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Basking In The Trivial

“Important” Movies That We’ve Never Seen (And Probably Never Will)

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While I miss certain things about my 20s (my ass from back then, my ignorance of what horrors the future held, how there was no Facebook), I’m generally far happier and healthier, and definitely more secure these days. One of the biggest things that has changed since I grew up (if what you can call my condition now is “grownup,” which, I dunno) is that I no longer feel compelled to appear like I’m on top of/familiar with/appreciative of so many movies that I really do not give A. Shit. About.

I love movies! I’m even fairly knowledgeable about them. But in my younger days, I found myself in the worst position, as I was an intellectually insecure person (as we perhaps all were when we were 22?) but a stubborn lazy one. So while everyone else talked about how fucking AMAZING the symbolism was while watching Rubin and Ed (is it REALLY?) I snuck outside to my 92 Geo Metro and read a book to avoid watching it and pretending like I appreciated The Cinema.

These days, I’m cool with the fact that there are a lot of movies that “YOU MUST” see that I haven’t — and that I probably never will. Go ahead, tell me how I’m a crappy intellectual lightweight for not seeing them, I’m cool with that! I’m forty fucking two.

I’ll bet there are some “essential” movies you haven’t seen either. Out yourself. It feels good.

Here are a few of mine and Beth’s:

Neither of us have never seen Gremlins, which Beth says her boyfriend “can’t believe.” Maybe we just missed the window? Just listening to the small amount of trailer that played as I grabbed the embed code irritated me.

Beth has “never seen ANY James Bond movie.”

I’ve never seen Gone With The Wind. Get this: I even had a GWTW poster when I was in middle school, and I acted like I’d seen it! WTF middle school Eve.

Beth told me yesterday that she’s never seen Die Hard, which explains why she hasn’t gotten, like, 70% of the jokes I make on the regular.

I’ve never seen Casablanca. But I’ve found time to see all the Transporter movies a jillion times, and own them on DVD. UNREPENTANT.

“I do not need to see Return of the Jedi. I’m 36.” — Beth

I get all your references (Fredo, boat, ring, kiss, etc) but I’ve never seen any of the Godfather movies. I’m good, thanks.

Beth’s never seen Rocky.

And I’ve never seen Rudy, which is weird because 1) I love inspirational sports movies, 2) am from Indiana (where it was set).

I know, you’re shocked. Here we are, two urbane, well-educated women bragging about how willfully ignorant we are about Great Moments In The Movies! You must be so upset. But. I know there are “significant” movies that you haven’t seen, either. Come to the dark side (Beth, I’ll explain that to you later). Confess.

  • I’m not sure anyone at any age needed to see “Return of the Jedi.” As Hurley said on LOST “The Ewoks totally sucked, dude.”

  • My husband recently discovered that I had never seen “Mary Poppins,” and he thought that was kind of a big deal and needed to be remedied immediately. On the other hand, he has never seen “Field of Dreams,” which I think is totally weird, because he’s a dude and he loves baseball.

    Also, Humphrey Bogart is dreamy in “Casablanca.” You won’t be sorry if you watch it.

  • Jon

    HOW HAVE YOU NOT SEEN CASABLANCA WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU GO TO THE STANFORD THEATER THE NEXT TIME IT COMES THROUGH AND SEND ME THE RECEIPT.

    I hadn’t seen The Godfather until a couple weeks ago. I’m 42.

    Gone With The Wind is the most overrated film of all time and has the worse effect of making half the college girls in the south think Scarlett O’Hara is a role model. Spoiler alert: Scarlett O’Hara is starter marriage material.

    • Brock Keeling

      Gone With The Wind is genius. AND RACIST.

  • Brock Keeling

    I’ve never seen Die Hard or The Big Lebowski.

    • Rick H

      I’m sending my DVD copy over to your place via Kozmo.com right now..

  • Rain

    Of all those, the only one I deem a MUST is Gremlins.

    Yes. Gremlins before Casablanca and The Godfather.

  • My only reaction to (most) of these unrepentant admissions is: YOUR LOSS. (Most of) These movies are really, really great and not at all challenging or slow or pretentious (especially Casablanca and the Godfather: they’re classics but they’re totally engrossing and watchable.) Why not DVR The Voice or Girls or whatever and check (most) of these out instead. You could even, you know, write about it later.

  • anthony faber

    I’m a hardcore sci-fi nerd, but I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars films., Ditto for the Star Trek films. I liked that kind of stuff when I was a kid, but I outgrew it. As for James Bond I aged out of that right before Roger Moore took over as Bond. I may have seen Casablanca on TV as a kid, but otherwise I haven’t seen any of these either.

  • Tim

    Don’t they throw you out of the country if you haven’t seen Rocky? They should.

  • morro

    I’ve never seen Gremlins either. (Or Rudy, but–Rudy??–who cares?) I’VE NEVER SEEN THE GRADUATE–do I win?

    You really should see Casablanca and The Godfather and Die Hard. They’re not film snob movies, they’re movies pretty much anyone will like.

    A weird experience is finally seeing a movie everyone else has seen, like, ten years later. This happened to me with The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, and The Matrix. The first two, my reaction was kind of, ‘meh’. I didn’t dislike them, but I also kind of didn’t get what all the fuss was about.

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