Great blog topic, Medusa.

I’m with you on most of these, though loser that I am, I’ve watched several of the films you’ve mentioned, including Pretty Woman aka “Cinderella as Whore”. Having seen grown women accompanying their daughters to this movie at a Cineplex when this movie was in release, I found the idea of little girls forming their ideas about womanhood, prostitution and healthy relationships (whatever those are) from this sanitized celluloid pap both peculiar and disturbing.

I guess Sex and the City is supposed to be someone’s idea of a fantasy show without limits for women, and even though I was smack dab in this show’s demographic when it began, I can’t see its appeal. From what I’ve seen of the tv show version, (not the movie) your assessment is probably correct. I’ve seen it about three times, so maybe I’m wrong, but here’s how it comes across to me: Impossibly brain dead, fashion-obsessed women have no responsibilities toward an extended family, (other than their own breeding & their own familial feeling for one another), no worries about doing their job, real world money concerns, office politics, or dealing with others in a workplace, (other than boffing occasional clients), never worry about STDs, real emotional turmoil, or getting the tar beaten out of them by one of their pick-ups. Oh, and the primary emotional center of their lives seems to be their own self-pity. A friend has told me that this is really a program written by gay men and reflects a certain viewpoint as a consequence, but I think that’s insulting to gay men. I guess it’s someone’s idea of escapism, but whose?

The Sound of Music has some good points: a second tier Rodgers and Hammerstein score with one rather touching song-”Edelweiss”, Austrian vistas, Richard Haydn, and a very grouchy looking Christopher Plummer, who, in his autobiography seems to have made his peace with his participation in what he seems to feel was a harmless bit of kitsch that helped the Austrian economy and saved 20th Century Fox after the debacle of Cleopatra. However, he writes with more real affection about the characters he met at his on-location hotel when filming this movie than he does about the film. Btw, the “Lonely Goatherd” song and puppets are really one of the better parts of the film, believe it or not.

I’ve tried to watch The American President several times, but I just can’t do it either. My own non-watchables list is sort of fragmented, since I can see why certain movies are celebrated and I can even enjoy certain moments in them, but don’t ask me to watch the entire film. Not again. These include A Clockwork Orange, Deliverance, The Graduate (anytime Anne Bancroft is off screen), the Al Pacino version of Scarface, and heaven help me, though I like Billy Wilder films otherwise, Some Like It Hot.

Yeah, I know, I’m a philistine.

Well, lets see…

There’s Oh Heavenly Dog, with Chevy Chase reincarted as Benji and solving his own murder. I start howling at the moon when that one is mentioned.

Top Gun. Yeah, I spent six years in the Army and in Vietnam but that always seemed a tad too promilitary for me. Also, Tom Cruise reminded me of Mighty Mouse and I had seen enough of those cartoons when I was a kid.

Lassie movies. Someone once described Lassie as Greer Garson with fur.

Any movie starring Maurice Chevalier.

Any movie starring the Dead End Kids, except, of course, for Dead End and Angels with Dirty Faces.

Bedtime for Bonzo. I don’t think I have to explain that one.

One from the Heart. I started watching it and that was enough.

Jack. Coppola again and he got poor Robin Williams, Diane Lane and Jennifer Lopez involved this time.

Thanks, Medusa, for the kind words. I agree with you about Sound of Music.

I too, think Pretty Woman is awful, entirely unrealistic, and a huge waste of time. Ditto for Sex and the City. However, I heartily disagree about Sound of Music. Eleanor Powell, Christopher Plummer, Julie Andrews, Richard Haydn, all excellent in their parts, and directed by Richard Wise-I think you should give it a chance, someday.

My brother-in-law also doesn’t like SOM, but it’s his wife’s favorite movie, so he has had to endure it from time to time. I do have the book the real Maria Von Trapp wrote in the 1950s, The Von Trapp Family Singers, and it’s an interesting read. Perhaps you should read it after viewing the movie.

Friends loaned us “Pretty Woman” and after about five minutes or so my husband and I looked at each other, grimaced and ejected the tape.

On the other hand, “The American President” has won a safe spot in my heart and it is due to the cast of familiar faced character actors. Not since the heyday of Warner Bros. had I enjoyed a movie where I could name practically everyone who showed up with a witty quip. It’s my chocolate box “Mommy’s turn” movie.

I would be really amusing for you to watch two or three of these and then post your reviews just to see how right (or wrong) you were!

I am too easily entertained to have a list of movies I won’t watch..though I tend to stay away from too much blood and gore.

It’s true Plummer stated he was not thrilled making sound of music, but you should watch it for the cast alone!

You only have 5 or 6 movies you won’t watch? I have at least 100 or so that I will never watch starting with most block buster action pictures, films made about cartoon characters, anything starring Tom Cruise (I have this unreasonable, visceral dislike of that man.) But high on my list is When Harry Met Sally. I actually liked both Billy Crystal & Meg Ryan before I watched that movie and now I can’t tolerate either one. I would say “hate them” but I don’t know them so that’s a little over the top. Suffice it to say, I hate that movie so much.

Hilarious. This post is so YOU! I can hear your irate voice reading the audio version. I had no idea you’d never seen The Sound of Music though. Now that’s an impressive holdout.

Glad to hear of some other hold-outs! Helen, I agree that you can watch a movie like “When Harry Met Sally” and then completely lose respect and interest in performers who were in it! I have a list like that, too. (I forgot about that movie, too! lol) And Helen, I love your other categories!

And of course I maybe don’t actually HATE some of these, but really, almost any other movie I’ll tune into or keep the channel on, but I actively avoid “Pretty Woman” and “SAtC” and the like. Just as I lack the much-discussed “shopping gene” that most women seem to get, I sure missed the “chick flick gene” too!

But I did the the “monster movie gene” instead, so I think I came out ahead!

Hope to get more of your embargo titles, everybody! Al, I love the category “any movie with Maurice Chevalier”! :-)

What a fun blog post!

I am with you on SOUND OF MUSIC. I dislike anything with Julie Andrews singing to/with children, which are in the so-sugary-you-will-get-diabetes genre. Thus, I am also a hold-out on MARY POPPINS. Am so glad she hooked up with Blake Edwards.

Along the Al Lowe approach to this topic — I refuse to see anything Michael Bay directs. Someone needs to take up a collection and send him to directing school. (Michael: do the phrases “matching screen direction,” “crossing the axis,” or even “continuity” mean anything to you?)

I saw SEX IN THE CITY, and there are many things I disliked about it, but I liked the experience of seeing it with a theater full of women who went to see a movie about women. (Again, the theater experience vs. the at-home experience makes a difference in appreciating the merits of a movie, though there were few for this one.) The absolute disregard mainstream Hollywood has for the female audience continues to anger and disgust me.

I saw BRIDE WARS and it is not what you think it is based on the ads. Just like the sex farces or comedies of the early 1960s turned out not to advocate wanton sex (as the ads suggested), this film doesn’t validate the “Bridezilla” idea, nor does it suggest “all girls should be married to be happy” as the marketing suggests. Too bad the reviews are not bringing out that point, but then that would suppose that reviewers are capable of making credible insights.

My biggest hold-out/boycott movie… Titanic. I never understood the appeal of a movie the you already know how it’s going to end.

You’re definitely not alone on Sound Of Music. No matter how many times my mother has tried to get me to see that movie, I just can’t muster enough interest to sit through it.

I’ll also never see another Harry Potter movie. I think I’ve seen the first three, maybe a bit of the fourth? But I really don’t see the point when I’ve already read all the books.

The Saw series seems to be wildly popular among people my age (college kids), but I flat-out refuse to see any of them. Too much blood and guts and ew.

I don’t think it’s irrational at all to boycott movies which glorify drug use. I also tend to avoid the pure political plays by Oliver Stone, Michael Moore, Al Gore, etc. Who needs ‘em? I think you’d like The American President though, give it a chance.

I’m so glad to see that the boycott movies here are worthy of boycott! (With the exception of Some Like it Hot – explain yourself, Moirafinnie!) I have to say it is best to be a child to appreciate Mary Poppins and perhaps also Sound of Music. I was wee when I first saw MP and I was enchanted. I wrote a fan letter to Julie and she sent me an autographed head shot which delighted the child me and made me a fan for life! I will watch almost any movie (even The Island od Doctor Mareau!) but I’m with on Pretty Woman and I walked out on Don Juan de Marco. Perhaps I should give it another shot?

The Sound of Music is one of the few videotapes my wife, not a movie buff, actually bought. I did see it as a kid and enjoyed it, and last year we both saw the play at the London Palladium and enjoyed it. I’m an Anime buff and was surprised to learn that there is an anime TV show called The Trapp Family Story which is based on the true story of the Trapp Family Singers. The real story is *very* different from the play or the movie.

Having said that, The Sound of Music isn’t a bad movie. My wife has decent taste in movies, she just doesn’t like very many of them. She enjoyed most of the movies on your list, and I did too up to a point. (Sex and the City was the exception. I don’t know if she liked that one or not. I’m afraid to ask).

It would be nice to have some more intelligent women’s pictures to take my wife to say, preferably starring Jodie Foster. She could direct them, too.

I loathed The Sound of Music, due to being force-fed it as a kid. Then I took my wife to the sing-along version (you’re encouraged to make sarcastic remarks over the dialogue, people wear costumes, several transvestites dressed like Julie Andrews “got married” during the wedding…), and you know what? When you’re watching the film with an audience that won’t take any bull, the sentiment gets stripped away – and you realize there’s actually a decent movie there. Maybe you should hold a festival of your rejects with some other non-fans, insult them and see what happens!

My My… Don’t hold back,,, Tell us what you really think.
The thing that strikes me funniest about your rant, is I can only add one thing to it. If your adept at photoshop. I would love to see a shot of Julia Roberts in a Tyrolean hat.
These movies are at the very bottom of my list as well.

Hi Walt! I never hold back! :-)

You are not alone. I’ve never seen The Sound of Music and I’m really alright with that. I’ve been to Salzburg, played the show in the pit orchestra…not seeing the movie. Good on you!