10 significant films I've never seen ... or finished

 Last Saturday I heard an interview with Richard Hammond, former child actor now screenwriter and Australian resident who had been in The Sound of Music, among other high profile films. It occured to me that I still hadn't seen the movie. There are many reasons this is so, from anitpathy to force of cirsumstance. So, here's a list of that and others.

 

The Sound of Music: Not once, only clips. Don't know why as I quite like musicals.

Gone With the Wind: It's from a favourite era of Hollywood and the cast is stellar and it's about a part of American history that interests me but I keep missing it.

Every Star Wars film after the first (ie A New Hope when it was just called Star Wars back in the 70s): Just bits of most (but not all) of these This is not just missing out. I hated the first one when it was new and nothing I've seen of any of the subsequent ones has made me want to see the rest. Just can't get into it.

Any James Bond after Sean Connery: This is not from any loyalty to Connery. Roger Moore had long been Bond when I was still young enough to get into this. I think I just missed out on it. By the time he was replaced the only thing I still liked about James Bond movies was the music. Tried to watch the new one but couldn't get into it.

Lawrence of Arabia: Looks great. Every clip I've seen is terrific. For some reason the idea of seeing the whole thing just turns me off. I've watched plenty of blergy movies about World War I (my favourite world war) just not this.







 

Dr Zhivago: The subject matter concerns my ancestry and it's made by the great David Lean (like Lawrence) but I've never got around to it.

When We Were Kings: I know it's about much more than a boxing match and is a study of the media circus, the personalities, fame and its effects etc etc but I just have to struggle too hard to keep interested in anything to do with sport. It may as well be sewage systems or long division, I just glaze over. I even missed out on cultivating a relationship with a girl radiant with inner and outer beauty because I was the one who couldn't get into AFL. So, this one decked me in the first round.

Olympiad: You do have to overlook the obsessions of some of her mates but Leni Riefenstahl could film BIG and make it interesting. But ... sport.

Un Chien Andalou: It's the razor on the eyeball. I have read so much about it and know how it was done and I have seen far worse than it's reputed to be but I just can't bring myself to watch it.

Cannibal Holocaust: I like all sorts of gore and horror and the setup for this makes it a pioneer of the found footage approach but every time I read about it I get turned off. This is less for the gore than the increasing sense of sleaze in the making of it. And then there's the violence against animals. Maybe I should just see it and get it over with. But .... do I really want to?