Movies You're Embarrassed To Say You Haven't Watched

[GA!]

5 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Yeah, not embarrassed but most classics over 2 and a half hours are ones I haven't seen; The Godfather 2, Lawrence of Arabia, La Dolce Vita etc. I find it harder to immerse myself in long films at home -- not exactly having the resources to make it very cinematic, and I end up never doing them justice. I just wait and try and catch them in the cinema, like I did with Barry Lyndon recently which was incredible. 

Agreed - it's very difficult. I love Ben Hur, but I was fortunate enough to watch that at Sheffield's Showroom Cinema as part of my degree. Whereas I find Lawrence of Arabia just okay and Gone with the Wind fucking terrible, but they may be because I watched it on a 27" TV.

EDIT: Better clarify - Arabia I could do with the cinema experience. Gone with the Wind, though, has the funniest ending ever but I don't think that's the intention.

Funny you should mention Godfather 2 actually. I've been meaning to watch the second half of that since 2004.

[Rich]

6 minutes ago, GA! said:

Agreed - it's very difficult. I love Ben Hur, but I was fortunate enough to watch that at Sheffield's Showroom Cinema as part of my degree. Whereas I find Lawrence of Arabia just okay and Gone with the Wind fucking terrible, but they may be because I watched it on a 27" TV.

EDIT: Better clarify - Arabia I could do with the cinema experience. Gone with the Wind, though, has the funniest ending ever but I don't think that's the intention.

Funny you should mention Godfather 2 actually. I've been meaning to watch the second half of that since 2004.

Godfather 2 is wonderful, just saying.

[GA!]

I remember struggling to get into it and then falling asleep, but I was only just starting out as a pseudo-film buff back then. I didn't fully appreciate The Godfather until I rewatched it again several years later.

[MDK]

Lawrence of Arabia is great, I love that film.

I suppose a lot of foreign language films and films that are considered classics or changed the way film was made. So like some of the silent films or the pre code era. So basically all of the stuff that Jimmy studied >_>

38 minutes ago, GA! said:

Agreed - it's very difficult. I love Ben Hur, but I was fortunate enough to watch that at Sheffield's Showroom Cinema as part of my degree. Whereas I find Lawrence of Arabia just okay and Gone with the Wind fucking terrible, but they may be because I watched it on a 27" TV.

EDIT: Better clarify - Arabia I could do with the cinema experience. Gone with the Wind, though, has the funniest ending ever but I don't think that's the intention.

Funny you should mention Godfather 2 actually. I've been meaning to watch the second half of that since 2004.

Yeah, I would imagine I would like Lawrence even more if I saw it on the big screen.

[TKz]

Lawrence of Arabia and 2001. I keep missing my chances to see them on a cinema screen and don't really want to settle for a 32inch TV.

[RPS]

58 minutes ago, MDK said:

I suppose a lot of foreign language films and films that are considered classics or changed the way film was made. So like some of the silent films or the pre code era. So basically all of the stuff that Jimmy studied >_>

Silent era films are great. You need a weekend of watching Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Fairbanks and Garbo films. 

[MalaCloudy Black]

I saw Lawrence of Arabia on VHS on like a 19" tube TV. When I was a kid, this woman down the street babysat me and that was her husband's favorite film. When he was home from work early or taking a day off we watched that for what felt like.. all freaking afternoon.

I honestly can't think of any movies I'm "embarrassed" to say I haven't watched..

[apsham]

3 hours ago, Little Red Srarvette said:

Really? I thought literally the entire planet went to see The Matrix when it came out

Well, I was 9 when it came out and even though I wasn't all that sheltered we never ran up to the city to the movie theatre all that much. When it came on video rental in my town I was the kid who was renting all the Star Wars movies and WWF tapes every weekend so I never really saw it then and these days I just rarely get around to movies on my to-do list.

[RPS]

I saw The Matrix as a kid and never bothered with any of the sequels when I was younger. I revisited them two years ago and I actually thought the second and third movie stood up as good. Nowhere near the first one, but they were very good popcorn action films. 

[Your Mom]

36 minutes ago, RPS said:

I saw The Matrix as a kid and never bothered with any of the sequels when I was younger. I revisited them two years ago and I actually thought the second and third movie stood up as good. Nowhere near the first one, but they were very good popcorn action films. 

The sequels just made me really mad

[RPS]

4 minutes ago, Little Red Srarvette said:

The sequels just made me really mad

Why? I'm really curious. I never understood the strong dislike for them and never really read too much into why people hate them. 

[Your Mom]

1 minute ago, RPS said:

Why? I'm really curious. I never understood the strong dislike for them and never really read too much into why people hate them. 

You also have the benefit of hindsight. At the time they were built up as the biggest thing on the planet and they released them both in the same year because "Once you see the end of 2 you won't be able to wait to see 3!!" The original Matrix was a phenomenon at the time and for some reason everyone thought the sequels were going to be even better and I mean they were mostly garbage.

[HailtotheYo]

I JUST watched Life Is Beautiful this weekend ... it's the only one that comes to mind in terms of movies you absolutely should have watched, that I hadn't. 

[Liam]

12 hours ago, GA! said:

Not embarrassed per se, but I've never seen any Rocky, Mission Impossible, or Bourne films.

I've also never seen Goodfellas, and I've been meaning to watch the second half of Apocalypse Now for about five years now.

The first Rocky is a legitimately good film.

[GA!]

Just now, RPS said:

Why? I'm really curious. I never understood the strong dislike for them and never really read too much into why people hate them. 

I get the impression from them the Wachowskis didn't fully understand why The Matrix became a phenomena. Audiences were all about the kung fu and bullet time shit, but the sequels seemed to think the defining moment of the original was "choose the red pill or blue pill". So, we get laborious scenes of cod-philosophy which really makes the films a drag, and the admirable attempts at world building that always fall short in Wachowskis' films because it's still style over substance. While I think they're a bit crap, Reloaded and Revolutions are okay with me because at least it tries to defy expectation.

Also to note I watched The Matrix films years after the hype. All I remember from when Reloaded was released in the summer of 2003 was how I did two weeks work experience at a cinema, and Reloaded had come and gone in that time. It really did leave a sour taste in people's mouths, and the hype died in record time.

[RPS]

2 minutes ago, GA! said:

I get the impression from them the Wachowskis didn't fully understand why The Matrix became a phenomena. Audiences were all about the kung fu and bullet time shit, but the sequels seemed to think the defining moment of the original was "choose the red pill or blue pill". So, we get laborious scenes of cod-philosophy which really makes the films a drag, and the admirable attempts at world building that always fall short in Wachowskis' films because it's still style over substance. While I think they're a bit crap, Reloaded and Revolutions are okay with me because at least it tries to defy expectation.

I thought the cod-philosophy was worth an eye-roll here or there because it tried too hard and at no point was I trying to look deeper into the movie for meaning. But I think I enjoyed the movies because, as you said, they defied expectations.

To your point on style over substance, I actually think the problem was that it was over-saturated with "substance". What people appreciated in the first movies were the style - the kung fu, the action set pieces and bullet time stuff - but the audiences were completely turned off by the substance of the philosophical overtones in the later movies. 

[MDK]

26 minutes ago, Liam said:

The first Rocky is a legitimately good film.

Rocky is a great film 

[Liam]

9 minutes ago, MDK said:

Rocky is a great film 

Oh yeah, I mean it is a classic, but I felt like just assuaging any initial reticence towards the film based on it being about boxing.

[Your Mom]

58 minutes ago, RPS said:

I thought the cod-philosophy was worth an eye-roll here or there because it tried too hard and at no point was I trying to look deeper into the movie for meaning. But I think I enjoyed the movies because, as you said, they defied expectations.

To your point on style over substance, I actually think the problem was that it was over-saturated with "substance". What people appreciated in the first movies were the style - the kung fu, the action set pieces and bullet time stuff - but the audiences were completely turned off by the substance of the philosophical overtones in the later movies. 

This is about right. I didn't want long talking. I wanted Keanu slow motion Kung Fu beating the fuck out of dudes

[Jimmy]

4 hours ago, RPS said:

Silent era films are great. You need a weekend of watching Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Fairbanks and Garbo films. 

Throw in some Murnau, Lang and D.W Griffith and you've got a pretty well-balanced weekend of incredible comedy and proper drama/horror.