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Movies: The humiliation game
Inspired by a similar game in a David Lodge novel, some writers at New York magazine recently played “Humiliation,” where you sit around in a circle and admit what classic novel or movie you’ve never seen. Some films they admitted never having seen were E.T., Schindler’s List, Gone With the Wind, and Citizen Kane. So what about you? What great films have you never seen? I must admit, I’ve never seen a Hitchcock film in its entirety. I saw the first ten minutes of the first two Pirates of the Caribbean films and found them terrific bores. I’ve never seen a film with Marilyn Monroe. Admitting such is not necessarily a humiliation, but films do make the fabric of much of our national cultural mythos, and so it’s interesting to hear what stories haven’t shaped our experiences and imaginations.
back to top54 Comments to “Movies: The humiliation game”
I am doubly ashamed that I have never sat all the through “2001: A space Odyssey”. Not only is it a great classic but it is my husband’s favorite movie. The first time we watched it together on an early date, I fell asleep. I was lucky to have gotten asked out again.
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I’ve never actually seen Ben-Hur.
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It’s a Wonderful Life
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
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I’m not at all ashamed of it, but I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars movies, and I never intend to. I know they’d bore me.
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Fargo
Pulp Fiction
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“I saw the first ten minutes of the first two Pirates of the Caribbean films and found them terrific bores.”
Finally somebody who agrees with me! But shame on you for never seeing an entire Hitchcock film.
Let’s see. I’ve never seen Annie Hall or Out of Africa.
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Schindler’s List: I’ve read too much on the subject, can’t bear to see it.
Saving Private Ryan: ditto.
Shawshank Redemption: everyone tells me it’s a great movie; I can’t get past the foul language.
All The Godfather movies; even though my non-Sicilian father loved them–is that bizarre?–this Sicilian passed.
Pulp Fiction, American Beauty, Dark Knight all movies of which I have zero interest.
Reading through the above and thinking about my “no thanks” list–what do these “skips” tell you about us?
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“Fargo” also. I’ve yet to see a Cohen brothers movie I didn’t like.
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Yes, E.T. and Gone with the Wind make it on to my list.
And I say, “no thanks” to the recent Prince Caspian.
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Michelle, you haven’t seen The Godfather?!? Just for that, you have to watch the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avddxEad7u8
Actually, I did not like Godfather II, and most folks would probably agree, apart from a scene or two, that GFIII is a waste of time.
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The last “horror” movie I watched was Psycho. I honestly cannot understand the attraction.
Never saw Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist. We walked out of Pulp Fiction.
KBells #8 you have obviously not seen “No Country for Old Men” easily the worst movie ever made. If this is considered horror, then it is the only one I’ve seen since Psycho. The only reason I didn’t turn it off was I believed it had to get better. I was wrong.
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Shawshank Redemption: everyone tells me it’s a great movie; I can’t get past the foul language.
I’d heard it was good, so I rented it once, and I had the same problem, so I returned it unwatched. Sometime later, though, it was aired on a network station with the foul language all removed. I enjoyed the movie and I didn’t have to deal with the language.
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Xion, we would have to disagree with NCfOM. Absolute genius. One sign of a great movie is you are talking about it days later.
I can easily think of worse movies:
Natural Born Killers
Eye of the Beholder
Love Crimes
Speed II
and the worst movie I have ever seen (free on TV, but I would say that the actors looked like they came straight out of a high school production, except I don’t want to insult high school productions): Troll 2
But I guess that counts as horror. Sort of. Not very scary. Except for the acting.
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Ree#12–I enjoyed Gladiator the same way: I saw it on TV, so the worst of the gore was removed. It was a very good movie.
The worst one I ever saw–didn’t even finish it, because I got bored and wandered away–was Millions It’s a relatively recent production.
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In a righting of wrongs, my wife and I just watched The Maltese Falcon last weekend. We hadn’t objected to it – the time and mood had never clicked before.
Not a classic, but I’m looking forward to seeing this that we have burned to DVD: Sh! The Octopus (at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029541/). They list as goofs: In many scenes, wires operating the octopus’s tentacles can be seen.
Still has to be better than Sylvester Stallone’s Driven (who knew he couldn’t write, in addition to not acting?).
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Stagecoach
Easy Rider
Butch and the Sundance Kid
any Woody Allen movie
Cheers…I know, it’s a TV series, but I am proud that I never…unfortunately, I did get suckered in to one episode of Seinfeld.
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I haven’t seen any of the ones Michelle hasn’t seen (#7). I’ve also never seek any Hitchcock movies as far as I can remember. I’ve thought of renting The 39 Steps, as I enjoyed the book very much. I saw part of Citizen Kane at someone’s house, and wasn’t interested enough to rent it to see the whole thing.
I finally watched It’s a Wonderful Life a couple years ago, after performing in a musical version of it. I also saw Rocky for the first time a few years ago. I still have never seen a lot of other movies that people seem to assume everyone has seen.
Since a few people mentioned worst movies, I’ll add that the worst I’ve ever seen would be either The New Gladiators (Italian movie released in 1984, I saw it in Spain, dubbed in Spanish; it’s also called Warriors of the year 2072, and Rome, 2072 A.D. – I don’t know what title it would have been released under in the U.S.) or War of the Roses. Both seem to be about watching death for entertainment, one about physical death and the other the death of a marriage. My friend and I walked out on The New Gladiators without watching the end; I would have liked to walk out on War of the Roses but my husband and the other couple we had gone with seemed to be enjoying it.
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Still has to be better than Sylvester Stallone’s Driven (who knew he couldn’t write, in addition to not acting?).
Well, he wrote Rocky, and that was good. Actually, IMDB shows he has a writing or co-writing credit on a good number of his own movies. So apparently, he can write.
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Movie: Twelve Angry Men, Raging Bull, Chinatown
Book: Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter (any of them)
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CB, Cather in the Rye is one of the most overrated books I have ever read. You ain’t missin’ nothin’ there.
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I’m humiliated by just clicking onto this thread. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I saw the James Bond and Indiana Jones movies on TV. Otherwise, I stand around with my hands im my pockets while you discuss.
There is a History Channel movie called “The Last Mission” that you history buffs would like, if it ever returns. Watch for it.
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Never seen Casablanca or Gone with the Wind.
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Acutally, Cameron, I saw both on the big screen. You should see Casablanca because so many of our sayings come from that: “usual suspects”, “play it again, Sam”, “we’ll always have Paris”, “Here’s looking at you, kid” & others. And Ingrid Bergman is beautiful.
GWTW is a great historical movie. Very long.
I also read the book.
I may have told this before:
When I was in the Air Force, I flew on C-54’s to Thule. We stopped at Goose Bay, and Sandestrom Fjord (Bluie West eight) on the way. We often carried a movie for the troops and viewed it in the mess hall in the evenings. I saw Samson and Delilah” three times on one trip.
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I’ve never seen any of the sequels to “Rocky” or “Star Wars”.
I hated “Rocky” and, while I didn’t hate it, I thought “Star Wars” was way overrated.
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After we (the USA) “lost” the war in Viet Nam, I think we started to see ourselves as winners again after “Rocky” came out. We came completely out of it when we (college boys) beat the Russians in ice hockey at the Winter Olympics.
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never read Catcher in the Rye
never saw Gone with the Wind and couldn’t finish ET.
never watched Godfather or the Sopranos
TJ I have to disagree with you – Natural Born Killers was great. Now I don’t understand the attraction of Easy Rider.
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Wow, when CB and I agree — Harry Potter. I can’t imagine picking up one of those books — nor have I read Catcher in the Rye.
Chas, when Gone With the Wind was reissued for the first time in the theaters, our town still had a theater that even had a curtain the opened (it was later converted into smaller theaters. We were attending a church that frowned on movie going, but my mother had seen GWTH in 1939 and insisted that my sister and I had to see the scene where Rhett carries Scarlett up the red-carpeted staircase. A lot was lost when the screens went small. It was a great movie.
I guess these young people didn’t watch the old movies on tv during the 50s and early 60s either. Sad.
Has anyone seen Laura? There’s a classic.
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When Rhett Butler said, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a Damm”, That changed movies forever.
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Ah, another confession: I’ve never read Pilgrim’s Progress. I’ve picked it up a couple of times but never managed to make it through. I just don’t find it that interesting, but then again I don’t find most fiction (even allegory) very interesting. But that says more about me than the quality of the book. I did think it was better than Catcher in the Rye though.
I remember at a Bible study once, I admitted to everyone that I hadn’t read PP. There were a couple of jaws that dropped. So I asked how many folks had read Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. I didn’t see any hands.
It’s all about priorities.
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Very funny, TJ. I think I had the same conversation with my father . . .
Of course, I’ve never been able to sit completely through The Money Pit either. And I detested Catcher in the Rye, even if the title is a Biblical reference.
Okay, we’re out of here–off to Yellowstone and Seattle. I’ll be looking for Mommy, isn’t it, who lives in that neck of the woods?
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It’s easier to say what classic films I have seen: Casablanca, sort of. (College students were talking through the whole thing, and I had no idea what happened.) Sound of Music, and all the ones played repeatedly on TV (It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, etc.). I saw Gone with the Wind only when it hit the movies a second time a few years ago, colorized.
Haven’t seen Fiddler on the Roof, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Citizen Kane, 2001 (I tried to rent it IN 2001, but couldn’t find it), just about anything that counts as a war movie, just about anything rated R….
As for Schindler’s List, the book is better. Money Pit was my first ever movie to see in the theater (I grew up not attending, and my sister and brother had seen the trailers and got Mom’s permission to go)–that movie taught me to be careful what I go to see because it was so bad on so many levels (boring, repetitive story, crude scenes, dumb humor).
TJ, I’ve read Pilgrim’s Progress twice (three times if you count a modernized version that actually ADDED new material); I think “everyone” should read it, but I can’t say I liked it. (I’d say the same about “Confessions”–I made it all the way through, but won’t do so again. I have two versions of the “Institutes,” full and abridged, and haven’t decided which to read, though it is on my list.)
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Cheryl, GWTW was always in color. I read Confessions of St Augustine many years ago. I agree on Pilgrim’s Progress. Everyone ought to read it. I’ve read it twice.
I never saw a movie between 1955 and 1967. I’ve said before, I took Elvera to see “My Fair Lady”.
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Great Movies not seen: Star Wars, E.T., The Exorcist, Birth of a Nation, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Hard Day’s Night, Pinnochio, Snow White
Now, the shame: The Odyssey, Il Paradiso, Samson Agonistes, Pamela, Tom Jones, Sense & Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Little Dorrit, A Connecticut Yankee, McTeague, Octopus, Trollope, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Adam Bede, Miss Lonelyhearts, Sister Carrie, U.S.A., Herzog, The Chill, And Then There Were None, American Pastoral, the Tale of Genji
All these books watch me pass them every day and eventually will refuse to open.
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I keep seeing references to “Lord of the Flies” in writing book. I need to get around to reading it.
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Cheryl, I read a modernized and abridged version of the Institutes long before I read the whole thing. The Institutes themselves are very good, especially the first three books, but you reach this part in book 4, where Calvin is talking about the church, and he gets off on a rant against the Roman Catholic church that seems to last more than 100 pages. I get it: Rome Bad. Now get to the sacraments…
Other than that, no complaints!
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Never saw “Citizen Kane”, “Godfather”, “Rocky”, “Casablanca”, “Schindler’s List”, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Napoleon Dynamite”, “Dumb & Dumber”, “Gladiator”, “Top Gun”, “Gone With the Wind”, any Hitchcock movie, etc.
Have seen “White Christmas”, “Fiddler on the Roof”, “Singing in the Rain”, “The Newsies”, “The Sound of Music”, “E.T.”, “Braveheart” (overrated), “Lord of the Rings”, “The Princess Bride” (awesome), “Pirates of the Caribbean” (only the first one), That Really Old Batman Movie, “The Dark Knight”, “Prince Caspian” (the new one — loved it — if I wanted something identical to the book, I’d have just read the book again), “Spiderman” (only the first one), and (unfortunately) the first two “Anne of Green Gables” movies (ick), etc.
Have never read “Pilgrim’s Progress”, “Harry Potter” (any of them, though I probably will some day), anything by John Calvin, anything by John Piper (except “Don’t Waste Your Life”, but I got bored halfway through after the good first couple chapters), anything by Hemingway (except “Old Man and the Sea”, which is overrated), “Tale of Two Cities”, any Jane Austen stuff, “Little Women” (for which I am not ashamed), “Gulliver’s Travels”, “Left Behind” (any), and who knows what other overrated “classics”.
Have read “Do Hard Things”, “20,000 Leagues…” (incredibly boring), “Redwall” (and most of the series), “Watership Down”, some stuff by Frank Peretti, “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Hobbit”, “The Silmarillion”, “The Pearl” (hated it), “Roll of Thunder, Hear Me Cry” (taught me the “N word”, but nobody ever told me it was bad until I’d embarassed myself by using it), “Treasure Island” (good, but I think it was an abridged version), “Beowulf” (well, one or two short versions anyway), “The Screwtape Letters” (excellent), “Mere Christianity” (also excellent), “The Chronicles of Narnia”, “God in the Dock”, and The Bible. Oh, and a bunch of less popular fiction.
So I think the most boring book I’ve ever read was either “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” or “Introduction to Basic Hermeneutics” (or some such title), while my favorite aside from the Bible is either “The Lord of the Rings” (boring, but I love it anyway, if only for its world), “Mere Christianity”, or “Me, Myself, and Bob” (a non-fiction semi-autobiography by Phil Vischer).
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Oh, and I haven’t read “Catcher in the Rye” or “Lord of the Flies”.
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Well, let me share what I have seen that some may find humiliating.
Having read about how bad Ishtar was, I made a point to see it when it was on TV a while ago. Yup, it was really bad.
I also watched Gigli on TV for the same reason. Not real good, but not as bad as I thought it’d be.
And I’ve seen the movie that is considered the worst ever – Plan 9 from Outer Space.
But I’ve also seen most of the good movies most of you admit to not seeing.
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I cannot think of any great movie that I haven’t seen. One of my favorite channels is TCM (Turner Classic Movies) where they show old movies.
Of course, I go to at least 50 movies every year, so I’ve seen a lot of movies. A few were great, most were good, many were awful.
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Karen O, if you liked “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, or if you didn’t, you will love “Lost Skeleton of Cavadra”.
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Perhaps for some, an admission of what movies we have watched would be an exercise in humiliation…
I confess to have watched all the movies you mention in your blog entry.
I have not watched any of the Godfather movies however. Of course if there was a master list of classic movies we should have watched, I could remember which ones I’ve never seen.
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Anlir, have you seen L’Atalante, Ugetsu, Day for Night, Gance’s Napoleon, The Mother and the Whore, Closely Watched Trains, The Apu trilogy . . . pre-hollywood movies with Elke Sommer?
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This is humiliation times ten: I actually did pay for and sat through “The Color Purple.” Worst waste of money, time, and eyesight ever in my life.
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I saw Gone With the Wind in the 70’s, in high school, when movies were still on reels. GWTW was on 3 reels, and the projectionist got reels 2 and 3 turned around. My friend and I, who had read the book, were surprised at how much had been left out of the middle of the story. As we were getting up to leave, reel 2 began, and we saw the middle. Those who had never read the book must have been extremely confused, and I’m still laughing about it all these years later. I never did see the movie in order.
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SteveG,
You really need to get TCM, “Turner Classic Movies”.
You’ve missed some of the most enjoyable movies ever made! Trust me, it’s worth it. The trash Hollywood is making these days can’t compare.
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Gone With the Wind is best seen on a big screen – fits with the grandness of the movie. I first saw it in the ’70s at the Pacific Theater in Hollywood. I had seen glimpses of it in black and white at barber shops etc. earlier (didn’t grow up with a TV in the house) but never enough to have any idea what was going on.
Another classic that I hadn’t seen until even just a few months ago is Phantom of the Opera. Really liked it and I hate opera.
Ones that I have never seen: any Rocky movie, most of the horror films.
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There are two movie classics that I am most found of.
(1) The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.
I like this movie because I am a hopeless romantic
(2) Cassa Blanca with Humphrey Bogart.
This movie deals more with sacrifice. I like this movie because the Protagonist “Rick” is willing to sacrifice his wants and desires for the benefit of others.
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Am I the only one admitting I’ve neither seen nor read the Lord of the Rings movies/books? Haven’t seen the movies because I haven’t read the books.
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I grew up going to public schools in Georgia. Watching Gone with the Wind was a requirement to graduate.
I’m not kidding.
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CB, Cather in the Rye is one of the most overrated books I have ever read. You ain’t missin’ nothin’ there.
Hear, hear. I read that thing twice as a teenager. Once because I had to for school, because it was “a classic”, and then again later to see what I had missed. For the life of me, I don’t understand why the book has sold millions, why it’s called a classic, and why Salinger is considered a genius for writing it.
I just didn’t get it, and still don’t.
(Be that as it may, it’s nevertheless a fact that if you’re going to shoot and/or kill a celebrity OR politician, your chances of escaping the death penalty go up enormously if you have a copy of Catcher in the Rye in your pocket when you commit the crime.)
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LOL, NT. I honestly think, though, that CITR, as overrated as it is, is considered “great” only because of when it was written. In the 1950’s perhaps such a book was popular b/c it was counter-cultural. It was “innovative,” which I’m only using b/c I’m in a hurry and I can’t think of a better word.
Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” was innovative for its time, but is not that provocative now. “Citizen Kane” was a ground-breaking directorial masterpiece, but we’ve seen those techniques copied so much since, it’s become old hat. I could be completely wrong, of course, but that’s my take on it.
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Movies: I have never seen Braveheart, Rocky, or Apocalypse Now. If anyone needed more proof!
Books: Also never read Catcher in the Rye, but I’ve also never read anything by Toni Morison either. I read half a chapter of The Kite Runner (last years darling “it book”) and slammed that wordy overly poetic thing closed to go in search of something written without a metaphor in every sentence.
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Gone With the Wind should not be seen in a movie theater. Watch it at home where you can pause it, stop it, go for a walk, do your taxes, and other things when you just need a break!
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GWTW needs to be on a big screen. But Luke is right, you need a break. By the time Rhett Butler doesn’t “give a damm”, neither do we.
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