Humiliation: The Movie

[chickenfeet]

owlfish has run a few successful rounds of Humiliation over the last little while. For those not familiar Humiliation is a parlour game 'invented' by David Lodge in one of his novels. Contestants have to name a classic work of literature that they have not read and score one point for each contestant who has. The humiliation, of course, consists in that to win one must admit to not having read something that a maximum number of other people have. In the book, the winner is an Eng Lit lecturer who admits to never having read Hamlet with appropriately dire consequences.

The snag, of course, is that today, most people cannot be humiliated by not being well read. Even among the most academic (perhaps especially among them) of the participants in owlfish's valiant efforts there are plenty who fall into anyone of a number of camps including but not limited to:

• They are just texts. Why should I care whether it's the Iliad or the back of a cornflake packet.
  
• I have spent the last fifteen years of my life glossing ancient Sogdian. If I had any spare time I wouldn't waste it reading 'classics'
  
• The whole idea offends my Marxist-feminist-sinistrist world view. Take your elitist pretensions elsewhere

and so on. None the less much fun was had.

So... I decided it might be fun to try it with film, Here's what you do if you want to play.

• Comment below, by Monday 12th September 1800 EST with a film you are somewhat embarrassed to admit you haven't seen
  
• Try to avoid ones that are already taken
  
• Watch for the poll which will follow shortly thereafter and vote for the films that you have seen

And may the worst film buff win!

ETA Monday 12 September 0800 EDT:

The following films have been picked so far:

The Seventh Seal
The Godfather
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
The Bicycle Thief
Citizen Kane
Seven Samurai
The Birds
Soylent Green
Star Wars - A New Hope
Schindler's List
Titanic
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Dr. Strangelove
Braveheart
The Great Escape
National Velvet
Gone With the Wind
Apocalypse Now
Pulp Fiction
Rocky
Jaws
The Wizard of Oz
The Third Man
Amelie
Battleship Potemkin
Breakfast at Tiffany's
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Casablanca
Adam's Rib
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Star Trek II - Wrath of Khan
The Exorcist

Comments

[keithlard.livejournal.com]

Aha - I've been telling people about and playing that game with them for years, but I could never remember where it came from. If pressed, I would probably have said Kingsley Amis, which is pretty humiliating to start with.

I once played it with an English undergrad who just didn't get it at all, and had read everything anyway so was no fun.