While I am a dissident on 2001: A Space Odyssey (I think it looks bad and its merits don’t outweigh the fact that it is long and boring), I think Derb raises a good summertime Corner thread: Movies that hold up surprisingly well. Now, I think we need to disqualify films which hold up because they’re just good movies. Casablanca, for example, qualifies more as timeless than a movie that holds up well. I think a movie that holds up well has to be a certain kind of move, a movie of its period which doesn’t seem nearly as dated — either cinemagraphically or thematically — as you’d expect.
My first nominee: Network. Every time I see it, I am amazed and how good it is, how much it speaks to contemporary issues and themes and how little has changed in a business which seems to have changed so much.
Another nominee: Alien and Aliens (i.e. Alien II). Both look better made and more technologically advanced than their — horrible — sequels.
Anyway, just throwing it out there. Jpod? Derb? anybody?
Note: It was not my intent to start a debate on 2001, though I know I’ll get grief for saying the obvious.