1001 Movies to See Before You Die: 1st Update

July 9th, 2010 | POSTED BY Edward Davidson

Hi again already!

So, I forgot to mention a couple of more things that I’m setting down as rules for everyone who is playing the home version of the game.

First of all, I am saying I saw the movie if I ACTUALLY saw the movie. What I mean by that is, sometimes there are movies that I should have seen by now but I’ve been too embarrassed to admit I haven’t. There’s Something About Mary was like that for many years for me. When that came out, EVERYONE I knew was raving how it was the funniest movie of all time. And you know how, if there is something that everybody likes, it makes you want to like it that much less, and then eventually you go out of your way to not see what they’re talking about just to be contrarion, but they go on and on about it, and it just pisses you off? And when that movie comes up, you just remain quiet and pretend that you know what scene they are talking about and then you change the subject? That was this movie for me. (Subsequently, I have seen that movie, and I gotta say, Meh). And don’t act like you are above this phenomenon. I have a STRONG bet that everybody has done this at one time or another. My current movie that I haven’t seen but don’t want to admit it is Donnie Darko. Many people I know will dropping their jaw in awe at me right now with that “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN DONNIE DARKO?!!” look. Well, I will someday, I know it’s supposed to be good, but I just haven’t yet. Get off my back.

Next, to be checked off the list, it must be a movie I’ve seen from beginning to end, at least once. That’s another phenomenon that we all experience…you’ve seen that famous part on a clip show a thousand times, so you think you’ve seen the movie. I like to call it the “An American In Paris” syndrome. A lot of people my age have seen the last 15 minutes of that movie with the famous ballet sequence. It’s a phenomenal dance that Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse do together. No question. But there is an actual story and movie that come before it. There’s a plot, and some songs, and lots of Gene Kelly playing William Holden’s part in Sunset Boulevard (the young artist “kept” by the older woman, basically playing a male prostitute). But just because you’ve seen the famous scene doesn’t mean you’ve seen it. In other words, you can only earn the right to quote Casablanca if you’ve seen more than just the “hill of beans” speech at the end.

So, those are some fundamentals to this process going forward.

1001 Movies To See Before You Die, Casablanca, Donnie Darko