for some reason, my sister once rented American Beauty with the intention of getting our middle-aged parents to watch it. then she suggested we watch it and went out. well, i wasn’t about to watch it with them, so i retired to my room and read a book. judging from my father’s comments about it the next day, my parents probably felt uncomfortable watching it together even without us kids there.
i love the movie, but i don’t think it was ever meant for stodgy conservative 50-somethings.
My parents went to see the Guns of Navarone in the theater when it came out. As the movie started, a lady behind them said to her date “this isn’t a western.”
I remember that some class went to see Woody Allen’s Play it Again, Sam when it first came out. It was from a parochial school. Not my class, so I can’t report what the reaction was, but I suspect that the nuns – especially circa 1969 nuns – wouldn’t have reacted too well to scenes of extramarital sex, or the attempted seduction of Joy Bang (and her description of her sex life).
As I’ve mentioned on this Board before, I was surprised when I took my father to see Dona Flor and her Two Husbands, and it had extremely graphic sex scenes. And I maintain there is no way you would have known this from the posters, or the reviews I’d read.
On a first date I took a girl to see The Accused. She wanted to see it, and when I dropped her home, she said, “Well, shall we start from the beginning again maybe tomorrow night?”
This reminds me of the classic story about my grandma. When she was a little old lady, she and her little old lady friend went to Good Will Hunting. They must have thought it would be a nice drama with Robin Williams; what could be bad? Well, as soon as the profanity started they were appalled.
“And we would have left, but it was too dark and we were afraid we would trip and fall on the way out.”
Poor things, but that was pretty funny to hear about.
Back in the early 80’s, I took a potential girlfriend to see A Clockwork Orange. I should have done a little more research. :smack: We’re still friends.
My friend gave me rave review and said it was suitable for my video watching group (SIL, Bro, Nieces 19 and 13 (sheltered)), so I rented Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. After renting Joe’s Apartment, a great cockroach movie the week before, I am no longer allowed to rent movies for them.
A professor of mine came into class one morning to tell us about her movie going experiance the night before. Her friend had recommended she and her husband see American Beauty. The friend didn’t mention the plot, just told her it was an excellent movie and they needed to see it right away.
My professor and her husband didn’t watch much TV, so they had no idea another movie with the word American in the title was playing, and really what are the odds of two movies with 1/2 the same name playing at the same time, and ended up seeing the wrong movie.
American Pie.
To her credit, she did have a sense of humor about the whole affair.
After I (a healthy young male) stated I liked About Last Night, a friend of mine who hadn’t seen it recommended it to her 60ish year old mom. There are more than a few scenes of Demi Moore’s nude pre-surgery body in it. To this day, I can barely face the mom.
My parents took me and my sister (ages 11 and 6, at the time) to see The Last Emperor, thinking it was a nicely photographed historical drama. And it was, although it had a fair amount of graphic violence and sexual content, including lesbian toe-sucking that was kind of an eye-opener for me. I wasn’t scandalized or offended by it, but my parents sure were and my sister was traumatized for life by a scene where a mouse is killed. So remember folks, Bernardo Bertolucci films may not be appropriate for children.
A speaker gave a seminar about communication at my workplace a year or two ago. In addition to being a dull, unilluminating speaker (how he became a lecturer on communications I’ll never know), he chose to demonstrate some of his points with clips from movies. Many of my coworkers are a generation older than me and fairly conservative, so it was fairly awkward and uncomfortable while watching uncensored clips from Phone Booth, full of R-rated language.
My brother had an advance copy of Bowling for Columbine and raved about it, telling me that it was totally hilarious and that I had to see it. I was staying the night at a friend’s house the next night, first time I’d been invited over for the evening and this was a friendship I was trying to cultivate. So, thinks me, what a marvellous idea to take this funny little movie over to new friend’s house to impress.
Halfway through the part where the 911 call is playing over CCTV footage, friend turns to me and says, completely deadpan, “Oh you must come over again soon, I’m just having such a fun time listening to the little children being shot.”
I saw The Last Picture Show when I was a very young teenager, accompanied by my father. :eek: We never spoke of it again.
When I was in high school, my father always used to hide the more risque movies he would rent in the same place. So one Saturday afternoon, when I had the house all to myself, I looked in the usual spot and found a tape of Lady Chatterly’s Lover. I popped it into the VCR and sat down on the sofa to watch. About half an hour into it, the front door opened and in walked my mom, along with her parents. I’d managed to turn the TV off, but our VCR (the one we bought in 1984 or so) didn’t have a remote. So as my mother busied herself in the kitchen, my grandfather switched on the TV, and he and grandma sat down to watch whatever happened to be on…
Now grandma was too doped up on medication to pay any attention to the screen, but my grandpa seemed to enjoy the movie. Though he did point out that the book was better.
My dad’s friend from work recommended a certain movie, told him it was a great film, and to bring the whole family. So my dad, my mom, my sister and I (aged 12) and my brother (age 9) and a family friend’s son (teenager) all went to go see it.
The movie was Aliens. :eek:
I was in middle school when **Titanic ** came out and I saw it with my father 
and my grandmother :eek:. I’m not sure why.
When the “draw me naked” scene came up, I was already blushing furiously when I heard my 80-something year old grandmother’s voice. “Cover Il Palazzo’s eyes! She’s naked!” To this day, I’m not sure if she was shouting or if, in the quiet of the theater, it simply sounded that way, but I am sure of this. If I could have easily fit, I would have curled up on the sticky floor under the theater seat to hide my shame.
In 1991 my elderly father insisted that I take him to see The Silence of the Lambs. My dad was a recluse in his latter years, and he hadn’t been to a real movie theater for two decades. His favorite movies were Cat Ballou, Old Yeller, and The Maltese Falcon. Why he picked The Silence of the Lambs as a movie he just had to see, I dunno. Maybe he thought it was about lambs. It upset him badly, and we had to leave the theater. Naturally, he was furious with me for having taken him, even though he’d begged and pleaded to go see it.
I was stricken with horror when my sister told me that my parents were going to see **‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ ** on grounds that it was an Asian movie, so it had to be good! :dubious:
Unfortunately, my parents are very, very, very conservative and devout immigrant types. :eek:
I’ve never had the guts to ask if they actually did go see it.
Then there was the time when I rented the Robin Williams version of **‘The Birdcage’ ** one day, figuring that it was Robin Williams, so hey! Unfortunately, my mother is homophobic as hell. We got into a huge fight when she wouldn’t stop being horrified at the screen and leave so I could enjoy it by myself. :rolleyes: Never again, I swear.
When I was 13 my family was on vacation, staying at a lakeside cottage. One rainy day Mom decided to take the kids to a movie because they couldn’t go swimming. The movie of choice Exit to Eden. Nothing like seeing Rosie O’Donnell in a leather corset to bring a family together.
Or Dana Delany without one. 
Let it be known to all: Wild Things is not a good first date movie except under very specific circumstances. If someone can figure out what those circumstances might have been, please let me know.