Movies you like that are difficult to reccommend to others

I have a list of movies I really like, but find it difficult to recommend to most people because it would be offensive to most people, It is odd, etc. I don't like to censor myself, but I have offended some of my friends or acquaintances recommending some movies.

After I watched Blue Velvet the first time, I suggested to my roommate that we should watch it together sometime. He suggested it to some other seminary students without watching it first. I had several students who thought I did not belong at the seminary after that.

I am not easily offended by some of the typical things that people might find offensive. A movie crosses the line for me when its content contains gratuitous violence that has no point but to offend. This gets me in trouble, because I have to try to remember if there is something in it that is going to offend somebody else. Some movies where this has actually happened:
Blue Velvet -pretty much any scene that has Dennis Hopper in it.

The World According to Garp (My dates parents came in the room during the bj scene).
Reefer Madness the musical. I can think of a dozen different references that would keep me from recommending this film to someone I did not know well.
I'll have to think of some others

That's interesting. I guess seminary students are like everyone else, varied in their film taste. I seen Blue Velvet but so long ago I can't really comment on it. If you want to recommend films to your fellow students, try to find out what they like in films...and what they dislike in films (that might be even more important). Maybe that would then help you find films that your friends can connect to.

First thing in my mind is THE MIRROR. :P

That's a good suggestion. My suggestion for Diehl to watch with his friends would be The Apostle (1997)

Most of the people I know have no idea about the kinds of movies I watch. A few know I sometimes watch things that lean a little extreme and that I like horror but that's the extent of it, so the list of movies that I like but never recommend is pretty big. I don't think I've ever recommended something like Man Bites Dog or Irreversible to anybody EXCEPT for this one guy I used to work with, about 20 years ago. He was a real nut and I could recommend anything to him. We used to have a good time talking movies. Plus, I enjoy bad B-movies, but most people already know that, so when I do recommend something they don't know if I'm being serious or not. I usually have to follow up a recommendation with "No it's a good movie. Really, it is."

Lmao, Wavelength is in my top 5 and that's just 50 minutes of the camera slowly zooming in on a picture on the other side of the room. I wouldn't recommend most of the stuff I like.

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Blue Velvet is Lynch's magnum opus. It's rough and realistic but it gets very symbolic. If they think it doesn't belong there, tell them to compare it to Inland Empire and get back to you.

Sans Solelil is one of my favorite movies that is difficult to recommend because it's difficult to describe. I can't imagine how I'd add it to a conversation in a social gathering without stuttering or contradicting myself. "It's a nonfiction movie, but it's not really a documentary, and it's about the relationships between history, technology and memory," I guess?

I can't really think of any. I will recommend what I like, but if there is something that people take offense to, that's their problem.



I've heard of this weird sub-culture in the states where people take offense at ordinary stuff, but haven't actually come across anybody like that. Could I recommend blazing saddles to somebody? Of course! Will somebody take offense? Really? I would love to question somebody who would take offense at that gem of a movie, but I've never met anybody like that.

Almost all the movies I like.

I mean, most people can't sit through a bunch of French New Wave films.
A lotta people really can't do the old movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s because the style of filmmaking and acting were too different from what they're used to.
A lotta people simply cannot make the leap from American horror films to European ones. Or they don't really like horror movies at all.
Musicals. I ****in' love 'em. I got one couple I'm friends with who also do and everyone else is like, "absolutely not".
So really, there's hardly anything I can recommend to anybody ever.

"Offensive" is another story though. I try to be sensitive to that. My Fair Lady, Gigi, The Last Tango In Paris... lotta movies I would absolutely NOT recommend to most of my female friends. I have THREE female friends who are much younger than me who were viscerally angry after seeing My Fair Lady and the one who saw Gigi was furious.
Just like I wouldn't recommend any movie with the "Magic Negro" trope to any of my Black friends. And there are a lot of those that are pretty good movies if you can get past that.
I don't recommend rape/revenge movies to virtually anybody, even my beloved Ms.45. I'm a man, I have no idea what it feels like to live under the specter of possible rape, so why would I ever recommend a movie about the fallout of being raped to a woman, ya know?

Roger Corman flicks
Anything with stop-motion animation
"Screwball" comedies of decades past

I am very glad to have a little crew of horror movie fans online, because most of my friends and family aren't as into horror as I am. There are many films I really like, but I just know that most of my close people wouldn't enjoy them.

My personal taste doesn't run that extreme, so there aren't too many films that I worry would offend others. And most movies that are racist/sexist/homophobic aren't things I like anyway, so I don't have to worry about recommending them.

The hardest things to recommend are the weird ones. Like Torgo says, they don't have an easy "elevator pitch" factor to them.

Well, it all depends on the movie and who I am recommending it to. If I'm in a casual conversation with someone whose background, lifestyle, ideologies, religion, and passions aren't known to me, most any movie would seem as difficult to recommend as the next.

In contrast, when I have comprehensive knowledge of an individual, a recommendation would be a fairly easy task which I'd feel comfortable with.

That being said, please watch "Leolo". And you will see why I'm uncomfortable recommending that to strangers.

I did not really recommend that my roommate should show it to his friends. I suggested we watch it together, because I thought it was a good example of what is known as the theodicy question. "Why does a loving God allow there to be people like Frank Booth". Which is actually asked that way in the movie. He suggested it to his friends without seeing it. oops

Seen it and I agree.

Man Bites Dog is a good example. I loved that movie, but I really have no one to recommend something like that to.

I am talking about movies that were meant to offend like blue velvet and man bites dog. (for different reasons) I would not recommend a movie like those to somebody I suspect it would offend.

Another one of my favorites that I wouldn't even recommend to my closest friends or family members. I mean, would you recommend a movie to anyone that has