Welcome to the Weekly Movie Thread, your place on the Avocado to discuss films with your fellow commenters. Want to make a recommendation? Looking for recommendations? Want to share your opinions of movies, both new and classic?
There are some films that you feel you should watch out of obligation. Maybe it’s pervasive in the language of pop culture. Maybe it’s considered a classic, and you’re not considered a film buff unless you’ve watched it.
But maybe it’s just not your thing. Maybe you just can’t get into Star Wars. Or perhaps you can’t stand mob movies, so The Godfather has never appealed to you. Perhaps you have this aversion to seeing black-and-white movies, and so you’ve never seen Casablanca.
Late last year was the first time I’d ever seen Alien. I felt embarrassed to mention that it was the first time I’d seen this movie, since it seemed like a thing that anyone doing a weekly movie thread should have seen years ago. To be fair, I’d seen most of the sequels, so I got the basic gist of it.
The thing that ultimately made me want to see it was Ridley Scott. Most of the other immediate films had been directed by others. For their flaws, I did like how Prometheus and Alien: Covenant were directed. It was only natural after this to want to see how he directed the original.
I also realized, then, that I’d never seen The Terminator either. Yes, I’d seen every other sequel (except for Terminator: Salvation), but the first one had eluded me. It showed up on Prime one day, and I had the opportunity to check it out. But, since I’d seen T2 (as everyone who was a teen in the mid-90’s), it was one of those things where I felt I’d already seen the movie, you know? Every follow-up movie keeps mentioning the basic plot beats, so there’s no rush to check out the original.
Today’s bonus prompt: what movies are your pop culture blindspot?