Movie Confessions Blogathon

My Film Views is hosting a Movie Confessions blogathon, asking all the movie questions we're a little ashamed to answer. I first discovered it via the blog Cinematic Katzenjammer.

Here goes...

Which classic movie don’t you like/can’t enjoy and why? 
The Godfather. I CANNOT stand The Godfather, first or second. I've watched it all the way through once and tried a second time, but it's JUST SO BORING. (I'm coming to the conclusion that I just don't like Francis Ford Coppola - I hated Apocalypse Now too.)

Which ten classic movies haven’t you seen yet? 
Using my unseen list on Flickchart to help me, I came up with these ten: A Fistful of Dollars, 8 1/2, Ben Hur, The 400 Blows, The Great Dictator, The Magnificent Seven, Nosferatu (on my Blind Spots list, so I'll see it sometime this year!), Evil Dead 2 (just saw the first Evil Dead a few weeks ago), Dracula, and Spartacus.

Have you ever sneaked into another movie at the cinema?
No, although I did go watch the last 30 minutes of Attack of the Clones in the cinema. I got permission to do so, though. I was seeing Spider-Man while my family was seeing Star Wars. My movie ended 30 minutes earlier and there really wasn't a place to sit and wait for my family to be done in the little tiny theater, so they gave me permission to go sit in there.

Which actor/actress do you think is overrated?
Hmm. Let's go with Meryl Streep. Occasionally she is off-the-charts excellent (Doubt comes to mind) but most of the time she's not that interesting, and when she's in comedies she is just AWFUL. Example: I went into Mamma Mia! hoping that since she was supposedly such a great actress, she'd be the best part of the movie, but she was the worst. I could even handle Pierce Brosnan over her.

From which big director have you never seen any movie (and why)?
That is a really, really, really tough one, because I tend to watch a little bit of everything, but I came up with one! I've never seen anything by Fellini. 8 1/2 is on my unseen classics list up there, and I'm pretty sure I've never seen anything else he's done.

Which movie do you love, but is generally hated?
Oh, dear. I have to defend The Happening again. Which I really can't do, because I completely accept that the ending is stupid and the acting is terrible... but all that fades away when you realize IT COMPLETELY WORKED ON ME. Terrified me, almost to a nightmare-inducing point (which is really, really rare for me and horror movies). The idea of losing complete control of yourself like that is possibly the most awful thing I can think of, and seeing scene after scene after scene of people losing themselves and dying was horrifying - but in a good "that movie was awesomely scary" way. The movie completely fails whenever it tries to be not just a series of scary scenes and have actual action (and also when Mark Wahlberg speaks), but the scary scenes themselves are so effective for me that I kind of love it.

Have you ever been “one of those annoying people” at the cinema?
I tend to be really conscious of other people around me, so usually not. However, I've sat with "those annoying people," and if it's just me and my friends in the theater, I will willingly talk (and occasionally text) through the whole movie with them. But if there's anyone else to annoy, I am a good audience member.

Hold on, I've just remembered the time I went to see The Game Plan with a group of friends. We were the only ones in the theater, but one friend and I spent most of the time quietly mocking the movie, until eventually the rest of the group made us go sit somewhere else in the theater, after we figured out the ending. So, yeah, just that one time.

Did you ever watch a movie, which you knew in advance would be bad, just because of a specific actor/actress was in it? Which one and why? 
Absolutely. I hunt down movies with musical theater people in them. I watched School of Rock for Adam Pascal. I watched Dan in Real Life for Norbert Leo Butz. I watched Bewitched for Kristin Chenoweth. Although it turns out that Bewitched was the only one of those that's really a terrible movie, I didn't expect to like any of them. And one of these days I have to watch all Neil Patrick Harris' movies. *grimace* Here I come, Smurfs and Beastly...

Did you ever not watch a specific movie because it had subtitles? 
Nah. Sometimes I'll be like, "I don't want to watch this movie TONIGHT because it has subtitles," but I'm totally for subtitles and foreign films.

Are there any movies in your collection that you have had for more than five years and never watched?
No. I don't buy movies if I haven't seen them. I don't have that kind of money. My funds have to go to movies I actually know I like. The one exception is a $3 "classic movie musicals" collection I bought from Wal-Mart, but that was less than five years ago. So far I've seen two out of the twenty on the list. I need to finish that up.

Which are the worst movies in your collection and why do you still own them?
Well, the least-liked-by-me one is Remember the Titans, which ended up on my Amazon wish list for some reason, so I got it for Christmas. One of these days I'll sell it or trade it for something else. Other than that, I like pretty much all the movies I own.

Do you have any confessions about your movie watching setup at home?
Nah. I watch pretty much all my movies on my laptop. Nothing confession-y about that. I always think I'm going to be like, "Hey, everybody, let's watch a movie!" but 90% of the time I'd rather watch something new and I don't generally like watching new-to-me movies with people.

Any other confessions you want to make?
Sometimes if I'm halfway through a movie and it's extremely boring and I just want to finish it and I know it's not going to turn itself around, I watch it on double speed with subtitles on so it can be done faster. If it gets interesting at any point, I slow it back down.

Other movie blogs I read that have participated in this blogathon
Eternity of Dream
"...let's be splendid about this..."
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
The Frame