Now: I like movies. Julie and I go to them on some occasions and even do this newfangled Pay-Per-View on others.
Yet the list of movies I haven’t seen is maybe more, um, impressive than the list of those I have.
I’m talking about movies that transcend the film world and become cultural icons. The kind of movies that though I haven’t seen them, I still know something of their content.
The kind of movies that when I tell my friends I haven’t seen them, their jaws drop in disbelief.
So here they are: five movies that through my avoidance I know I’m missing something great:
5. Castaway. There’s a plane wreck, Tom Hanks doing his best Grizzly Adams, and a soccer ball named Wilson. Have I missed anything?
4. Citizen Kane. Does anyone else think the image of Orson Welles below looks a lot like Leonardo DiCaprio?
3. Seabiscuit. Maybe if the name of the movie had been Secretariat, I’d have gone. Or even Mr. Ed. But not Seabiscuit.
2. The Godfather. Speaking of horses . . .
1. The Shawshank Redemption. I know, I know. No self-respecting American male should miss this one. And I even tried once . . . but my squeamishness about a) prison scenes and b) long crawls through human waste made me give up before I was 30 minutes in.