I like movies, but my husband is quite the maven – one of those people who grew up watching The Late Late Show. Occasionally, he is surprised – and at other times dumbfounded – by the gaps in my cinematic experience. Now, there are some movies I’ve never seen because I just don’t want to – and perhaps I am close-minded about it (or so he says), but great car chase scene notwithstanding, I really don’t care if I never see Bullitt, and I can live quite well without ever seeing a John Wayne movie – or a Planet of the Apes one, for that matter.

On the other hand, I have been making an effort to catch up on some of the classics during our three years together, and I finally saw Some Like It Hot and The Philadelphia Story within the last year. The “31 Days of Oscar” series running on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) this month is giving us a chance to record a few films, some of which I haven’t seen, and some of which neither of us has gotten around to yet. In any case, my Ten on Tuesday list of “10 Movies You’ve Intended to Watch, But Haven’t” is probably going to skew a bit on the “old” side, but they’re not all classics – some of them are movies I should see more for pop-cultural-literacy reasons than film-history ones, and a few are mentioned just because I’ve intended to watch them, but haven’t yet. Since we’re really not into the movie-renting habit – we go to movies or watch them if they show up on TV, but if we buy a movie for our DVD library it’s usually one that at least one of us has seen already – I can’t say when some of these gaps might be filled.

1. It’s A Wonderful Life – Seriously. Never seen it. We have it on DVD, and we’ve intended to watch it during the holidays for the last couple of years, and just haven’t gotten to it. Then again, I didn’t see A Christmas Story for the first time until 2005, and if there’s not a lot of time for Christmas movie-watching, I’ll probably just choose to watch that again, to be honest.
2. The African Queen – TCM has come to the rescue on this one; we recorded it last weekend, and it’s just waiting on the DVR box.
3. North by Northwest – TCM got this one for us, too.
4. The Aviator – Not an old classic, but parts of it do involve the classic-movie era
5. Dr. Strangelove – Not having seen this one’s a gap on both the film-history and cultural-literacy fronts…
6. Sideways – Also not an old classic, but we have the DVD in our library, and I haven’t seen it (although my husband has) – this one has a pretty high nerd-factor rating, so it has that in its favor
7. For Your Consideration – I’m a fan of Christopher Guest’s “mockumentaries,” but missed this one from last year
8. School of Rock – I saw part of this a couple of weeks ago on TV, but would really like to watch it straight through and commercial-free at some point
9. Rushmore – Another one I’ve seen parts of, and I know a few people who really liked it – and I’m one of the few people I know who really liked The Royal Tenenbaums, so I guess I should get around to this one
10. and 10.5. Plan 9 From Outer Space – This has often been cited as “the worst movie ever made,” and I’ve always been curious to see for myself. It might be fun to watch a double feature of this and Tim Burton’s film about its creator, Ed Wood, starring a sometimes-cross-dressing Johnny Depp.

Can you think of any movies on your own “I’ve been meaning to get around to this” list? Visit Ten on Tuesday to see what other players haven’t seen yet, and get some more ideas.

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