For all the angry posters on this site...

[leigh.bess.toad]

I mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!

 

And just look at where all that anger got Peter Finch. Dead before he could even accept his Oscar.

[operalover21]

I've never seen Casablanca either and don't plan to.

I thanked BC for telling me about something I knew nothing about, being two years old when the movie was released.

Have a blessed life watching your old movies, OL.

T

 

What a narrow-minded little toad you are. I can't imagine why anyone would want to be purposefully culturally ignorant about the past. How sad and pathetic.

 

What does age have to do with it? To only have knowledge about things that took place during one's own lifetime is the very height of deliberate ignorance.

[operalover21]

I have to roll my eyes when a cultural check-lister gets all stunned and superior upon discovering someone else hasn't seen a certain movie or read a certain book or attended a certain type of cultural event or like a certain musical artist or genre.

 

I've seen "Network," and I liked it a lot. I thought it was brilliant and ahead of its time. I've seen "Citizen Kane" and thought it overrated. I fell asleep watching it, and that's something I rarely do. I've never seen "The Godfather" trilogy and don't intend to. Everybody has their own likes and desires.

 

But major PHUCK OFF to anyone who thinks I'd have to realign my movie likes and dislikes to his particular likes and dislikes if we were going to get involved. Who needs that ridiculous rubbish in their lives?

 

Good Lord -- My favorite movie is "Willie Wonka and Chocolate Factory." I'd consider myself lucky to find a great BF and would somehow get over the Willie Wonka hurdle if he had never seen it or didn't like it. It's a rather bizarre movie and I can see why it wouldn't be to everyone's taste or even on everyone's radar as something to see.

 

I love sci-fi movies. My best friend -- a straight guy -- doesn't. He's actually proud that he's never seen "Star Wars." Yeah, I'll toss out a 20-year friendship over that ... or we'll just find the movies we like in common such as film noir and go from there.

 

Blah, blah, blah. It's not about likes or dislikes but about cultural awareness. To be unaware of things that were created outside one's own lifetime is simply ignorant. That's the word: IGNORANT.

[operalover21]

I have to roll my eyes when a cultural check-lister gets all stunned and superior upon discovering someone else hasn't seen a certain movie or read a certain book or attended a certain type of cultural event or like a certain musical artist or genre.

 

I've seen "Network," and I liked it a lot. I thought it was brilliant and ahead of its time. I've seen "Citizen Kane" and thought it overrated. I fell asleep watching it, and that's something I rarely do. I've never seen "The Godfather" trilogy and don't intend to. Everybody has their own likes and desires.

 

But major PHUCK OFF to anyone who thinks I'd have to realign my movie likes and dislikes to his particular likes and dislikes if we were going to get involved. Who needs that ridiculous rubbish in their lives?

 

Good Lord -- My favorite movie is "Willie Wonka and Chocolate Factory." I'd consider myself lucky to find a great BF and would somehow get over the Willie Wonka hurdle if he had never seen it or didn't like it. It's a rather bizarre movie and I can see why it wouldn't be to everyone's taste or even on everyone's radar as something to see.

 

I love sci-fi movies. My best friend -- a straight guy -- doesn't. He's actually proud that he's never seen "Star Wars." Yeah, I'll toss out a 20-year friendship over that ... or we'll just find the movies we like in common such as film noir and go from there.

 

Also, to claim dislike of something one has never seen is beyond the pale. How do you have any idea you'd dislike it without seeing? Such intellectual bankruptcy. Pathetic.

[operalover21]

Nate, you make a good point -- you have to have some common touchstone. For me, it would be: "Do you like to watch movies?" If no, what do you like to do? If all he wants to do is hunt and carve gnomes and have sex, let's say, yeah it's not going to work except for a roll in the hay.

 

I had a group of friends with whom I did movie nights, too. It was a lot of fun. We did a mix of classics, recently released flicks we missed at the theaters and cult classics.

 

"Do you like to watch movies" is "common touchstone?" Seriously? Unless you date people who live in the remote jungles of Brazil you're unlikely to meet a human being that doesn't "watch movies."

[operalover21]

Opera person's snobbery aside, it really is a good movie, especially because it prophetically predicted the sad state of what TV news has become today (entertainment and propaganda). If you were only 2 years old then, you probably don't realize that the news was actually serious back then, with real investigative journalists being actual government adversaries (which the press is supposed to be, but is no longer). It's also just really well acted, and the star won the Oscar that year posthumously.

 

Being culturally aware of art created in the 20th century is not "snobbery." It's called having a brain and using it. People who lack any sort of intellectual curiousity are the least interesting people on the planet. You might as well be George W. Bush.

[operalover21]

What? Are you from West Virginia? Where everything and everyone is relative.

 

What does a man call a woman with 2 teeth in West Virginia? Attractive.

 

What do you have when you have 32 Miss West Virginia contestants? A full set of teeth.

 

How do they start foreplay in Arkansas?

 

Roll over, sis.

[operalover21]

I've heard variations on this snap judgment dozens of times in my life, for movies across many genres. I could imagine having it inflicted on me for, among many others, almost all the movies on this list:

 

http://www.afi.com/100years/movies.aspx

 

I can't imagine many people who have seen them all, or who could appreciate them all. And if I ruled out guys who couldn't share my diverse interests in music I'd be incredibly lonely.

 

A sample of classic movies I've never seen:

 

Forrest Gump

Raging Bull

High Noon

Casablanca

Vertigo

Annie Hall

 

Some I wouldn't care to see (though I might be surprised), and some I haven't had the opportunity.

 

The flip side of this is the guy who dismisses classic movies as overrated. I can remember being at a dinner party where the topic of conversation came to North by Northwest. Most everyone enjoyed celebrating the movie or coming to recall great scenes or elements if they had not seen the movie in a while -- except for one younger guy who kept trying to convince us that it was trite and clichéd. He was either one of those guys who has to be above it all, or he was not able to get the sense that iconic, genre-defining movies become the source for the knock-offs and clichés.

 

I doubt I know a single person over 25 who hasn't seen all the films you mention. It isn't hard. Of course, Forrest Gump ain't a classic.

[operalover21]

Well that isn't true for me at least. I sure as hell wouldn't want to date me. I could be a bitch date. And I found it in my partner who is virtually the polar opposite in everything. I'm an extrovert, he's an introvert. I was raised in the suburbs, he was raised in a rural area. He lives in the city, I still live in the burbs. How long we've been out (he is whole adult life, me 2 years), the foods we like, the TV we watch, activities we enjoy (he loves to dance, I can't. I love to sing, he couldn't carry a tune in a dump truck), to the clothes we wear. Last night it was a disagreement about clothes to wear to PS. He has never worn a polo shirt in his life, and I live in them. Eventually we met at a happy medium (yes we met at Jeanne Dixon and Edgar Cayce, both happy mediums). He would rather have an appendectomy without anesthesia than go to an opera. There are only a few "minor" similiarities: the need for laughter and humor in the relationship and the need to be open and accepting of each other and willingly and happily commit to each other. All the rest brings new color, new excitement, new experiences to each of us. He'd never dreamed of meeting a male escort before, but there he was at the DC luncheon last month, surrounded by 15 incredible escorts. And he was impressed with them and their jobs as he would be if he were surrounded by 15 CPAs.

 

On our very first date, we reached an agreement: we would never try to change each other. We take each other as we are. And then we revel in the differences and the new experiences and thoughts from those differences.

 

I can't imagine only dating someone who was a clone of me. How dull and boring. Diversity brings so much to a relationship, be it a friend or a lover.

 

One of the things that provides me the most humor on these boards are the huge "leaps" people here take based on a few sentences. Apparently, taking things literally has gone the way of the dodo.

 

Who ever said anything dating a clone of oneself? No one. But that's the leap that was made. Having common cultural interests doesn't make one a clone. Just about everyone I know has certain common cultural interests but not a single one is a clone of the other. I can't imagine being friends with, yet alone dating, anyone who wasn't culturally aware and intellectually curious. Those people are total bores. There is an enormous amount of diversity among people who share cultural values or any set of values. Unless you're in a cult.

 

People completely uninterested in art outside of the time period they were born are of ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST TO ME. Because they're ignorant and intellectually vacuous. Hey, but if those are the kinds of people you find interesting ... good for all of you! There are millions of them out there .....

[Decatur Guy]

So OperaLover, deemer of all things acceptable in cultural, tell me this:

 

I've read "Anna Karenina" but not "War and Peace."

 

I've read "Emma" but not "Pride and Prejudice."

 

I've read "A Tale of Two Cities" but not "Great Expectations."

 

I've seen "Taxi Driver" but not "Raging Bull."

 

I've seen "The Searchers" but not "High Noon."

 

I've been to the ballet and the symphony but not the opera.

 

I've been to the Prado and the Louvre but not the National Gallery of London

 

I've seen "Bonnie and Clyde" but not "The Godfather" trilogy.

 

I own everything the Beatles put out but only have the Rolling Stones' greatest hits.

 

I've seen R.E.M in concert but not U2.

 

I've read "Coriolanus" but not "Much Ado About Nothing"

 

I've read Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" but not David McCullough's "Truman."

 

I've held a boa constrictor but not a king snake.

 

I made an A in sociology but dropped out of psychology.

 

I'm five episodes into a six-episode history of India on PBS but I haven't done the same for Chinese history nor do I plan to right now.

 

I've watched "Vertigo" but not "Dial M for Murder."

 

I read "The Great Gatsby" and didn't particular like it and read "This Side of Paradise" and loved it.

 

I went to Greece but not to Italy.

 

I went to France but not to Germany.

 

I went to Ireland but not to Scotland.

 

I recently went to a Genghis Khan exhibit but did not go to one with "Titanic" memorabilia.

 

Speaking of "Titanic," I did not go to the movie. I have, however, actually been scuba diving at shipwrecks.

 

Please, oh please, tell me I've made your cultural cut! I'd wither and die if I weren't deemed culturally worthy! I just hope I have enough check-marks on the list to be deemed intellectually curious!

 

 

P.S. -- I've been to professional rasslin' matches but never to a NASCAR race.

[Phil_musc]

Peter Finch, the star of "Network" was also the first major male star to have/give a full on gay kiss ("One Christmas Day"). When asked how he could do it, he said, "I shut my eyes and thought of the Queen".

 

Just tuned into this thread and saw the above quote. I believe, perhaps erroneously, that the movie in question with Peter Finch in the gay kiss was "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Anyone else know for sure? I have no opinion on the other views expressed in this thread - much too much passion and testosterone for me to process.

[jgoo]

Just tuned into this thread and saw the above quote. I believe, perhaps erroneously, that the movie in question with Peter Finch in the gay kiss was "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Anyone else know for sure? I have no opinion on the other views expressed in this thread - much too much passion and testosterone for me to process.

 

I believe you are correct....

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-famous-kisses.php#!/exjun_

[+ WilliamM]

I've heard variations on this snap judgment dozens of times in my life, for movies across many genres. I could imagine having it inflicted on me for, among many others, almost all the movies on this list:

 

http://www.afi.com/100years/movies.aspx

 

I can't imagine many people who have seen them all, or who could appreciate them all. And if I ruled out guys who couldn't share my diverse interests in music I'd be incredibly lonely.

 

A sample of classic movies I've never seen:

 

Forrest Gump

Raging Bull

High Noon

Casablanca

Vertigo

Annie Hall

 

Some I wouldn't care to see (though I might be surprised), and some I haven't had the opportunity.

 

 

It is interesting how the reputation of some films change so greatly over the decades. Last summer a respected British film journal, Sight & Sound, polled many, many critics (the poll is conducted every ten years). For the first time in many years "Citizen Kane" was not number one, that place went to "Vertigo." I believe "Vertige was not a hit at the box office when it was released in the U.S. in the 1950s. But, it's placement was not a huge surprise; the film has done better and better in most film critics' evaluations over the years.

 

But, "Vertigo" is a film that is not universally loved like "Casablanca."

 

I think it's silly to put anyone down for not having seen a film, but so does most everone else here.

 

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/08/01/vertigo_is_the_new_greatest_film_of_all_time_according_to_the_2012_sight_sound_poll_.html

[Rick Munroe]

Being culturally aware of art created in the 20th century is not "snobbery."

 

Who said anything about being culturally aware? I was referring to your snide, cunty and pretentious tone.

 

People who lack any sort of intellectual curiousity are the least interesting people on the planet.

 

LOL Is that why you said you were uninterested in listening to Pink's music because:

most contemporary pop music is rubbish, that's why. I don't need to sample it all to know that.

[Nvr2Thick]

Being culturally aware of art created in the 20th century is not "snobbery." It's called having a brain and using it. People who lack any sort of intellectual curiousity are the least interesting people on the planet. You might as well be George W. Bush.

 

I doubt I know a single person over 25 who hasn't seen all the films you mention. It isn't hard. Of course, Forrest Gump ain't a classic.

 

Sorry about the Forrest Gump faux pas. I went with AFI's list because I couldn't find yours on the Internet.

 

Whether or not watching these films is "hard" is irrelevant. I often can't watch movies, regardless of quality or cultural value, because I just can't engage with the story or the characters. It's just the way my mind works. In theaters I'm often extremely aware of the people around me. Also, many times I find that I can't escape the feeling that I'm watching a movie. I can remember sitting through Silence of the Lambs -- probably the first time I was unable to shake the idea that there was always a director, cameramen, and crew just a few feet away from the characters. That happens frequently, and I find I have to walk away or I get terribly irritated when it does happen. If a movie clicks for me it's a great experience. OK -- so maybe it is "hard" after all.

 

One of the most worldly, intelligent, culturally aware men I know was a world traveler, successful executive, mountain climber, amateur historian and art historian. He admitted that he did not like to watch movies. There was no judgment or the kind of contempt you're offering. He just didn't have the patience. He said that nearly every time he sat down to watch a movie his mind would wander to the kitchen and to preparing a big meal, or to one of his big art books. One of his favorite ways to socialize was to go out to a museum with a few friends in the morning and pick a room or a wing to re-explore, and then spend the afternoon at a bar or restaurant talking about art. He enjoyed spending time with me because of the ideas we could exchange on music, technology or education, even though I don't know much about art.

 

The 20th Century offered up a tremendous diversity of culture. Movies are one very small segment. It easy for a man to miss out -- whether a man's priorities are circuit parties and crystal meth; or maybe ornithology, photography and jazz.

[+ ArVaGuy]

This will likely be a feeble attempt to get this thread back to focusing on the motion picture rather than personal slights. But I note the thread is entitled "angry posters" to begin with.

 

The Howard Beale monologue is a master piece of screenwriting but its companion scene with Ned Beatty as the chairman and CEO of the company that owns the network is just as good if not better in my opinion. Paddy Chayefsky won his third Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Network. He also won for Marty which made Ernest Borgnine a major star and for The Hospital with George C. Scott.

 

This scene in Network is a tour de force by Beatty as he berates Finch's character for upsetting the "the primal forces of nature." Arguably Chayefsky was foretelling our future of global corporations moving billions between nations and that governments and ideologies have no real say in how the world functions.

 

"There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today."

 

 

 

[video=vimeo;30748277]

[Nvr2Thick]

It is interesting how the reputation of some films change so greatly over the decades. Last summer a respected British film journal, Sight & Sound, polled many, many critics (the poll is conducted every ten years). For the first time in many years "Citizen Kane" was not number one, that place went to "Vertigo." I believe "Vertige was not a hit at the box office when it was released in the U.S. in the 1950s. But, it's placement was not a huge surprise; the film has done better and better in most film critics' evaluations over the years.

 

But, "Vertigo" is a film that is not universally loved like "Casablanca."

 

You may be saying the same thing -- I believe that the types of people who can relate to the characters, dialogue, and story of Casablanca are dying off. If you're in your late 40's or older you may remember the simplicity of characters and dialogue from 60's television and movies on TV. Many younger adults just don't have the context for the way older movies were written -- they end up being decades beyond quaint. Operalover's comment about the guy who didn't understand the Nazis may or may not have been referring to a younger man, but we're getting to a point where a majority of adults can't relate directly to WWII. My father and some of my teachers were WWII veterans. For many 30-somethings that war is purely history, while many of us grew up to The Dirty Dozen and Hogan's Heroes - written by and for those veterans.

 

The first movies to make an impression on me were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Papillon. If the first movies to make an impression had been The Sixth Sense and Memento I can see how Vertigo might be an easier reach than Casablanca.

[gp0560]

 

I've never seen Casablanca either and don't plan to.

I thanked BC for telling me about something I knew nothing about, being two years old when the movie was released.

Have a blessed life watching your old movies, OL.

T

 

What a narrow-minded little toad you are. I can't imagine why anyone would want to be purposefully culturally ignorant about the past. How sad and pathetic.

 

What does age have to do with it? To only have knowledge about things that took place during one's own lifetime is the very height of deliberate ignorance.

 

Tyro, dear heart, you are not a toad. Remember, sweet one, you are a mighty honey badger(ess). You don't give a shit.

[tyro]

ArVaGuy, big ups for posting this clip. Thanks.

gp0560, I've never been called a badger before. I think I quite like it.

T

PS NICE new signature line too!