Kevin In the latest installment of my “Can We Talk?” series, there’s been something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and that’s movies you never saw but should, at least according to common culture. In other words, I’m referring to movies everybody and their damn dog is obsessed with, but you never saw them.
For me, I’ve never seen Dirty Dancing. To be fair, I wasn’t even a year old when the first one came out, so I can see how I missed out on it. The extent of my knowledge of it is in passing. There was a sequel that came out when I was in high school, where instead of Baby in the Catskills, it’s Katey in Cuba in the 1950s. I’ve never seen it either. Should I? Lemme know if I’m missing anything or not.
I’ve also somehow never seen Star Wars. Nor have I seen any of the sequels, with one exception. The exception was Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. I was in middle school, and it was on a bus during a long-distance field trip. Other than that, and passing knowledge of the characters, I know nothing about this series.
I’ve somehow never seen Armageddon. It came out around the same time as Titanic, which I saw when it came out on video when I was in middle school.
I’ve never seen the Twilight movies, and have no plans to ever change that. I plowed through the first book in the series back in college, and I’ll be honest, I thought the author was 13. I felt like since the author was 13, it’s not a half-bad attempt at a novel. We all had to start somewhere, eh? I was at a loss for words when I found out otherwise. Between the horrid writing that never once improved, the horrifying messages, the stereotypes of certain characters, the batshit crazy fanbase, and the plot black holes, I’m giving this (and the disgusting franchise it spawned) a huge miss. Instead, I took whatever I would’ve spent to rent the movies, and donated it to a domestic violence shelter.
Same with the Lord of the Rings series. It never interested me in the slightest, and I hated The Hobbit in high school.
Also somehow missed out on Shakespeare in Love. It’s weird, b/c I was a total rennie in middle school, and this movie woulda been right up my alley. Too bad the producer ended up being a creepy consent violating horse dick.
I’ve never seen Gone with the Wind, and it’s staying not seen. No trailer or any link to the movie. The prejudices and racism toward groups of certain shared identities, even if they were commonplace at the time the movie came out and at the time the movie took place, are too much for me to accept as entertainment. This isn’t even getting into the relationship dynamics between the two MCs.
I should make it clear that not everybody thought like this when the movie came out, and not everyone thought like this during the time the movie took place.
This post isn’t meant to be a dig at anyone who’s missed out on popular movies for whatever reason. There’s many out there who haven’t seen the so-called ‘popular’ movies, even if they don’t admit to it. A friend of mine’s somehow never seen Schindler’s List. We grew up in the same neighborhood, so you’re in good company. Tbh, there really shouldn’t be a stigma attached to someone missing out on a blockbuster movie anyway.
Over to you, readers. What movies have you missed out on that a lot of people are total stans over? Any of the ones I’ve listed? Something else? Have any plans to see them? Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts and takeaways, so drop ’em like they’re hot in the comments below, and let’s talk.
