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Movies you're stunned that people haven't seen....

Messages
10,883
Location
Portage, Wis.
I have a friend who's never seen Joe Dirt. I thought everyone had seen that movie.

My dad and I were discussing with a customer (another car guy) that Dad wants a Milner's Coupe like off American Graffiti. He had never seen the movie. I thought every car guy had!
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,175
Location
Troy, New York, USA
Great thread, some surprising admissions. It is time for me as the OP to come clean. I've NEVER seen any of the following:

The Last Picture Show
American Graffitii - Although I was forced to endure MANY of the pale imitations.
The Shoot Horses Don't They - Depressing.
Missisippi Burning - Lived through it don't need to see that.
Driving Miss Daisey - Dad was a chauffer in the depression between the wars. Would only discuss the misery he endured when drunk.
The Help - My mother was the help, see above.
The Big Lebowski - Eh....
Any of Adam Sandler's drivel.
Most of Will Ferrells drivel, only saw ELF
Home Alone - I was a latch key kid, no fascination.

Worf
 

MisterCairo

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,005
Location
Gads Hill, Ontario
Great thread, some surprising admissions. It is time for me as the OP to come clean. I've NEVER seen any of the following:

The Last Picture Show
American Graffitii - Although I was forced to endure MANY of the pale imitations.
The Shoot Horses Don't They - Depressing.
Missisippi Burning - Lived through it don't need to see that.
Driving Miss Daisey - Dad was a chauffer in the depression between the wars. Would only discuss the misery he endured when drunk.
The Help - My mother was the help, see above.
The Big Lebowski - Eh....
Any of Adam Sandler's drivel.
Most of Will Ferrells drivel, only saw ELF
Home Alone - I was a latch key kid, no fascination.

Worf

You must and shall watch The Big Lebowski.
If you see only one film with Will Ferrell other than Elf (which is now officially a classic - don't argue, it is), see Old School. It was a Luke Wilson film, just happens to have Will in it.
 

MisterCairo

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,005
Location
Gads Hill, Ontario
I have a friend who's never seen Joe Dirt. I thought everyone had seen that movie.

My dad and I were discussing with a customer (another car guy) that Dad wants a Milner's Coupe like off American Graffiti. He had never seen the movie. I thought every car guy had!

Proud to say I saw Joe Dirt at the theatre. Best moment - seeing Christopher Walken appear on screen.
 
Messages
15,563
Location
East Central Indiana
'Pennies From Heaven'
Especially this scene.....
[video=youtube;54iR0xFkEfQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54iR0xFkEfQ[/video]
Man..What an entertainer..!

...and,of course,Vernel Bagneris

[video=youtube;V-lt16Zm_DI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-lt16Zm_DI[/video]
 
Last edited:

Wally_Hood

One Too Many
Messages
1,772
Location
Screwy, bally hooey Hollywood
At work there is a considerable group of men who can quote long stretches of Caddyshack, Dodgeball, and The Big Lebowski. I have seen only a small sliver of Dodgeball on television, nothing of Caddyshack, and about two minutes of TBL but the language drove me away. When I tell them I haven't seen the films they are baffled.
 

Atomic Age

Practically Family
Messages
701
Location
Phoenix, Arizona
I'm always shocked with people haven't seen Chinatown, which I consider to be one of the best films of the latter half of the 20th century.

It's A Wonderful Life is an excellent film. E.T. in my opinion hasn't held up real well.

Doug
 
Messages
10,883
Location
Portage, Wis.

Flat Foot Floey

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,220
Location
Germany
Haha so many people who haven't seen or didn't like the dude (Big Lebowski) I kinda like it. He is a nice anti hero like I imagine some of the characters in TC Boyle books. Born losers who try to get along and are really funny while doin this.

Oh brother where art thou is far better though. I think this would be a must.

I recently watched Blade Runner with my girlfriend. She haven't seen it before but she was not impressed either. Maybe it was the wrong cut/version.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
24,790
Location
London, UK
A lot of this will be generational and cultural - just like music. KISS, for example - huge in the US, virtually unheard of across much of the rest of the world. Back in the Eighties, only the metal guys at school where I was had heard of them prior to Crazy Crazy Nights. Probably ost kids nowadays know of Gene Simmons from some TV talent show or other, not as an entertainer in his own right. (Can't stand the man or his misogyny myself, but I have to admit I watched his Rock School show, and the way he related to those kids and communicated the joy of music to them was extremely impressive - he's got a gift there).


Quadrophenia. Not sure how much exposure that got outside of the UK though...

Likely to be generational too. Outside of the Mod revival crowd and Who fans, I'm not sure it's just so well seen nowadays (and that's seen, as opposed to "being aware of").

"It's A Wonderful Life." Anybody who was alive and functional in the 80s or 90s would have had that one thrust at them from all directions every December.

Funnily enough, that's one of the films I had obviously seen many times as a kid, but only when I sat down to watch it as an adult did I consciously realise that. I remember especially the scene that really stuck in my head was when George talks the folks out of killing the bank by withdrawing all their money at once...

You'd be surprised how many people over 60 have never seen "Star Wars." They were old enough when it came out that the whole phenomenon smacked of kiddie sci-fi space opera, something they'd long since outgrown. If you mention Star Wars to my mother, her only frame of reference is "all them stupid little dolls your brother had."

:lol: Yes, I think it's generational. My folks only saw them because I got into it as a kid - saw the first one on TV about 1982 (after playing with the figures for a year or two). ROTJ was my ninth birthday outing - must have been hell for my folks, a dozen kids that age in the cinema.... Was a year or two later I finally saw the middle film.... in fact, I think I was about thirteen (we didn't have a VCR in our house until 1990, so anything which we missed in the cinema, that was it until regular, terrestrial television (one of four channels) screened it. But for my brother and I, my folks wouldn't have seen it, as it was both for kids (which they weren't) and sci-fi (which interested neither of them).

My mother has never watched it, because of the scene where Zuzu says "Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings." She said that scene in the preview makes her gag. Sometimes I wonder how we're related :eusa_doh:

Ha.... it's actually one of very few schmaltzy things I can take.... though I do prefer the Married with Children parody where the angel almost gives p because everyone's life really is so much better without Al Bundy..... only for Al to decide to live to spite them all. :lol:

Though I'm a big Stanley Kubrick fan, the one movie I've never seen, or more accurately, never got around to seeing, is A Clockwork Orange.

Don't bother. It has some nice sequences, and I loved the soundtrack, but as a whole it suffers badly both visually and story-wise. Visually from being hideously dated in its vision of the future (a future which is extremely 1973); story-wise from the fact that it was based on the US edition of the novel. I've heard a rumour Kubrick didn't even know another version existed... I don't know if that is a myth. Essentially, the US publishers wanted an upbeat ending, so they cut out the epilogue, in which Alex returns home ready to start up where he left off, but all his mates have met girls, gown up, moved on and left him behind. An essential, final cap to the whole satire, which totally changes the ending as compared to stopping it short at "I was cured!".

Me neither. And to this day I've never seen E.T. From all I heard about it at the time and since, E.T. was a reflection of Spielberg's Disney phase when he aspired to be the next Walt Disney.

Loved ET as an eight year old, but I think to see it again now would make me vomit. I truly don't rate Spielberg as a director in general - chiefly because of the lumpen, craven, mawkish sentimentality that is his hallmark. Schindler was beautifully handled, I'll give him that, but.... monkeys, typewriters, Shakespeare.....

Any American who was alive and functional in the 80s or 90s would have had that one thrust at them from all directions every December, maybe. It wasn't ever broadcasted here in the 80s or 90s.

I saw it (for the first time) this Christmas so now I don't have to again. I know lots of people love it, but it was most decidedly not my thing.

Now go and hunt out the Married with Children Christmas Special that parodies it. Hilarious stuff. I would see if I could post it, but currently in Beijing and Youtube is unavailable here. Bound to be at least some choice clips on there...

I'm surprised when people haven't seen Gone With The Wind too. And The Jungle Book. Also, for people my age and younger, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Matrix.

I wish I'd never seen the Matrix trilogy - only the first one. The sequels were almost as pronounced a case of poor and unnecessary reprisals of a franchise devaluing the first as were the execrable Star Wars prequels.


I think the advent of home video which gave people the ability to be more selective and give their movie choices a more tailor-made, narrower focus have resulted in a suprisingly large number of people who have never seen many of the movies that most of us thought that everyone had seen. Back in the days when these movies were regularly shown on TV it was, as Flicka said, hard not to see them.

Home video, multi-channels (I've never paid for subscription television, but with free to air options over digital alone, I now have 40+ channels available), on-demand services, online-services.... It is all so tailored to the individual now that some element of the old communal approach - "we all watched this in the cinema / on television because that is what was on this week" - is gone. Yes, vast increases in quantity certainly haven't provided vast increases in quality, but for all that I often find very good, very watchable content on now that I will enjoy rather than the mindless pap produced by the likes of Simon Cowell [/spits] that pollutes the mainstream. If we went back to the old days, I would in no short order end up adopting a very Marxist view of television. Groucho, that is.

Contrast that with today, where only a self-identified movie buff will seek out and watch anything in black and white, let alone some grade-B Lee Tracy-Glenda Farrell programmer from 1932. Nowadays, most people only watch the films of their own generation, and have little if any awareness of anything that predates them.

Which is, of course, how they can get away with so many remakes!

There is a great scene in the film Home Alone showing the family has made it to France for their Christmas vacation. The kids are bored to tears watching a dubbed to French version of It's a Wonderful Life. I believe it's the scene where George says no to Potter regarding the job offer. Stunning!

Seems apt - that's how I would feel watching Home Alone ever again. That, and seething with anger at the people who condemned Reservoir Dogs while lauding this tripe as a "lovely family film" - despite it being far more violent yet with no depiction that violence has any consequences... grrrr

lol



Don't even bother with Top Gun.

Yes, save yourself a couple of hours and head to a recruitment presentation from the USN instead. It's the same thing - only no doubt with a better soundtrack and no Tom Cruise. Bonus. The only thing Top Gun is good for is as the butt of the joke in Tarrantino's cameo in Sleep With Me(?), where he does a monologue about the hidden gay subtext of Top Gun. It's not far off Mr Brown's interpretation of Like a Virgin.

To me, it's generational. For someone with 10 years of me on either side, I'd have to say The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Jaws (also a huge big deal when it was released, the original Planet of the Apes, Bullitt, Easy Rider, and The Exorcist.

Exactly.

Oh, and Easy rider...... what a pile of overrated crap that was. Truly appalling. Vanishing Point was an infinitely superior take on the same sort of theme.

I was discussing epic movies with a Young Person once and "Ten Commandments" came up. "Oh, I wouldn't want to bother with that," she said. "I can't stand those Jesus movies."

Um.

:lol:

Superb - almost fell off my chair at that one.
 

Two Types

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,456
Location
London, UK
My daughter often tries to get her friends to watch 'Hellzapoppin'. they say things like 'but it's in black and white!' and refuse to watch it. That's a film that everyone should have seen. I hate to thing how many times I've seen it over the last 30 years. I still laugh at all the jokes. And the songs have me singing them around the house for days afterwards.

And anyone who hasn't watched 'West Side Story', then cried at the end, does not have a heart.

EDIT: I forgot to say, I've never seen Jaws ....
 

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