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Top 3 “Important” Films I Just Can’t Watch

January 15th, 2009 · 28 Comments

Note: The responses to this post have been great. A lot of people have been really thoughtful and forthcoming, which has led me to do a lot more thinking about the entire subject I’m raising here. So for the record, this will now become part one of a three-part series. Ooh! Ahh!

Part 2 will cover movies we love that others don’t care for, and Part 3 will explore where we develop our particular expectations and tastes for films. Let’s keep the conversation going, y’all!

Do you have movies that you assume you’ll like—that everyone has insisted you’ll like—but that you just can’t bring yourself to watch?

I ask because I’ve been staring at my Netflix DVD of The Visitor for days. The reviews are great, I really like Richard Jenkins, and his co-star Danai Gurira co-wrote and co-starred in one of the best plays I’ve ever seen in New York. And yet… I just can’t do it.

That’s partly because of my apathy. After gorging last week on Oscar bait like Wendy and Lucy, Frozen River, and Changeling, my cinematic synapses are overloaded.

But my other reason is more ineffable: Somehow, this movie just looks too “good” for me. Like, it’s going to teach me too many lessons or something. Does that make sense?

After the jump, I’ll reveal my Top 3 “Important” Films I Just Can’t Watch. Please let me know what yours are! And if you think I’m making a huge mistake with one of my choices, then tell me why.

(1) Apocalypse, Now – God help me, I’ve rented this movie over and over again, on both VHS and DVD, only to have it sit there collecting tortilla chip crumbs. I know it’s a classic. I know I’d probably like it. But 3 hours of watching crazy people get even crazier in Vietnam? Ugh… it feels like a commitment that requires Prozac.

(2) Knocked Up – As some of you may know, I had a long-time resistance to all things Apatow until I saw (and enjoyed) The 40 Year-Old Virgin.

However, it turns out that softening on Apatow didn’t get me past my aversion to Seth Rogen, whom I find ridiculously unappealing.

Looking at his CV, I realize I’ve only seen him in Virgin and Donnie Darko, and since I don’t remember him in either, my attitude is entirely based on his media appearances. And in those, he comes across like a smug, fratty asshole who’s trying to pretend he’s just a regular dude. So… I can’t do it.

(Also, it doesn’t help that he’s in a movie called Fanboys, which is on my shortlist for the most irritating word of all time.)

(3) An Inconvenient Truth – It depresses me enough to read about the environmental crisis in the news. I don’t need to watch a film that reinforces the point, even if it’s a double Oscar winner that stars my former home-state senator.

Tags: Movies

28 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Adam // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    1. Lawrence of Arabia
    2. Blade Runner
    3. Anything with Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, etc. I know it’s good for me, but I just can’t do it!

    Good question!

  • 2 Mark Blankenship // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    Ooh! Blade Runner’s a good one! I started it once (on VHS, so that was a while ago), and I couldn’t get past the first ten minutes.

  • 3 JennyM // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:35 pm

    Oh, I’ll go.

    (For the record, I found Knocked Up pleasant, but I wouldn’t recommend that you rush out and see it. Mostly because Seth Rogan’s character is kind of a smug, fratty asshole despite his theoretical redemptive arc.)

    1. The Godfather (any parts) — I’ve seen bits and pieces here and there and Great Cinema and all, sure, but I feel like this is one of those that I’m going to get to the end and be all, “Okay, so there’s that,” but I’ll have to pretend to be all blown away. Just thinking about it makes me tired.

    2. March of the Penguins. Just… no? Nature’s a sometimes cute but ulitmately cruel and cutthroat bitch, man, I already know that. I’m not terribly interested in having my heart ripped out of my chest and stomped on just for kicks, Morgan Freeman and breathtaking cinematography notwithstanding.

    3. Crash. The critical adoration, the critical sneering, the backlash, the backlash against the backlash, and the feeling from the reviews and interviews with the actors that this movie is trying very hard to teach me a Very Important Lesson About Our Times really left me cold and so far I haven’t shaken it. I keep moving it to the back of the Netflix queue.

  • 4 stephanie // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    i gave into one of my “can’t watch” movies recently – the 300. turned it off after 20 minutes. i should have trusted my instincts. now all i wish is that i could go back and undo it. i want to say “never saw it” instead of “good lord if that isn’t the most overrated movie of all time not made by robert altman, i don’t know what is”. now i am fearful for watchmen when i was only uber geeked up for watchmen. *sigh*

  • 5 Nelson // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    1) Citizen Kane. I Netflixed this thing and it sat there for almost 2 months. I finally managed to piece it together, doing it in several sittings.

    2) 7 Samurai. I might be more successful if it weren’t 3 plus hours long.

    3) Schindler’s List. Look, we know how it ends. Does it have to be EXTRA depressing in b&w?

  • 6 katy // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    1. Deerhunter. I watched the grueling Russian roulette scene for a college class one time and wrote an internal post-it note to myself: self, don’t ever, EVER see this film.

    2. Godfather films. All of them. And yes, I know it’s supposed to be the best film of all time, and blah blah blah. I just really don’t like media about gangsters. I suppose I just don’t like to subject myself to stories where much of the tension is based on when family members are going to kill other family members. And I don’t find the I’m-a-tough-masculine-straight-dude-with-an-intense-emotional-connection-to-my-male-relatives thing to be that alluring.

    3. Revolutionary Road. Um, I’m sorry, but that trailer makes that film look about as pleasant to spend two hours with as the DMV office. (Which is not, as I understand it, what trailers are generally supposed to do.) It looks depressing, bereft of hope or joy, and like it gets worse and worse throughout the film. Listen, I like Winslet and DiCaprio both very much; I respect them both as actors and I’m sure their performances are outstanding. I just think that 1950s suburban malaise is already a pretty well-worn subject and I don’t want to learn that lesson again, sorry.

  • 7 Laura Mc. // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:51 pm

    Yeah, I think “important” films more often than not fall under the category of making our secret guilt explicit in a simple, preachy plot which moralizes about how the circumstance should never have been there to begin with. I haven’t seen Gore’s diatribe either because I can get the same experience by watching the weather channel and hanging with my normal crew of vegan environmentalists..

    1. An Inconvenient Truth
    2. Life is Beautiful (all the way through)
    3. The Piano

  • 8 Destiny // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    Wow, Lawrence of Arabia is my favorite film of all time. Hands down. You’re missing out there, Adam. I see your Charlie Chaplin and W.C. Fields, and raise you a Marx Brothers. As a classic film aficionado, it’s tough to admit that I just can’t seem to watch those movies. I too have steered clear of Knocked Up and Apocalypse Now for some reason, but here are my top three.

    1. Independence Day (I don’t know if it’s an “important” film, but everyone else has seen it.
    2. The Last Picture Show (I just never seem to be in the mood for it)
    3. Bonnie & Clyde ( I have started this one at least 5 times and never made it through)

  • 9 Laura Mc. // Jan 15, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    (now that others have spoken up first!!)

    4. Schindler’s List. Right, I mean, all sorts of totally expected bad news.

    5. Citizen Cane. Rosebud, snow globes, surely some failed romance, whatever. Give me Barbara Stanwyck any day.

  • 10 katy // Jan 15, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    Oh lord, Mark, just read your review of Revolutionary Road. Seems you and I both are tired of the suburban expose. Your critique of the movie was mine of the trailer …

  • 11 Carol Elaine // Jan 15, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    Heh. Try having a boyfriend who is an uber film geek. Most of the important movies I’d never seen before we met have now been seen, because we go to the movies all the time. New movies, revival houses, free screenings – everything. I’ve seen more movies in theaters in the ten months we’ve been dating than I had in the previous five years combined.

    Not that I’m complaining. I love movies too and am glad that I finally saw 2001 (our second date – in 70mm, no less), Citizen Kane, The Last Picture Show (I’ve gotten to know Clu Gulager – the man who seduces teen Cybil Sheppard on a pool table – thanks to my boyfriend), Apocalypse Now, etc. I don’t regret a single one. I’m really looking forward to seeing Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm when it pops up again. And since I live in L.A., it will pop up again.

    However, there are a few important movies I haven’t seen and that I’m not all that interested in seeing (though my honey will probably get me to see them regardless):

    1) Godfather Trilogy – just not interested. Sorry.

    2) Revolutionary Road – suburban malaise = boring. I’ve lived it. Don’t need to watch it.

    3) Life is Beautiful – again, absolutely no interest in this movie.

  • 12 Laurie // Jan 15, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    1. Gallipoli–tried multiple times, end up snoring away after 20 minutes
    2. any James Bond movie–ditto
    3. Revolutionary Road–looks too gruesome to be borne

  • 13 va bene // Jan 15, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    1. Schindler’s List

    2. The Godfather Movies

    3. An Inconvenient Truth

    Generally I don’t want to watch depressing movies, I guess. I also really don’t like to watch period pieces, so I tend to avoid those as well.

  • 14 timothy // Jan 15, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    Knocked Up is seriously one of the funniest movies i have ever seen.

  • 15 Jenn // Jan 15, 2009 at 10:14 pm

    I agree about Blade Runner. I’m going to add Deliverance and Casablanca to that.

  • 16 Andy // Jan 16, 2009 at 12:43 am

    So, I know that feeling, but you should totally get The Visitor. It is really great. Quiet, but well worth it.

    1. Life is Beautiful

    2. Requiem for a Dream – I just do want to go there.

    3. Kids – Again, just a bit darker than I actually want to deal with

    4. Chariots of Fire

  • 17 ferretrick // Jan 16, 2009 at 9:49 am

    1. Chariots of Fire, definitely. Everyone I know who’s seen it says its incredibly boring.

    2. Lawrence of Arabia-I just can’t. Seriously.

    3. The Searchers-had a college film professor who thought this was the best film of all time and showed us a few clips, then lectured about the symbolism of the shot of a character WHO WAS JUST STANDING IN A DOORWAY WATCHING PEOPLE RIDE AWAY. He seemed to think this magnificent shot symbolized the womb, and birth, and sex, etc. and went on for another hour. I’d have PTSD flashbacks if I attempted to watch the whole thing.

  • 18 Eric Gilde // Jan 16, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    1. Barry Lyndon/Paths of Glory – I adore Kubrick, and so much has been written about these two. The sort of stuff that makes me know I would love them totally and completely if I ever sat down and watched them. I just haven’t yet! The sort of film that you wait forever to watch because you keep holding out for the PERFECT opportunity to see it.

    2. Wild Strawberries – I’ve seen one or two Bergman films, and liked them. But I’ve watched the first 5 minutes of this one probably four times and then thought, “Nah, maybe some other time.”

    3. The Olivier Hamlet – Just haven’t watched it. Sat on my dvr for almost a year. Then I moved

  • 19 Vickylee // Jan 16, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    I was actually quote by a friend to another, “Braveheart has all the elements of a movie I would like– yet I do not want to see it.” I saw it under duress… and I want that 3 hours back.

    I’ve held firm with avoiding Pulp Fiction and Boys Don’t Cry.

    I don’t know if it’s some sort of reverse snobbery (or just regular snobbery), but when I start getting bludgeoned on the head with YOU MUST SEE THIS, I tune out and go to the park to play. I guess I’ll replace Braveheart with There Will Be Blood.

  • 20 LK // Jan 16, 2009 at 5:17 pm

    1. An Inconvenient Truth–I can’t bring myself to watch this one, but for a different reason than most. My former Senator has done more damage to the country than few before him by spewing lies and political propaganda. “Global Warming,” will occur because we live on a planet the revolves around a sun that goes through cooling and warming phases. Seriously, if we set out to destroy our self-cleaning planet, where would be start? Humans seem to think we’re much more important then we really are.
    2. Any Batman film–I will admit, I made an attempt to watch “The Dark Night,” but I was horrifyingly bored 2 minutes in.
    3. Ben Hur–According to my father, this is a cinematic masterpiece that cannot be surpassed. I never quite figured that one out. Of course, this is also the man who was so confused by Mission Impossible that he actually went online trying to figure it out.

  • 21 Chip // Jan 16, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    Star Wars sequels. Any of them. Come to think of it, Star Wars.

  • 22 Amanda // Jan 17, 2009 at 1:20 am

    1. Annie Hall-tried this one. Why is it so famous?
    2. The Karate Kid-at this point, I just don’t feel like it’s going to happen.
    3. Hotel Rwanda-I don’t think I could handle it.

  • 23 Mark Blankenship // Jan 17, 2009 at 2:55 pm

    Hey Amanda!

    Hotel Rwanda is really, really disturbing. You may be doing yourself a favor.

  • 24 Michael // Jan 17, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    Mark, you did ask for it. I’m amazed by the range of titles on this list–maybe the category is inevitably huge, but it seems to me that it’s a pretty big tent you’ve erected when the forces trying to persuade y’all to watch a Seth Rogan comedy and Citizen Kane are somehow listed together. Nobody in the world should watch Seth Rogan comedy if she doesn’t want to. What is there to discuss? Who cares if you don’t want to see the Karate Kid, for heaven’s sake? The 300? Just opened at the Hell Cineplex. The James Bond films. Congratulate yourself on saved time: by now you could take a pottery class. But Citizen Kane might, just might, be worth stretching yourself to experience. SO: Harrumph!! As probably the oldest guy reading this blog, and a professor as well, I do read these comments with a hurting heart. You know how it is–when somebody responds to something that transformed the world for you with an uncaring shrug. First observation: a LOT of these examples are dramas that have the capacity to be disturbing, and have a lot of stylistic distinction: does serious and stylized equal too difficult to bother with for y’all? Aren’t you setting a pretty serious limit for yourself there? (You mean Hotel Rwanda SHOULDN’T be disturbing?) Of course, that little act of shaming (you’re welcome) doesn’t cover all the examples: I know by now that many in the rising generation don’t get the eccentric joy of the Marx brothers. All I can say is ouch. Annie Hall? I guess you have to imagine a world where Woody Allen wasn’t the worn-out fixture he is now, where suddenly there was this this truly unexpected personal honesty arising out of a semi-autobiographical film by a previously pretty gimmicky comedian–but it helps if you can manage a crush on Diane Keaton and recognize the originality of the since-greatly-imitated ways of breaking the frame–subtitles, direct audience address, split screen with intercommentary. And there’s a very human, real story of a failed romance in there. Ah, well. The Godfather films, too, suffer from being lumped in with everything that came after–I HATE gangster films that in any way glorify the criminality and violence , but there’s a real moral intelligence to these and just superabundant American-style realistic acting from a generation of first-rate actors–and Lee Strasberg even shows his stuff. I can’t manage Goodfellas, but the first and especially the second Godfather? Art. Now, if you can’t manage Chaplin (truly? not at all? I mean, they’re period pieces, certainly, but . . . not even out of curiosity? Really?) W.C. Fields (who takes more patience, but–really?), I am tempted to speak to you pityingly. Or just sadly. Is Chaplin too sentimental for you? Sorry, but I have to ask–is that a limitation in you or in him? All that said/scolded, I acknowledge I can’t manage Apocalypse Now or any other war film–I think it has to do with being the child of a wounded war veteran. Barry Lyndon is a travesty as far as I’m concerned, amazingly punishing, but then I pretty much loathe being in Kubrickworld–and maybe I’m missing something there. The Piano is, for me, a visually arresting but brainless farrago–feminism needs more smarts than this. And I applaud you all on your sense that suburban malaise is a worn-out topic–say amen, somebody! Everybody? And Chariots of Fire? (Does EVERYONE say it’s boring? Really?) Deerhunter? Bonnie and Clyde? Crash? Well, chacun a son gout. But I find the willingness to shrug off difficult work here disturbing; you’ve all grown up with film in a way my generation never did, but if it’s made you unwilling to take a few sterner adventures . . . well, I’m generalizing and doubtlessly unfairly. But I wonder what expectations you have of film that some of these usually-listed-masterpieces don’t fulfill. And I wonder if any of you will feel differently a decade later . . .

  • 25 Amanda // Jan 18, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    I kind of thought this was supposed to be a fun exercise. I mean, it kills ME to hear that people don’t want to watch An Inconvenient Truth, but I’m not going to browbeat them about it. And I’ve spent plenty of my young life (as a fifth grader who rocked out to Paul Simon and Don Henley, for example, while my friends were listening to NKOTB) feeling that someone shrugged off art that was life-changing for me. Sheesh. Mostly, though, there is NOTHING that can make me feign appreciation for Diane Keaton. Except maybe those makeup commercials. Girl DOES look young for her age!

  • 26 a little self-pimping… | just an ordinary goddess… // Jan 22, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    [...] on a comment I left on The Critical Condition, I was invited to submit a guest movie review, which is up today. [...]

  • 27 katy // Feb 2, 2009 at 1:01 pm

    Michael, I just saw your comment above.

    Jeez louise, I’m in Mark’s generation, but I’m a phD (almost), a grown woman in my thirties, and I feel pretty confident in my ability to handle thematic and stylistic complexity. (If not, well, I believe you’re the one who taught me aesthetics and criticism. :) ) I’ve certainly been enthusiastically involved with some really inscrutable theater.

    I do think that the grimness and mood of ennui / nihilism that must have seemed very fresh in the 1960s / 1970s is starting to become a filmmaking crutch in the 2000s, and that that affects how I read films like Deerhunter or The Godfather. Obviously it will never be possible for me to see those films as audiences saw them in the 1970s, and no doubt that affects my enthusiasm about seeing them now.

    Often the nihilism of contemporary film feels false to me, like the people making the film don’t really believe that this is the way the world is, but that they think it makes a Beautiful and Important movie if they depict the world being this way. (I’m looking at you, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and MYSTIC RIVER.) When I watch something like Bonnie and Clyde, I have to remind myself that that that sense of futility and meaninglessness was itself a kind of moral statement at the time the film was made.

    And I will admit that the older I get, the more emotionally and personally sensitive I am to films that just flood and overwhelm me with sadness and violence. Those films sometimes leave me upset for days, and sometimes, yes, that’s not what I want to happen when I leave a movie theater. I will admit to being leery of this experience; I wept myself to sleep after No Country For Old Men, and I’m not convince that was because it was such good Art.

    Of course, I see films like Hotel Rwanda (or Schindler’s List, or insert-your-favorite-tragic-film here) differently, because I do think the sadness and violence of those films is accompanied by some redemptive sense of hope, however modest. I think both of those films are ultimately about *meaningfulness,* even if what they show is the ugliest transgression of that meaning.

    I will admit that I crave films and art that depict the world as meaningful and goodness as possible. Am I wanting everything dumbed down and sugarcoated? I don’t know; I don’t think so. Am I asking to be lied to? Well, that’s a matter of your worldview, of course, but I hope not. Again, I don’t expect to be shown fairy tales all the time, but I don’t think false nihilism is good for me as a person, or for the world as a whole.

    And I’m entirely okay with Chaplin et al, although I’m mostly fascinated as a historian and not as a filmgoer. But not everybody’s a historian, you know, Michael. :)

  • 28 nhe // Feb 12, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    1. “2001 – A Space Odyssey” – I’m just thoroughly convince I’ll be bored

    2. “Once Upon A Time in The West” – I get a lot flack for saying “Western” is my favorite genre when I tell people I haven’t seen this…..I think I will get to it, but it looks like I’ll be uninspired

    3. “Seven Samurai” – hated “The Magnificent Seven” movie, but loved the TV series – I’m curious about this but afraid it will require too much effort to get all the way through.

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