The title’s “it” refers to movies, and the first part isn’t sarcasm. This thread is about movies you believe are probably very good, and which you’d like to be able to watch, but which, for various reasons, are just far too painful for you.
Brokeback Mountain is one of mine, for personal reasons, which brought this to mind. So are A Beautiful Mind and Requiem for a Dream.
There’s pretty much everything Takashi Miike has made, and most horror in fact - I have a fascination with horror films, but I can’t actually watch them, so I read them, and about them, and look at stills, and watch documentaries, instead.
Sometimes you see these movies once before you realize you can’t ever see them again. I saw Mulholland Drive in the theatre and I’m glad I did, but since I’m still processing it I think once will be enough. David Lynch is often like that, for me.
A couple more obscure ones in the seen-it-once category: Closetland and Miracle Mile.
I saw **2001: A Space Odyssey ** when I was very young, and I don’t want to see it again, because it was magical. Likewise A Clockwork Orange because it was traumatic. Damn you, Kubrick!
Eh. Requiem IMO butchered the original intent of the author; in interviews with the author of the book, he kept insisting that the book wasn’t about drugs, it was about kids getting caught with their heads in the clouds. The director insisted he stayed true to that, but the way I saw it it just veered off into “drugs are bad, mmkay?” The violent depictions of self-destruction are so exaggerated that I can’t take it seriously. But that’s just me. Sorry if I’m striking a chord, BTW, I don’t mean to.
I tried watching Spun for about 15 minutes once and it just pissed me off, the way it wasted absolutely no time in painting an outlandish, stereotypical picture of its subjects. I was once a social meth “experimenter”; I had a few weeks one summer where I smoked a fair bit of it while hanging out with friends. Yeah, I’ve known some tweakers who for a short time weren’t far off of the Spun stereotype. And yeah, the genuine tweakers are scary folk. But the people I saw it with were people I smoked pot with all the time, and they would watch these movies and get a holier-than-thou “my drug is better than their drugs” attitude. Whenever I tried to tell them that, no, not everyone who does meth is a tweaker, they acted like my brain had been permanently rewired by the Devil Crystal to block out reality and reinterpret it.
I really avoid almost all movies dealing with drugs, because most of them take what I see as a Hearstian attitude about it: take reality and make it as wild as possible, so you can reap as much cash as you can out of it. Yeah, I realize that’s part of what movies have to do with everything. But a lot of movies ride a morality bandwagon that profits off of peoples’ needs to ride a higher horse heh than their friends and enemies. I don’t watch movies alone, and when I watch movies where drugs play more than a circumstantial role, it often turns into a morals-fest where my friends tell me how terrible I am for my past indiscretions. I got rid of those friends and those movies.
I am very, very seldom in the mood for sad movies, even if they’re supposedly great and ultimately life-affirming. That’s probably not that unusual though (who wants to watch a downer?), but that’s why it’ll be a while before I watch Brokeback Mountain or Terms of Endearment or The Bicycle Thief or anything similar. I’ve seen Tokyo Story and Million Dollar Baby, and while they were both good, I doubt I’ll see either one again for a looong time.
Me too. I love horror, but I haven’t been able to watch it or read it since the mid 80’s. I do the same as you – read reviews and message boards, watch the 100 Scariest Moments, etc.
I won’t watch Million Dollar Baby, and I only watched Cinderella Man after I made sure how it was going to end.
Miracle Mile is a great example – I taped it, positive that I’d want to watch it again. Then I taped over it, as if that would erase the memory. (Didn’t work.)
When I hear about a remake of a movie that was damn near perfect the first time, I usually shake my head and walk away. However, I have a lot of respect for Steve Martin. I think I’ll see the new Panther, though not without some fear.
The Hours…I am sure it is fine acting, and I am sure the stories are great, but the thought of spending all that time watching three suicidal Lesbians, well…pass.
Million Dollar Baby…someone spoiled it for me, so I guess I just don’t want to see the ending now that I know what it is. Maybe some day when it is on cable and I have nothing else to do…maybe.
Any of the Jesus movies of late…Temptation Of Christ and that other Mel Gibson one (Passion whatever)…I guess being raised in the Roman Catholic cult has pretty much turned me off wanting to see any Biblical films whatsoever. I am sure both were beautifully filmed, but - well, every Sunday morning spent with Sister Mary Hell On Wheels has ensured my lack of interest for the rest of my life.
Boys Don’t Cry…I remember reading about the true story, and it was depressing enough - don’t really want to re-live the events no matter how good I am sure Hillary Swank was in the film.
Anything involving harm to children. I hear The Sweet Hereafter was a very good movie, but I’ll never watch it. I won’t be watching **Trainspotting ** either.
Was there in Rwanda? Wow…
On a lighter note, I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Woody Allen or Roman Polanski’s films yet. I have no problem watching movies from either guy, but I’ve met a lot of people who refuse to watch their movies, even if they’re interested in them.
