Wicked Wednesday — Movies I Haven’t Seen

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It seems like all of us have a movie that the rest of the world has seen but we’ve somehow missed. So today we are talking about which movie we missed.

Sherry: Dirty Dancing — I don’t know how I missed it. I loved Patrick Swayze — I think I’ve seen almost every other movie he’s been in. I almost met him in person when he was filming a movie on the base we’d lived on in Los Angeles. (I did meet Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and the cute little boy from the first Jurassic Park movie.) I love dancing and romance but somehow I’ve never managed to sit down and watch Dirty Dancing.GoodwillHunting

Edith: Oh, I loved Dirty Dancing, Sherry! Have seen it a couple of times.

I never saw Titanic. Or Good Will Hunting, but I still want to, even more now that we’ve lost Robin Williams. And I fell asleep during Forrest Gump and never finished watching it.

Julie: Years ago the Wang Center did a Monday night movie series. That was a great opportunity to know off many of the “must see” films–Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, Gone With The Wind. I’ve still missed a few of the big ones. But one movie I reference a lot, but have never seen, is What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? One reference came last week after a bad bout of hat head combined with smeared red lipstick due to a scarf malfunction.

Jessie: I’ve never seen E.T. My great aunt told my parents it wasn’t appropriate for kids and for some reason they believed her. By the time I was old enough to make my own movie choices I was no longer interested.

notebookBarb: I’ve never seen Titanic, either, though I’ve seen so many clips, I feel like I’ve seen it. This Christmas season, I watched Chitty Chitty, Bang, Bang with my two kids (both in their thirties), who wouldn’t believe I’d never seen it, because they had seen it “100s of times.” Where was I while all this was going on? I loved it, but that is one weird movie. While we’ve been touring Charleston all day today–on the horse-drawn carriages and in historic homes, tour guides keep asking, “Have you seen The Notebook?” Nope, nope and nope.

Liz: No Titanic? No Dirty Dancing?? You guys are killing me! But I shouldn’t talk. There are so many I haven’t seen. Like Any of the Lord of the Rings, or (ashamed to admit it) Star Wars. Just not my thing!

Readers, which big movies have you missed?

Published by Sherry Harris

Sherry Harris is the author of the Agatha Award nominated Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mystery series and the Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Mystery series.

35 Thoughts

  1. I’ve seen “Dirty Dancing” (and will see the play next month) but I’ve never seen “Ghost”. Movies I’ve missed that don’t have Patrick Swayze in them – “Forrest Gump” and “Evita” (saw the play).

    Liz – no “Star Wars” or “Lord of the Rings”? I may just have to rethink our friendship. 🙂 The weekend after Malice is Ottawa Comic Con (this year there are guests from both of those franchises). May is a busy and expensive month for me.

  2. Dirty Dancing, The Princess Bride, Groundhog Day, most horror movies (Halloween, Elm Street, etc.) and Lord of the Rings trilogy–although my sons have watched all three countless times. I always left the room because the orcs are too scary.
    I could do an entire list of movies I *wish* I had not seen!

    1. Orcs are definitely scary, but I did make it through the first movie. Just haven’t had time or inclination to finish the triology. With you on horror movies!

  3. I’ve seen bits and pieces of The Notebook on TV but haven’t watched it all the way through. The one movie everyone tells me I should see is “The Shawshank Redemption” ~ one friend even bought me the DVD and still I can’t bring myself to watch it. I don’t like prison movies!

  4. Sherry, you HAVE to watch Dirty Dancing! You will love it! I’ve seen the original Star Wars movies, but not the three prequels and from what my kids told me, I haven’t missed anything. I also haven’t seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I hated the books when I read them way back in high school. I’m not a big movie watcher. I haven’t seen most of the movies released in the last twenty years.

    The Princess Bride was on TV the other night. I tried to watch it, but ended up turning it off. I expected it to be more like Mel Brooks’ movies, but I didn’t find it funny at all. It was just…um…stupid.

      1. Whereas I completely love The Princess Bride. Partially but by no means entirely because my kids can recite whole swaths of it.

      2. Barbara, I much prefer Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood Men In Tights. Even I can recite lines from that one! When my sons were in high school they tried to convince their choir director to let the men’s chorus perform the Men In Tights song. Needless to say, she said no.

    2. I couldn’t make it through the Lord of the Rings books. He needed an editor! I don’t care about the bark on every tree they pass in a forest. I made it through the movies once. That was enough for me.

      Princess Bride took me twice to fully appreciate, but now I love it. I was the same with The Emperor’s New Grove. It was the second time I watched it that I fell in love with it.

  5. I keep stumbling over reruns of Dirty Dancing on obscure channels and I always have to stop and watch the rest of it–love it! Stars Wars, of course–although after seeing the first one (or was it the second?) I turned to my companion and said (spoiler alert!), “you know Darth Vader is going to turn out to be Luke’s father.” I adored Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, years ago. The Way We Were (when I was in NYC last year with my sister, we walked by the Plaza and I said it reminded me of that final scene in the movie, and she had no clue what I was talking about.) Lawrence of Arabia blew me away when I first saw it. Becket still breaks my heart (hmm, maybe that’s why I became a medievalist–gotta love Eleanor of Aquitaine, although she had little to do in the movie!). But don’t ask me about any movies made in the past decade or so, because I probably haven’t seen any of them.

  6. I lived through the early sixties as a teenager in the Borscht Belt and had to stop watching partway into Dirty Dancing. “Historical” inaccuracies 😱 have also kept me from seeing all of Braveheart, Elizabeth, and a host of others movies. I tend to throw things at the tv when I know things are waaaay wrong. Gave the second and third Lord of the Rings movies a pass after the first one. I agree about the Orcs. On the other hand, I had “burble syndrome” for a week after seeing the first Star Wars movie when it was first in theaters. It really was revolutionary back then. No reader of science fiction ever expected Hollywood to be able to create something like the cantina scene and moviegoers went nuts over it. It paved the way for all the special effects that came afterward.

    Kathy/Kaitlyn, suddenly feeling older than usual 😉

  7. Two thumbs down for The Princess Bride? It’s inconceivable..still I’ve never seen The Way We Were which lots of people love. I think i have trouble with a guy named Hubble.

  8. The list of movies I’ve never seen could stretch forever. You can add me to the Dirty Dancing list as well as Titanic. I have no desire to watch that second one at all. I am not fascinated with all things Titanic and find myself depressed anytime I do read/watch anything based on it.

    I’ve also never seen Gone with the Wind, Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, and so many more of the big classic movies.

    I didn’t watch too many films until my junior year of college, so there are plenty of 80’s films I never watched. The biggest that springs to mind right now is The Breakfast Club.

    1. I haven’t watched The Breakfast Club either — I’m not sure why. I did all the others — Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, St. Elmo’s Fire, etc. But you must watch Gone With the Wind some day.

  9. Sherry, no Dirty Dancing for a Patrick Swayze fan? That’s just wrong. Especially since some tv stations here show it so much I call them the Dirty Dancing channels. Maybe you’re afraid you’ll be disappointed?
    You can add me to the The Way We Were and The Notebook lists, and to the horror movie list. I saw some of the biggies – Exorcist, Jaws – and that’s why I don’t go for more!

    1. I’ll get to it one of these days, Shari!. Exorcist is one of those movies I wish I could un-see! I saw it in college and our dorm had radiators — banged all night long and scared me!

  10. I haven’t seen The Big Chill, Apocalypse Now or Saving Private Ryan (war movies are not my favorite thing). I boycotted Titanic for years, partly because I had bought into the idea that James Cameron was a jerk for divorcing Linda Hamilton (how do crazy things like this get into my head?), and partly because I know almost everyone dies horribly and I don’t like depressing movies. I finally watched it this year and I have to say that except for one scene, it was a great movie. When lots of people who have different movie preferences tell me a movie is great, I try to open up and experience it. Sometimes it’s worth it if only to be part of all the talk about it, but quite often I do enjoy those movies. I still wish I could un-see Something About Mary, which is a movie that almost everyone I knew raved about. I was in the minority who thought it was completely stupid.

    1. Ooh, I love The Big Chill–it’s like some weirdly idealized vision of “my” generation. I didn’t particularly want to see Titanic because I’ve always thought Leonardo di Caprio can’t act. But I did end up watching it, eventually (didn’t change my mind, though).

    1. Loved the Big Chill and john Sayles Return of the Secaucus Seven even more. That’s why I was surprised you didn’t make it the Forrest Gump, Edith. Great soundtrack.

  13. Barb: How are you enjoying Charleston? I love it down here after living in NH for 40 some odd years. We’ve been down here 6 years and love the area. And you picked the best couple of days to tour, of course Friday you’ll feel like your back in New England 🙂

    1. We loved it! What a beautiful city. We’ve moved on, visiting Wicked Sherry Harris in VA, but we really enjoyed out time in Charleston.

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