I Know I Should Watch This, But I'm Not Gonna THREAD

So, there are millions of movies out there. And I know we all have lists of ones we're going to watch - probably several hundred of them. But, we're all human, and I know that there are also those films that we haven't seen and we probably should but for whatever reason we aren't going to. Maybe it's because an ex really liked it, or it was during a particularly tough time in life, or even just because you don't like this or that actor or director. Let this be a safe place to share your list and reasons!

The biggest one for me is ENCANTO (2021). I know it's good. Everyone tells me it's good. No, everyone tells me it's great! My MiL insisted I see it. Every time we visited. And hey, the kids are watching it! At school! At home! Encanto parties! Have you heard We Don't Talk About Bruno?! Have you? Let me play it for you! Let's shove it i to an overlong Oscars ceremony even though it wasn't nominated! And look at that poster. I want to punch that lady and her Dreamworks-esque face.

It's petty, I know. It's a contrarian feeling like when everyone liked this one thing and, to be different, I said I didn't! It's hating the popular kids because they're the best. One day my daughter will want to watch it a billion times and I'll be Stockholmed into liking it (and again, I hear it's lovely) but for now, this is the hill I die on.

What's yours?

Not a film, but I'm starting to feel that way about THE BOYS.

I don't think I'm ever revisiting Gone With the Wind. I haven't seen it since I was a kid, before I started to pay close attention to the craft of filmmaking, and it would probably impress me more through grown-up eyes, on that level. But quite apart from how awkward the Lost Cause hagiography has become these days, Scarlett is just so. God. Damned. ODIOUS as a character, especially a character who is the focal point of a four fuckin' hour movie. I know it's a large part of the point, but I couldn't stand her then and I'd hate her even more now.

I think GONE WITH THE WIND is absolutely an important film in the history of Hollywood and deserves to be seen at least once just for the sheer craft and scale of the production. But every time I've entertained the notion of watching it again, I get to that "There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields" in the intro and I'm just all "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!"

I last saw GONE WITH THE WIND during a big screen revival it had (many, many years ago) and yeah, I'm never watching that movie again.

I've managed to knock a few movies off my List of Shame (TM), but in keeping with this thread: there are some I'm never going to watch. One of the most prominent is A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Everything I know about this movie says it's not for me in almost every way a film can be.

More recently: THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Highly lauded, apex mountain for Anderson and maybe even DDL...but I know the ending (and the deception the plot hangs on) and it just feels like a movie that would be deeply unpleasant, to say the least, to watch. So...I'm pretty sure I'll never see it.

Elem Klimov's Come and See. Don't have the courage to watch it, because either it's just as horrific as they say it is and I'll be scarred for life, or it's a big old dud, dated and unintentionally funny, and I'll be royally disappointed.

Or worse, it's just as horrific as they say it is but I'll be unmoved because I'm desensitized and dead inside.

I'm the same way with SALO, Roke. Like, I get it. But I missed my window to see it in my youth and now it's a big old nope, I have way more happier things to do with my time, like shove needles under my fingernails.

Forrest Gump. It's always seemed to me to be the perfect storm of all the things I hate most about Hollywood in 'worthy' mode. Twee nostalgia, slathered-on melodrama, sickly-patronising portrayal of disability and self-important social commentary that has all the depth and emotional intelligence of a 'live laugh love' cross-stitch.

IMNSHO, worky, you're not missing anything. GUMP is a flash-in-the-pan Oscar phenom; like SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE or A BEAUTIFUL MIND, it's a movie that grabbed a lot of attention for a short while but has not aged well and been shown to be fairly shallow over time.

Audition. Many years ago, a co-worker enthusiastically loaned me the DVD and I must have had it on the shelf for six months before concluding I was never going to subject myself to it.