Film snobbery

[migrated from myspace blog]

I find it kind of funny that people seem to think it's impressive to lie about seeing certain movies, when, based on what they're lying about, they probably haven't even heard of the movies I'd be impressed by if they'd seen them. The segment of the article below calls these people "film bluffs", movies buffs pretending to be film buffs. I hardly think seeing The DaVinci Code qualifies anyone to be a film buff. Ron Howard and Tom Hanks. Aren't these the guys reponsible for bringing us Splash, not to mention Bosom Buddies and Happy Days?

Shouldn't they be at least lying about seeing movies by Kieslowski, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Antonioni, Bergman, Clouzot, Godard, Tarkovsky, Fellini, Kar Wai Wong, David Lean, even Gilliam, instead of Spielberg, Coppola, Darabont, and Jackson?

I have no problem admitting to liking Love, Actually (see below). Keira Knightley spends 10 minutes on screen and makes every man watching fall in love with her. The Colin Firth story is terrific. And this comes from someone who's cynical about love and romance.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article1647509.ece

Tom Beaumont-Griffin, the creator of myfilms.com, said: "Films are so much a part of our everyday conversation that it's no great surprise that we tend to bluff about what films we've seen to keep up with our colleagues, friends and family.

"The fact that we judge people on their film tastes is testament that films play such an important part in our lives on a daily basis.

"More and more people are conversing over the variety of films they have seen — not just the big summer blockbusters, but more quirky and offbeat films — to demonstrate their cultural prowess."

The survey was conducted by YouGov, which interviewed a representative sample of 2,489 people in February.

The films we wish we'd seen and the ones we did

Top five films to lie about seeing

1 Schindler's List

2 The Da Vinci Code

3 The Godfather

4 Apocalypse Now

5 Gone with the Wind

Top five films people like but dislike admitting to

1 The Sound Of Music

2 Ghost

3 Dirty Dancing

4 Love, Actually

5 Harry Potter

Top five "film-drops"

1 The Shawshank Redemption

2 The Green Mile

3 The Lord Of The Rings

4 The Godfather

5 Casino Royale