What do I have to be embarrassed about?

I'm sure there are many questions I'd like to ask Roger Ebert, but one has always interested me more than the others -- not because it would produce the most profound answer, but because I bet he doesn't get asked it very often, and it would be really interesting to hear what his answer was. That question is:

"What's the most prominent film you haven't seen?"

Or, phrased in a way that would seem slightly more judgmental, so I probably wouldn't ask it this way:

"What are you most embarrassed about never having seen?"

I've made it a point to always have an answer to this question myself. For the longest time, the answer was Casablanca. Then I finally saw Casablanca about five years ago, removing that shame from my movie-watching record. In fact, I considered it such a big deal to finally be seeing Casablanca that I scheduled it as the 2,000th movie I'd ever seen.

It's been a busy five years, and I am now up over 3,000. In that time I also saw The Godfather Part II, which next took over the mantle of "most prominent film I haven't seen." That viewing came to fruition in June of 2008, again as a "special occasion" -- my wife and I had a Godfather weekend in which we watched The Godfather on Friday night, and she made an Italian dinner; The Godfather Part II on Saturday night, and I made an Italian dinner; and The Godfather Part III on Sunday night, when we just ordered a pizza. Fun weekend, and somehow we also managed to sandwich in a yard sale Saturday morning. Just thinking about that now exhausts me.

So then it was Ben-Hur. But I saw Ben-Hur last month.

I'm having a bit of trouble choosing the next one in line, so I need your help.

I've dug up ten potential candidates to be the next classic I'm most embarrassed about never having seen. I scanned my Flickchart list of the top 500 movies I haven't seen to come up with these results, so I hope they're the best ten. You'd think it should just be the first ten movies on that list, but the term "best" is determined by what the users have ranked the highest. And it just so happens Flickchart has a lot of young users who must think that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is the best movie ever made, because that tops the list. Needless to say, I skipped over that. In fact, I'm going to limit this list to films that are at least 20 years old, in part because age helps determine a film's status as a classic, and in part because I probably have seen the most important movies to come out in the last 20 years.

So I'll list these ten in alphabetical order, so as not to bias you, and include a short comment with each. The one that gets the most votes in my comments section will officially become the new holder of this title.

I don't usually specifically ask for audience participation from you guys, but I'd really love it now. So if you're reading this, please chime in.

Okay, they are:

1) Gandhi (1982, Richard Attenborough). I know I've seen part of Gandhi, but it was such a short part that it certainly doesn't qualify. I am certainly looking forward to seeing it, especially as I continue to tick movies off the list of best picture winners I haven't seen. But carving out the 195 minutes to see it seems hard.

2) The Last Emperor (1987, Bernardo Bertolucci). Yikes. This one's actually 225 minutes. But this film has always seemed iconic to me because it came out right around the time I was really getting interested in the Oscars, and I remember being impressed that it won all nine statues for which it was nominated. (Actually, the 225-minute version is the TV miniseries that was later released. The theatrical version, which is the one I'd undoubtedly want to see, was actually only 160.)

3) Mary Poppins (1964, Robert Stevenson). I guess I didn't have any Mary Poppins lovers in my life when I was growing up, because of the two Julie Andrews musical classics, The Sound of Music was the one I saw -- at least twice. I'd love to see this because as I was watching, I bet I'd be surprised at how many songs there were that I didn't realize were from this movie/show.

4) My Fair Lady (1964, George Cukor). Wow, this came out the same year as Mary Poppins? What the hell was I doing in 1964? (Answer: Waiting another nine years to be born.) Like in Poppins, this film contains a number of songs I would either not know or forget were from this movie. Maybe I need to have a Mary Poppins/My Fair Lady double feature some day. (Funnily enough, Poppins' Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, but the producers thought she wasn't bankable enough for the film version because she wasn't known beyond Broadway at the time.)

5) Platoon (1986, Oliver Stone). So this makes four best picture winners of the five listed so far. I know I've seen parts of Platoon, and I once had an internal debate with myself about whether I'd seen the whole thing. The side that thought I hadn't seen the whole thing won out.

6) Rocky (1976, John G. Avildsen). This may be the oddest one on this list because Rocky III was one of the movies I watched most when I was a kid -- I've probably seen it ten times. I've seen every Rocky movie that came out since then, even Rocky Balboa (which was actually good), but I still haven't seen the original Rocky, or Rocky II for that matter. You'd think I would have sought them out at some point, but when I was at that age, I must have thought Rocky looked really dated, and besides, it didn't have either Mr. T or Hulk Hogan in it. (Five out of six best picture winners.)

7) Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick). How is it that I don't consciously know that Stanley Kubrick directed Spartacus? Talk about embarrassing ... Anyway, I always thought that Spartacus was in the same category as Ben-Hur, so this would be an appropriate successor in that sense. Gotta see that scene where everybody claims to be Spartacus -- it's iconic.

8) Sunset Boulevard (1950, Billy Wilder). I should have seen this for the classic quotes alone: "Alright Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." I absolutely love All About Eve, and I think of this movie in the same category, so yeah, I bet I'll like it.

9) The Ten Commandments (1956, Cecil DeMille). Speaking of Mr. DeMille ... This has a Ben-Hur connection also in the sense that it stars Charlton Heston, in one of his three most iconic roles (along with Hur and Planet of the Apes). At 219 minutes, though, The Ten Commandments could take me ten days to finish.

10) West Side Story (1961, Robert Wise). And that makes six best picture winners out of the ten. I should have a special fondness for West Side Story, since it was the show my high school put on when I was still in junior high, which got me excited about doing high school drama. (Strangely enough, I decided to do basketball my freshman year, which conflicted with the musical, thereby missing my chance to be in Fiddler on the Roof, which holds a similar dear place in my heart and which I also have not seen in its movie form. The musicals I did do my sophomore, junior and senior years were nowhere near as iconic -- Once Upon a Mattress, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and The Good Woman of Setzuan.)

So which one is it? I'm awaiting your responses with bated breath.

So go ahead -- embarrass me.

Shoehorning a classic

I'm reviewing The Bucket List for my website, and as I plopped it into my DVD player yesterday, I came across this ridiculous public service announcement, a "classic" that I'd laughed at many times before.

For those of you who don't want to follow the link to youtube, it's part of the anti-piracy campaign that you've seen running on DVDs before the trailers in recent years. You may remember the other really prominent one, with the overwrought music and the grainy images of shady customers buying shady videos from shady street vendors. ("You wouldn't steal a car, you wouldn't steal a purse," etc.)

The absurd thing about this particular one is that it uses famous scenes from Casablanca -- scenes whose dialogue has nothing whatsoever to do with pirating DVDs.

That should be perfectly obvious, Vance. Casablanca was made in 1942, and DVDs did not exist until the late 1990s.

Right, but the dialogue doesn't have anything to do with any kind of theft of anything.

Here are the lines from the movie they use:

Bergman: "Richard, we loved each other once. If those days meant anything at all to you--"

Bogie: "I wouldn't bring up Paris if I were you, it's poor salesmanship."

Bogie: "I wouldn't believe you no matter what you told me. You'd say anything now to get what you want."

Bergman: "There's so much at stake, all you can think of is your old feeling."

Bogie: "Go ahead and shoot. You'll be doing me a favor."

And here are the title cards in between these quotes, using an incredibly low-rent font that resembles a kids show on Nickelodeon more than one of cinema's most beloved films:

RICK IS REALLY UPSET.

THE WOMAN HE LOVES IS PIRATING DVDS.

NO MATTER HOW YOU SAY IT ...

PIRATING IS STEALING

RICK'S FEELINGS TELL HIM PIRACY IS WRONG.

DEEP DOWN ILSA FEELS IT TOO.

MAKING TIME WITH VICTOR'S GIRL: GOOD

PIRATING DVDs: BAD

Now, other than the fact that Casablanca is one of the most universally recognizable cinematic properties out there, who in their right mind thought that this footage was a logical match for this message?

I'm not opposed in principle to repurposing classic footage like this, as long as the usage of it is clever. But in this case it is beyond lazy. Although I've seen Casablanca only once (for shame), I'm willing to bet that these weren't even the best passages they could have chosen from Casablanca to peddle their anti-piracy message. And surely, other films would have yielded far more relevant results, not to mention having far more easily attainable rights.

It's simply laughable.

Note to self: If you are a Boston fan and are the least bit superstitious, it's probably not a good idea to watch a Jack Nicholson movie on the same day as an important game in the NBA Finals between the Celtics and the Lakers. (Final score: Lakers 91, Celtics 84. D'oh!)

Mr. 3000

Stan Ross, the fictional retired baseball player played by Bernie Mac in Mr. 3000, is famous for having collected exactly 3,000 hits in his major league career.

I'm not as well known as his character is supposed to be, but I'm now locally "famous" for a different reason -- I have seen exactly 3,000 movies.

That's right, I pulled that gimmick. I saved Mr. 3000 as the 3,000th movie I've ever seen, a milestone I reached last night.

Like it should be to collect 3,000 hits in a major league career -- only 27 major leaguers have ever done it -- it was a struggle for me to notch my 3,000th movie. I paused it several times to take short naps during the third act, not because the movie was bad (I actually quite liked it), but because it was after 11 p.m., and I start work at 7 a.m. every day.

But I did it. And I stand proud before you this morning.

The parallel with major league baseball extends further. Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader, was just about a month past his 37th birthday when he collected his 3,000th hit. Me, I'm about five months shy of my 37th. Granted, Rose was collecting his hits in a much more condensed period of time than I was watching my movies. But it also didn't take him two hours to collect a hit -- in fact, he might collect three hits in two hours.

It seems like only yesterday that I was planning out which movie would be my 2,000th. In fact, it was September 16, 2005, nearly five years ago. At the time, the movie I was most embarrassed about never having seen was Casablanca. So I chose Casablanca as my 2,000th movie. (And am ashamed to say I didn't see what all the fuss was about. How can I call myself a real film fan?)

The fact that I have now reached 3,000, less than five years later, means that I've been averaging more than 200 movies a year in the time in between. My 1,000th movie? I think it was Payback, starring Mel Gibson. Needless to say, I just let that one happen organically.

Three thousand movies may not seem like a lot to you, especially if you are also a film blogger, and you watch as many movies as I do. But consider this: If you say the average movie has a running time of 1 hour and 42 minutes (a guesstimate that comes from nowhere), that means I've spent 30,600 minutes watching movies. Divide that by 60 and you get 5100 hours. Divide that by 24 and you get 212.5 days. That's right, nearly two-thirds of a year of my life spent watching movies. (Okay, it's closer to 58% of a year, if I'm being all specific with my numbers.) And that's counting all the movies I've seen only one time. You might throw in an extra week or two for second, third, fourth and 12th viewings of my favorite movies.

A couple other stats that may interest you, but probably only interest me: Of those 3,000 movies, I gave 1,946 a thumbs up and 1,054 a thumbs down. I also saw 2,070 for the first time on video, and 930 for the first time in the theater.

How do I even know this was number 3,000?

That's a different story. Since the early 1990s, when I must have been in the 300-400 range of total movies seen, I've been keeping a running list of all the movies I've ever seen. In the years since then, I've had plenty of time to add titles I may have missed, and adjust the totals accordingly. So the current list is as accurate as it can be.

But that doesn't mean it's 100% accurate, and in fact, what films I've included on the list -- or excluded -- are purely a function of my own definition of what constitutes a movie. Some of the movies that I added way back when, I wouldn't have added today, but they're grandfathered in as a a permanent part of the list. As just one example, I include Luis Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou on my list, even though it's only 20 minutes long, significantly under feature length. Would I include it today? I don't know.

In Mr. 3000, Mac's Stan Ross retired with exactly 3,000 hits -- in the middle of a pennant race, no less. So when a computational error in the statistics turns up nine years after he retired, meaning he was given credit for three hits he never actually got, Ross chooses to come out of retirement at age 47, to strap 'em on again and try to prove he can get three more hits.

I'm never going to be subjected to the film equivalent. Even if I did include some movies I wouldn't have included today, and even if I did forget to add some over the years, and even if I did make an adding mistake somewhere along the way, Mr. 3000 will stay in the record books as my 3,000th movie. Even if it was actually my 2,997th or my 3,004th.

And I can certainly live with that.

What will number 4,000 be? Stay tuned ...