Monday, April 25, 2011

The Films we lie about seeing

I had a friend who once lied about having seen Lars and the Real Girl. I'd seen it, he hadn't. I wanted to watch it again, he wanted to watch something else. I can only presume he lied to stop me from renting it. I did anyway. 


About 10 minutes into the film, after Bianca has been delivered but before Lars introduces her to his brother or to the audience, my friend asks me if Lars has a real girl in there. Confused, I asked him what the heck he was on about & had he completely forgotten what the movie was about? Forgetting his own fib of 2 hours before, he calmly answered 'I haven't seen it.' A verbal beating ensued. 


A recent UK survey sought to find out which films people most frequently lie about having seen. Interesting question. The Godfather tops the list, confirming it as the ultimate movie ever. The rest of the list:


1. The Godfather (1972) - 30% 
2. Casablanca (1942) - 13% 
3. Taxi Driver (1976) - 11%
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - 9%
5. Reservoir Dogs (1992) - 8%
6. This Is Spinal Tap (1984) - 7%
7. Apocalypse Now (1979) - 6%
8. Goodfellas (1990) - 5%
9. Blade Runner (1982) - 5%
10. The Great Escape (1963) - 4%



Quite a variety of genres. I'd say the connection is that most of these films are very much part of pop culture and your general movie-goer will therefore likely have encountered just enough references to these films to leave them a) wishing that they had seen them b) feeling just a bit like they have seen them c) being able to lie about having seen them.


Silly, though.


Also, on a random note, the most popular decade to lie about having seen films from seems to be the 1970s. Makes sense. So many iconic films. 


Now my same friend who lied about seeing Lars and the Real Girl also claims to read my blog, so let's see if this post induces a comment. You know who you are. 





For nerds like me - a convenient Pie Chart after the cut: 



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