We've all experienced the discouragement in learning that the girl we've been dating is enamored with Mr. Deeds or the Two Weeks Notice or Mona Lisa Smile. It may not just be discouragement but, under some circumstances (say she has an ass that would make ScarJo jealous), pity.

How do you start the education?

This is an Ultra-condensed post as I am due to get work done. I'll pick back up later

That's a toughie.

For guys, it's easy. Just show them Pulp Fiction, The Godfather, The Big Lebowski... you know.

For girls, though, I don't know. What's their equivalent of those well-made yet accessible chestnuts?

(My girlfriend is peculiar. She's decently read and she's enamored of understated comedy-dramas like The Station Agent and Lovely & Amazing, but she also loves crap like Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray. I hesitate to make recommendations based on her tastes.)

Warning: gross generalizations are forthcomings

I find that women prefer character-based movies. So if you're trying to get a ladyfriend to appreciate good movies, forget about the visuals that men like so much. Go for Mike Leigh, who makes amazing films predicated on character interaction.

There are two options that come to me right away with this:

1) You actually care about helping your g/f to expand her horizons - It might be best to start with films that you could *both* enjoy based on your knowledge of her tastes when compared to your own.

2) You care more about getting into said g/f's pants - You tell her you like whatever she does, then suffer through whatever schlock she takes you to on the premise that the banging afterward will be worth the pain.

Oh, I love you guys.

This question came up because my wife recently expressed a strong love for Haunted Honeymoon. I love her, very much, but it was like learning she thought Roland Emmerich's Anonymous was brilliant. Which she did. You thought I was going to say something like "it was as if I learned she enjoyed watching children drown in puppy blood" but it turns out to be something far more confusing.

Keep in mind it can sometimes go the other around, your gf might want to expand YOUR film horizons, my previous gf turned me on to a lot of great films I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.

I can only speak of my own experience. Of course, in my world, I know exactly the right movie to watch and how the world would be a far greater place if the woman who willingly takes her pants off for me was also willing to patiently watch World on a Wire.

I'm the luckiest guy on the planet. My girlfriend is a huge film buff and we actually started our relationship by bonding over movies. When we first got together we showed each other movies we both liked and wanted the other one to see. We had date nights a few times a week at first where we'd get something to eat, then come back to my place and watch a movie or 2 that the other hadn't seen. She showed me Almost Famous, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, and When Harry Met Sally.... I showed her A Clockwork Orange, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Pan's Labyrinth. It went on like this for the first few months.

I knew I loved her when we went to see Hot Fuzz and she laughed louder and harder than anyone in the theater at the part where Simon Pegg drop kicks the old lady in the face. I just sat in awe staring at her for must have been a solid minute thinking, "what a wonderful human specimen." She kept looking at me with tears in her eyes and laughing.

So, yeah. I'm not sure how to answer the thread's question. My lady is just that, so it isn't like she's completely above your typical female fare. For instance, she has a knack for seeing virtually every movie Jennifer Aniston is in, yet she claims to not like her. When she's alone she watches a lot of chick flicks because we're always watching everything but chick flicks.

I'd say just start showing your lady friends accessible movies that are awesome. Stay away from obscure and ambitious for a while. But, I had it really easy, so my advice is probably the worst you'll get.

We both like the same books, with some great exceptions, so it always surprises me when she doesn't deliver a hearty "OH FUCK YEAH!" to Solaris. Like so many, she was raised on Disney and still believes in the glory of their Princess Power. That's okay, I like all types of movies and am more than willing to watch something like Passionada without readying the implicit "So, now that I've put myself through that trial, let's watch something good." Taste, appreciation being something of a biography and all that Jungian shit.

Special sex partners and spouses aside, we've all got friends who will shake their heads and perform a series of obscene hand gestures if we try to describe the virtues of 2001. I (and not just me but many of you) assume that the language I speak and understand is the best. And it is! But it's also the only language I speak and understand. Solaris basically made this same point.

I should probably stop writing and just watch The Square. I'm putting that off for as long as I can because I fear it'll be slow, disappointing and Australian. It's definitely one of those three things.

This reminds me of a line Carrie Fisher has in When Harry Met Sally...:



Everyone thinks their taste is the best, with good reason. To them it is! I can debate certain points about certain works of art all day with someone, and neither of us is likely to change our opinion or think the other person is any more "right" than they were at the beginning. We can see how or why someone thinks they way they do, and realize they have every right in the world to disagree, but it isn't like that makes us think that person's opinion is anything more than "wrong".

A spouse or significant other is likely the only person who is going to be willing to sit through anything resembling a film education. Friends might indulge you here or there, or for a while, but there will probably be a point where they tell you to "fuck off". And they're right to do so. People should be allowed to have and develop their own tastes at their own speed, rather than trying to create a taste clone.

However, knowing and realizing that doesn't stop me from facepalming myself when someone says, "The ending to No Country for Old Men is stupid," or, "What's so special about Memento? They just tell the story backwards." I wish everyone was able to get what I do out of movies, but it'll never happen. Shit, if we could get people in our lives to see movies like we do, we wouldn't need the forum in the first place.

No Country For Old Men had other problems beside the ending(though I certainly wouldn't fault anyone for calling it stupid), and I really didn't see anything special about Memento, all the backwards flashbacks couldn't keep me interested.

Not a good idea unless you're starting off with Secrets and Lies. Naked would be a terrible choice.

I'd start off with Singin' in the Rain or Roxanne before the hard stuff.

your gf was a huge film buff but hadn't seen Clockwork Orange or Raiders?

this isn't necessarily directed to you, but in my experience(& in observing others) it seems like a lot of women sort of adopt the interests of their boyfriend/husband much more so than the other way around. like when they suddenly become big fans of your favorite sport/team etc. And then when you break up, they basically never watch that sport again. Ditto with movies etc. Its human nature to want someone to like/love you(don't we all try to put our best features out there when initially dating?) and by showing interest in what they have an interest in you certainly help that process.
Again not saying all women are like this, but it happens too often to just be a coincidence(and the guy is usually the one deciding what to do/where to go on dates most of the time, which is also sort of telling) And I see this all the time even with women that have higher levels of education than their bf/husband. Guess some of it must be ingrained in our nature.
I hope you don't break up, but if you ever do there's a good chance that she will stop seeking out the types of movies you introduced her to(that she 'loved') and go back to watching more chick flicks.

So I think we should probably cut them some slack as far as putting up with bad tv, movies etc. I don't think we realize how much more they probably put into relationships than we do on many levels (again in my experience/observations)



To many somewhat cultured highly educated people, film is not an artform(or certainly not one like books are) just a way to kill time or to give your brain a rest after work(like most stuff on TV is)

Never understood why so many film geeks(which I must count as) poo-poo others taste in film (think Holloway had threads like this) and use their 'bad' taste to define them. I'm sure there are millions of people with way higher IQs than I & jobs that require it that love Adam Sandler & will never see a Bergman or Fellini in their lifetime, is that something that makes me 'better' than them on some level? I don't think so.

I realize this is your M.O. and everything but... really? I understand maybe not liking the movie but you didn't see anything special about it? Not the fact that the lead character never really knew his motivation for simple actions like, say, running through a parking lot? Not the fact that audience always knows a little more than Leonard until the very end when we learn that he's demonic and has adopted his purpose for living more or less out of thin air. That he's a murderer and not some heroic defender of his insulin-OD'd wife's presumably imaginary rapist and murderer?! The structure, a huge risk in storytelling, never once let alone hundreds of times made you think "I need to know what happened!"?

I can appreciate that you didn't care for the movie but, I mean, really?! You saw nothing intriguing? Nothing?

Yeah, she was 18 when we met. I was, and still am, robbing the cradle. I didnt see A Clockwork Orange until around that time. Her parents swear she saw Raiders as a young kid, but she didn't remember it. So, I showed her 2 movies she needed to see, or possibly see again in the case of Raiders.

At the time she had seen somewhere around 50-60 of the AFI top 100 and knew directors, screenwriters, etc. Considering she was an 18 year old girl, I was impressed. She's a movie lover, partly because she comes from a family of movie lovers, and partly because she's a creative person. She took film classes in high school before we ever met, her English degree has a focus in film, and she thought long and hard about going to film school. 5 years later, it isn't likely we ever break up, but if we did, I'm 100% confident that she wouldn't "go back to watching more chick flicks" because that's not what she did in the first place.

What you've described is an unhealthy relationship based on lying, manipulation, and phoniness. It's no wonder those kinds of relationships don't work. I don't doubt it happens (I've seen the same stuff), but they were doomed from the outset because (likely) neither person was being honest with the other about who they were. Stuff like that usually doesn't just stop at taste in films, and it doesn't apply solely to women. They got to know false versions of each other.

I'll admit it's an original idea and I found it slightly intriguing at first, but as the film went on, my interest gradually waned and by the end I really didn't care what the main character's motivation was or who he was.

To clarify in light of calvero's post: I don't think of my wife as vaguely retarded or incapable of justifying those things she sees as great. Her appreciation of whatever in no way defines her character although it does reflect certain personality characteristics that I can still find surprising.

A version of the rabid film geek would say something like "Gee, Brenda, why are you such a fucking idiot?" when checking out Brenda's DVD collection. Either that or he'd threaten her life for not appreciating Thor Goes to the Mall. Great movie, by the way.

I had, and still likely have, geeks all wrong. I assume they're hanging onto sanity by a thread, painfully unable to copulate no matter the desperacy. The geek girls turn out to be sexually liberated in ways we can only dream about.

My girlfriend blissfully insists that she's not a geek, despite the fact that she has socialized with geeks her entire life and has several geeky interests of her own. And she is dating one.

Really, if she wasn't a geek before, she is now. You can't spend this much time around me without being tainted forever.

I thought geeks were cool now? What makes a geek these days? I see NBA players and celebrities wearing nerdy glasses and clothes all over the place.

You're thinking of hipsters, not geeks.