Last night I watched The Blues Brothers. Now I must make an admission: I’d never seen it before. I can offer no explanation as to how a cult classic has managed to pass me by for so long, after all it’s my kind of film, but pass me by it did. I am suitably ashamed. And now I’m wondering which other films widely regarded as classics I have missed in favour of an awful lot of dross.
Every year Channel 4 subject us to their “100 Greatest” series. 100 Greatest Movie Stars, TV Moments, Comedy Moments, even Adverts for goodness’ sake, as if we didn’t see enough already. These programs are usually presented by Jimmy Carr (a man who seems so surprised by his success he doesn’t say no to anything) and in each 114 hour marathon episode they wheel out countless “celebrities” to pass comment. It’s always the same ones and often they have nothing to do with the subject they’re commenting on. And most of them are only celebrities by virtue of the fact that they appeared in Heat magazine once or twice. Probably in the “ring of shame” section. Do they just make these programmes all at the same time and decide at a later date which one to bung on when Big Brother’s finished and they haven’t been arsed to make anything new? Or good.
A while ago they did “100 Greatest Films” so I thought this would be a good place to start to find out just how many classic films I’ve missed. Of the 100 Channel 4 viewers voted as the best, I have seen but 32. In the top 10 the 4 I hadn’t seen were (are you ready for this?) It’s a Wonderful Life, Blade Runner, Some Like it Hot and **gasp** The Godfather. I fully expect to have gone down in many people’s estimation because of 2 of those. It’s also pretty difficult for me to confess to you that I’ve never seen Withnail & I all the way through. Why? WHY? No idea.
Of course, there are a fair few titles in there I am glad I’ve never seen. Titanic for example holds no interest for me and I’m sure if I had seen it I would regard it as 3 hours of my life I’d never get back. Similarly The Seventh Seal always seemed to be far too pretentious so I stuck to the easier spoofs like in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. I can hear the cries of “Philistine!” from here. Hey, at least I got the reference. I saw The Exorcist in the cinema and thought it was laughable pap. It really hasn’t aged well, even compared to some of the dreadful horrors I watched as a teenager (remember Witchboard?), some 95% of the dross I referred to earlier. And I wish I hadn’t seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Controversial, I know and all you boys will have your heads in your hands as you dub me a stupid, stupid woman. Pah, it left me cold, would you rather I pretended to like it? While I’m at it I might as well admit I’m not that fussed on the Matrix or Star Wars either. There, I’ve said it.
Think of me what you will, but maybe the fact I don’t like Grease or Dirty Dancing (happily neither of which appear in the 100 Greatest) will redeem me a little? Not that it really matters, personal taste is personal taste, after all. But I don’t want you to imagine me sobbing over some lame chick flick just because I don’t like a few boys’ movies. I’m just not that kind of girl.
Luckily for me in these days of LoveFilm it is an easy thing to redress the balance and I can soon catch up. As I write I’m adding Taxi Driver, Blue Velvet, Spartacus, Get Carter, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Apocalypse Now and many more besides to my rental list. Just don’t hold it against me if I don’t like them all.
Check out Channel 4′s 100 Greatest Films here.