[Cainehill]

Yeah - instead now, "Dumb and Dumberer", "Hostel", and "Freddie Got Fingered" are considered classics. *snicker*

More seriously - some movies and books were/are considered classics but really have to be taken in terms of the social context when they were made. Looking at them decades later, they lack the impact they once had - for example, Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" was considered shocking and scandalous when published; similarly, "To Kill a Mockingbird" was amazing because at the time, the concepts in the book were unheard of (a well-to-do white lawyer defending a poor black accused of rape, just because it was the right thing to do? Inconceivable!!!).

That said, some of those classics hold up better over time than others, both movies and books. Look at old SF movies : many of them wind up seeming dated, because their utopian or distopian vision of the future is ridiculous now that our present day is that movie's future. Or, their special effects seem lame compared to today's CGI wizardry. Still - Ray Harryhausen's stop motion dinosaurs and monsters were amazing in their day. And then there are the SF classics that still hold up over time, "BladeRunner" being a perfect example, where "Star Wars" can now be viewed as a simplistic western in outer space.