12 Classic Movies Nobody Actually Watches
Just because it’s old doesn’t mean you have to sit through it.
Just because it’s old doesn’t mean you have to sit through it.
Forget what your film professor and the American Film Institute says. Some so-called classic are really just long, boring movies that don’t live up to today’s standards. While most of these films aren’t bad, no one’s chomping at the bit to re-watch them. Film snobs, start yer bitchin’!
Citizen Kane
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Granted, it’s the movie that defined movies, but have you watched it recently? Of course not. The story of Charles Foster Kane’s rise and fall is not only obvious but just sad. You can figure out how this will end by simply watching the opening credits. Plus, we now know billionaires can be happy like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or the ghost of Steve Jobs. (Psst. Rosebud was his favorite kite.)
Watch Instead:There Will Be Blood – Same basic story, but it’s in color and has better acting.
Casablanca
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
The movie often gets mentioned as the greatest cinematic love story, but it’s less about love than a confusing plot. You’ll need to take a course on European politics to understand what’s happening in this pseudo-war movie. This feels like school.
Watch Instead:Raiders of the Lost Ark – All of the intrigue, none of the tedium. Plus it has 76% more evil monkeys than Casablanca.
Duck Soup
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
The Marx Brothers may have been comedy all-stars, but there’s something off with the timing of the gags. There are too may pauses and quiet moments. This is because they had timed their routines for a live-stage, with breaks for laughter and applause. In the movie, the jokes are punctuated by a moment of silence, a moment in which you can think about other movies you would rather be watching.
Watch Instead:Airplane! – Duck Soup makes you wait and wait for the jokes, but Airplane! just crams them down your throat in the best way possible.
Gone With the Wind
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
This grand epic would almost be watchable if it were two hours shorter and about other people. There is not a single likable person in the movie. It’s like a reality show called Real Housewives of The Civil War. Yelling, “Shut up,” after every line of dialogue makes it somewhat bearable.
Watch Instead:The Real Housewives of Atlanta
2001: A Space Odyssey
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Remember that scene where they breathe for twenty minutes? Remember that other scene where the screen turns colors for twenty minutes? Remember that scene where the computer beeps for fifteen minutes? Remember that scene where people had interesting, witty dialogue and characters were developed?
Watch Instead:Star Trek, the J.J. Abrams reboot is everything sci-fi should be. And it’s watchable, too!
Midnight Cowboy
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
You’d think the first and only X-rated movie to win the Best Picture Academy Award would mean this movie is dirty and sexy. It’s not. The MPAA even agreed that it’s not sexy and lowered the rating to an R. “I’m walking here! I’m walking here!” is a funny line, but hardly worth sitting through this grainy, meandering tale of the seedy side of New York. It’s less a movie than a student film.
Watch Instead:Showgirls – What it lacks in brains, writing, sophistication and Academy Awards, it makes up for with cheesy dialogue and that wonderful scene in the pool.
Easy Rider
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Raise your hand if you like this movie, so we can slap your wrist. Besides the music and Jack Nicholson, there is nothing memorable about the movie. People put in on “Best Of” lists because they feel obligated – like ordering coleslaw with your turkey club.
Watch Instead:Fast Five– An unapologetic action movie that includes a car chase with a safe that is ten times more interesting than whatever the hell happened in Easy Rider. That’s why the scene won a prestigious Maxim 2012 Movie Car award.
The Searchers
Photo: Mary Evans / Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
You know how your girlfriend hates westerns because they’re slow and they’re all the same? She’s right. Of the classic westerns, The Searchers is often cited as the best of them all, but that’s like calling Garfield 2: A Tale of Two Kitties the best Garfield film of them all. Luckily, Clint Eastwood came along and changed all this.
Watch Instead:Unforgiven
From Here to Eternity
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
We’ll give you half a bag of Skittles and a high-five if you can tell us what this movie is about. And don’t say “Kissing on the beach.” Believe it or not, it’s actually a war movie…kind of. The truth is, only 788 people have ever sat through the entire thing and we’re not among that lucky group. We do know the title sounds like something Buzz Lightyear’s emo brother would say.
Watch Instead:Jaws – It’s a better beach movie.
Marry Poppins
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Kids movies have come a long way since Poppins. Without all the visual cocaine of Pixar movies, kids today won’t be able to sit through this song-and-dance snoozer. More importantly, we want to know where the hell Mary came from and where the hell did she go? Was she a witch? Was she some sort of Tyler Durden fantasy created by abused, neglected children? We want answers!
Watch Instead: Mrs. Doubtfire
White Christmas
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
This isn’t a movie. It’s your little nephew’s third grade Winter Concert performed by older men and women. The entire thing is sad and boring, like watching a two-hour music video of songs for people who hate songs.
Watch Instead:Bad Santa
Breakfast At Tiffany’s
Photo: Everett Collection | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Audrey Hepburn is beautiful, and yep, this is the glamorous New York that everyone still pictures today. But we’d sooner watch the last four seasons of Gossip Girl than have to sit through the bo-ring parties and banter between Hepburn and Peppard, not to mention the disturbingly offensive portrayal of I.Y. Yunioshi by Mickey Rooney. Yes, even we get offended sometimes too. (See him destory the civil right’s movement at the end of this trailer.)
Watch Instead: Random YouTube clips.