception was The Apple Dumpling Gang, but only for some Knotts/Conway schtick.
That’s the first film I remember seeing (at a drive-in). (What the heck was Boatnicks? I don’t remember that at all.)
@Matt
Not compared to something like seeing *Blade Runner as an eleven year old in an almost empty theater in 1982.
You suck in, huh? My parents wouldn’t let me see that. It looked really cool, too. (I don’t think I would have liked it much, though.)
I STILL love Thief of Bagdad, The Day the Earth Stood Still, High Noon, From Here to Eternity, On The Waterfront, The Robe, The Egyptian, King Kong (the first one, re-released in the early 50s), Dead of Night, others I can’t remember. Or will remember later.
The money shot of Boatnicks was when someone replaced a submarine torpedo with a salami.
“You suck in, huh? My parents wouldn’t let me see that. "
Yeah, either they didn’t they didn’t care how old I was or maybe my mom bought the ticket for me . . . don’t remember for sure.
Jazzaloha
On the criticker site, I’ve been rating films, but I’m unsure about how I should rate the films I saw as a kid—and let’s define this from elementary up to high school. Now, obviously, if I’ve rewatched the film since that time, I can rate the films. But I’m not sure how to rate these films if I haven’t seen them since that time. And let me reframe the question for those who don’t rate films: what’s your opinion of these films that you have seen since childhood? If they come up in conversation, how do you talk about them? If you thought highly of them as a kid, do you speak about as if they’re really good films? Or do you try to recalibrate your assessment of them, factoring what you like and don’t like now?