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May 04, 2005

My Cultural Void, And I'm Proud Of It

Shockingly I am getting grief for movies I haven't seen. Unlike the cowed DaveJ I will not succumb to the dual pressures of wine and women; I will not yield!

But to aid in their efforts, here is a list of the "must see" movies that I haven't seen (first list of 50 stolen from Sheila):

1. Another Woman
2. Running on Empty
3. Fearless
4. Opening Night
5. Witness
7. Schindler's List
8. What's Up Doc?
10. On the Waterfront
12. Some Like it Hot
13. Fargo -
14. Bringing Up Baby
16. To Have and Have Not
17. Arizona Dream
19. Moulin Rouge
20. The Double Life of Veronique
21. The Big Sleep
22. Postcards from the Edge
25. East of Eden
28. Contact
30. Magnolia
31. Taxi Driver
32. The Full Monty
33. Breaking Away
37. The Misfits
39. Three Kings
42. Children of Heaven
44. In a Lonely Place
45. Nixon
48. Dead Man Walking
(I will add Sheila that I wish I hadn't seen Reds; oh sure, the interview with the old commies were a hoot, but Keaton and Beatty always invoke a gag reflex)

Others I haven't seen:
St. Elmo's Fire
The Big Chill
Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Ferris Buehler's Day Off
3 Weddings and a Funeral
JFK
Elephant Man
Wall Street
The Last Temptation of Christ
A River Runs Through It
Bridges of Madison County
Born on the Fourth of July
Malcolm X
Natural Born Killers
Hoosiers
Raging Bull
Dead Poets Society
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Life is Beautiful
Scent of a Woman
Eyes Wide Shut
Shawshank Redemption
Forrest Gump

Ah shit, I'll stop there; I could keep going for hours...

Posted by Mr. Bingley at May 4, 2005 01:38 PM

Comments

Oh yes you will yield. Ve haf vays...

Posted by: Emily at May 4, 2005 02:35 PM

I thought everyone on the planet had seen Shawshank Redemption, judging from how much play it gets on television!!

Posted by: red at May 4, 2005 02:37 PM

You're as bad as me, B. On your first list, I've seen three: Witness, Some Like it Hot, and Three Kings.

On the second list, I've seen more. Nine, to be exact:

St. Elmo's Fire
The Big Chill
Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Ferris Buehler's Day Off
3 Weddings and a Funeral
Hoosiers
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Shawshank Redemption
Forrest Gump

It's Four Weddings and a Funeral, thankyouverymuch. And you must see St. Elmo's Fire. I mean it.

Posted by: Lisa at May 4, 2005 02:38 PM

I didn't mean to emphasize Three Kings. Stoopid HTML.

(Well, maybe I did. George Clooney, mmmmm.)

Posted by: Lisa at May 4, 2005 02:39 PM

Shit, I even missed one of the weddings Lisa?

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 4, 2005 02:48 PM

Television? Is that name of that thing that Cartoon Network is on?

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 4, 2005 02:50 PM

I have to admit, I'm right up there with ya, THS. Going through your list, I find that I've seen only 5 of them, so our score is about the same. And, no, St. Elmo's Fire (Demi Moore, mmmmmmmm!) is not among the 5 that I have watched. Indeed, I think I watched only half of "Moulin Rouge", if that makes any difference.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at May 4, 2005 03:17 PM

PS:

But thinking about it.....I might be pressured by wine and women to watch a few of these movies. Or at least wine and a woman. So perhaps my cultural void is not on the same level as yours.

Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at May 4, 2005 03:20 PM

Hey JeffS, lay off the cardamom coffee! This is my list, not that media-saavy THS'!

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 4, 2005 03:36 PM

Come on, Mr. B. After now having met you, I can totally see how someone might confuse you for your sister.

Posted by: Emily at May 4, 2005 03:46 PM

Hmm, ya think the family resemblence is that strong?

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 4, 2005 03:51 PM

I'm a junkie, but still have only seen two of the first list (Schindler's List and Contact). Second list, not much better: only six.

I find it much easier to list stuff I wish I'd never seen, or favorites, rather than stuff I wish I'd gotten to see. It's more concrete, and some movies that turned out to rate highly with me were ones I wouldn't have chosen for myself.

For example, the 90-minute Read Or Die flick was pretty good stuff. Even my brother got into it about halfway through.

Posted by: Nightfly at May 4, 2005 03:53 PM

I've seen 4 from the first list, and 6 from the second.

Posted by: Crusader at May 4, 2005 04:26 PM

A lot of you have been wasting time that would have been put to better use in a bar.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 4, 2005 04:27 PM

Don't be ridiculous. I drink while I watch movies at home. It's more economical and you don't embarrass yourself if you wind up getting vomit on the front of your shirt.

Posted by: Emily at May 4, 2005 05:55 PM

You, my dear, are a highly skilled proffesional; I worry about some of these amateurs in our midst.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 4, 2005 06:01 PM

I haven't seen any of the movies on either your first list or your second. We seem to share a lack of taste for movies.

Posted by: Kathy K at May 4, 2005 08:41 PM

You are a lady of style and elegance, Kathy.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 4, 2005 09:43 PM

Sorry, Mr. Bingley, I posted whilst a tad tired. I guess I just had pecan cookies on my mind.......

Anyway, I acknowledge that your cultural void is more void than my cultural void. Or something like that.

Posted by: The Real JeffS at May 5, 2005 12:58 AM

I da man!

{jumps up and does the Cultural Void Dance}

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 5, 2005 07:42 AM

{jumps up and does the Cultural Void Dance}

Ugh, thanks for the loss of my breakfast on that visual....

Shawshank is really a great movie. I love the short story, tho, so that may cloud my judgement.

Posted by: Crusader at May 5, 2005 09:11 AM

Well, do see On the Waterfront at some point. Not only is it the best movie ever made, but it is an allegory about the need to name names in exposing communist spies in the 50's. The left (i.e. 95% of Hollywood) still hates Kazan. Waterfront was Brando's one great performance. Eva Marie Saint will bare your soul, and Leonard Bernstein did a pretty good job too.

Posted by: Alec Rawls at May 5, 2005 03:33 PM

I'll save you some time. Skip Forest Gump, What's Up Doc, Eyes Wide Shut, Dead Poet's Society and Bridges of Madison County. Stinkers.

Posted by: Rachel at May 5, 2005 05:05 PM

I will see On The Waterfront; I mean, it's Hoboken!

I'm with you there, Rachel; those other ones have no appeal to me.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 5, 2005 07:22 PM

Okay, easier to count what I haven't seen. On Sheila's list, I've missed 14 of them. On Jar-Jar Bingley's list, 8. (And I did see the missing Wedding.) What baffles me completely is why there is no To Kill a Mockingbird or Captain Horatio Hornblower on any of these. (Gregory Peck fetish notwithstanding and having no influence whatsoever on this question.)

I know Major Dad would want me to mention any of the first 3 Alien movies. So there. I did.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 6, 2005 12:45 PM

Or Jean d'Florette and Green Card, because Gerard Depardieu is a big hunkahunka burnin' love, or Manon of the Spring or Date With An Angel, because so is Emmanuelle Beart.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 6, 2005 12:50 PM

I loved Green Card. The scene where he adlibs at the piano is one of the funniest scenes I have ever seen in a movie; it may in fact be the funniest.

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 6, 2005 04:39 PM