Same here.

Never grew up with westerns. Never bothered to see them in the theaters. So I never bothered with the old ones.

I'd probably really like them. Again, I've just never bothered to dig into the genre.

I have a friend who goes apeshit about the Oscars every year. Knows all kinds of movie trivia. Goes out and spends hundreds of dollars each month that the Criterion Collection does a half off sale. Reads books about filmmaking. Likes musicals. Actually watches the Tony awards.

Has never seen The Wizard of Oz.

It's ****ing stunning to me. I give her shit that she knows nothing about movies and movie history because of that.

How can you be that intense about movies and never have seen the ****ing Wizard of ****ing Oz?

I've never seen Ben-Hur.

Whew. That was like my biography until the Oz part.

I have come to truly loath the Oscars.

I think a lot of Academy members are either lazy, don't see all the films or are too heavily influenced by the big money campaigns.


The show is basically just a wank fest to promote their industry, and that's fine. But a lot of years it doesn't do a good job of representing the "best". I made a post earlier about how a lot of the best picture winners in the 70s and 80s nobody really cares much about anymore.

It's astounding.

She's in her late 20s. I don't think she was of the age where the Wizard of Oz would be a rerun movie on TV all the time, but her parents were definitely TV and movie watchers. Had a nice little VHS collection growing up. Surely they would have exposed her to that movie at some point.

And if they didn't, you'd think as an amateur movie historian/scholar one might read about how groundbreaking the film was, and then take the time to go see it in order to understand and grasp the points being made about it in the writing.

She watched Birth of a Nation that way. Told me about it. "I'm watching The Birth of a Nation" she said. "Why?"

"Because I haven't seen it yet."

She's seen that movie MULTIPLE times now. Not because she likes it, but just because she thinks that kind of shit is interesting. It fascinates her what made the movie so enriching to those early generations of movie goers.

Has never. ****ing. Seen. The. ****ing. Wizard. Of. ****ing. Oz.

Unbelievable.

Maybe. North By Northwest never won best picture, but that and Amadeus are definitely in my top 10 favorite movies.

Amadeus is excellent. They got that one right.


But stuff like Kramer vs Kramer, Out of Africa, Driving Miss Daisy, Ordinary People, English Patient......nobody thinks about those movies anymore.

Haven't seen any Woody Allen movies except Bananas.

Not Rebel Without a Cause, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, Streetcar Named Desire, From Here to Eternity, Ghandi, Out of Africa, or any Marx Brothers movie. I've seen a few clips of Marx brothers, and they're kinda funny so maybe I'll check them out.

Citizen Kane and Gone With The Wind

I thought Rebel Without a Cause was cornball. Lawrence was really good. Spartacus, From Here to Eternity and Streetcar were just ok, to me.
Marx Brothers can be great, like the best really, and the the film can slip into the sort of straight side-story, and be not so great.

I might have missed it, but I didn't see the 400 Blows listed in the thread. I would consider that a classic worth seeing, if you don't mind subtitles.

The Godfather + Citizen Kane

I'm not sure our daughter has ever seen the Wizard of Oz. My wife and I are both terrified by that movie. Freaking flying monkeys. Oh hell no.

That and it will give her teh gays.

"soooooooomewhere over the raaaaaaaaaaainbowwwwwww"