List Films You Like, But Your Spouse/Signif. Other Refuses To Watch

Allow me to lead by example.


My wife, wondrous woman though she be, steadfastly refuses to watch any/all of the following, for the reasons stated:


1.) Au Hasard Balthazar -- Upset by any instance(s) of animals being mistreated.


2.) Kes -- see above, except even more strongly (devoted bird fancier).


3.) Barfly -- Turned off by films focusing on alcoholics and drunks.


4.) Leaving Las Vegas -- Also hates Nicholas Cage, so this one is like Example #3 on steroids.



You get the idea.

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"If it was priggish for an older generation of reviewers to be ashamed of what they enjoyed and to feel they had to be contemptuous of popular entertainment, it's even more priggish for a new movie generation to be so proud of what they enjoy that they use their education to try to place trash within the acceptable academic tradition." -- Pauline Kael

All of them


It's a rare day when she's willing to watch any movie about anything, ever.

I can't think of one, honestly. We watch almost everything together. That's faded a little over time but it's still overwhelmingly true.

I think I vaguely remember a movie or two she said she wasn't interested in, but it was always "go ahead and watch it if you want," and not a refusal. And invariably something she'd have watched with me if she'd been home, or what have you.

I gather we're unusual in this respect.

Cloud Atlas - In my mind a flawed but earnest attempt at a sprawling, epic masterpiece. Alas, my wife just rolls her eyes and heads off to do something else whenever it's on the screen. She finds the idea of reincarnation with varying moral trajectory interesting, but thinks it is executed poorly.

Robocop - Doesn't get the now-more-than-ever applicable prescience of the satire, hates the dialogue and the look of the film, and thinks the female lead is off-putting.

La La Land - My God does my wife hate this film. It's like a perfectly constructed collection of everything she abhors. Jazz, more jazz, and "******** bursting into song singing to jazz." My wife hates Jazz. She claims it is because it is a musical and she hates musicals, but she like The Wizard of Oz, Frozen, Annie, and friggin Xanadu, so I think she just hates La La Land because it's La La Land.

Breaking Away - I don't get this one, and I think that she actually secretly likes the film, but won't admit it. She likes pretty much all the other coming of age stuff I like, but shits all over this whenever I am watching it. I do catch her watching scenes here and there, looking up from whatever she is doing while pretending to not watch the film.

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Mr Next declined to watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch.


He also said he would watch Interview With The Vampire when he finishes reading the book. This was in about 2002 and the book remains resolutely unfinished so I'm not holding out much hope.

That's how it is at our house too. I can't think of one movie my wife refused to watch, though she disliked a lot of the HoF movies that I had to watch and usually we would both agree to shut off a movie if not to our taste.

We have a small house and only one TV and we always watch everything together in the evening. Luckily we have the same taste in films too. There has been a couple of films that I wanted to watch that I ended up being so bored with that I got up and cleaned the kitchen instead of enduring the rest of the movie, but it never has happened the other way around.

My wife's very easy-going in that aspect, and she watches most types of films. Actually, she's more willing to do horror and action than she is romance and comedies.

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It's nice, yeah? I'm not even sure if it's that we have the same taste, it's probably more that when you watch something together it becomes part of your shared history, and another thing to talk about, a fact which has a value in and of itself outside of the quality of the thing being watched.

What I listed are the only ones I can really think of, and I consider myself lucky that my wife likes many of the same things I do, including sci-fi and metal. In fact, she regularly ventures into the pit at metal shows, something I gave up years ago. She is a total bad ass!

Yup it's nice, as it's relaxing and easy too, no hassles.

My wife is very mellow and rarely wants to watch something I'd hate..and like you say it's shared history so I've developed a taste for movies I wouldn't have watched when I was single. We do talk about the movie afterwards and I usually read IMDBs trivia page and tell my wife about the more interesting bits of trivia info.

Luckily for me my wife really likes watching war films. We've watched a war film every single night since the preliminary war thread started, 4.5 months ago (sans about 9 HoF movies). I keep asking my wife if she still wants to watch war films and she says yes enthusiastically...How cool is that.!

Anything horror really. Specifically The Conjuring and IT.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

I think what’s unusual in this stressful day & age is the strength of your (quite long) marriage. You always speak well of her & you don’t seem to have any of the problems that affect many many marriages. You’re both lucky IMO.

Okay, back to movies.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

A metal head who also likes Xanadu is absolutely the the textbook definition of squaring the circle. She sounds like an absolute blast!

To be fair, when she first saw Xanadu, due to me putting it on because I am a shameless fan of that car wreck of a film, she tried to dislike it...alas, its allure was too strong! We put it on now when my 4 year-old daughter asks for it -- she calls it "The Magic Movie." She loves the opening number.

My wife does this exact thing.

AgrippinaX suggested something like this as a thread topic the other day. I think this is a good one.



Is shared interest a bonus in a relationship? Is minimum amount of shared film interest necessary? Is it a bad sign if there is a profound lack of shared interest? I would imagine for those who self-report watching a staggering number of films every year, this could be an issue, simply because they spend so much time watching films. If you're watching 2-3 films a day and you're SO isn't watching with you, then that seems indicate a problem in terms of time spent together as a couple.

I'd say there has to be some common interest. Otherwise, what are you two doing?

I hate La La Land too. But I love Jazz and Musicals. La La Land is terrible because I expected something and got something else. It felt like a bait and switch. the music and songs arenn't memorable. Nobody is a great dancer or singer. I mean what is the actual point of that movie.

I don't have a significant other but when I did we had some differences of taste but that was surrounding music. He loved all jazz, including free jazz, and hated rock and roll. I love jazz but hate free jazz and love rock and roll



We both liked old movies. He loved to go to the drive in movie theater in Delmar, NJ. I slept through a lot of the movies we saw there. Twilight put me right out.

I guess my response to this would be: Does a film need to be exactly what you expect for it to be good, or well-made? I understand La La Land is divisive, and the stars aren't Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as far as singing and dancing talent goes, but I loved the way the film was made, the lighting, and several of the music numbers, and I am not a huge fan of jazz, although I certainly don't hate it. The planetarium scene was especially memorable, as was Mia's audition number. It's not the best batch of songs in a musical, but I don't think it's the worst, either.

I also enjoyed how it cut against the grain with its character's trajectories, and didn't just follow the standard boy meets girl, they fall in love, and then live happily ever after progression. I dunno, I just found myself very entertained and going through a pretty wide range of emotions as I watched, so I count myself in the crowd of people that adore La La Land.