Iconic Movies I Have Never Seen

"The Karate Kid" was on TV Saturday and The Wife and I were both hanging out and idly watching it and I mentioned I've never seen it before. She was sort of shocked, because I guess it's one of those iconic movies that you just think everybody's seen. I mean, she's not from this country and she's seen pretty much all the iconic movies. You know, the ones that are part of the cultural lexicon and that people refer to all the time. Like, when someone says "Go ahead, make my day," you know they're referencing "Dirty Harry," right?

[SIDE NOTE: A couple of weeks ago, I did a blog post about movie quotes that I use in real life, based on a similar piece Zoe Stagg wrote on her blog. Then on Friday, the Chronicle did a story about movie lines. This is not the first time that I have written about something and then it shows up in the Chronicle a few days later. STOP STEALING MY IDEAS, SF CHRONICLE. I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS. CALL ME AND WE'LL WORK SOMETHING OUT.]

Anyway. I had to go to band practice about halfway through "Karate Kid" so I still haven't seen it. Based on what I saw, it's a movie about an eccentric Japanese gardener who gets a kid to clean his house for free.

But for whatever reason, I've missed a lot of what I guess are the iconic films. I don't know why! I didn't use to go to the movies much; maybe that's it. But here's some of what I've never seen that I THINK everyone else in America has seen.

- Most Will Ferrell movies. I can't stand Will Ferrell. I did watch "Elf" all the way through and laughed once. So I've never seen "Old School" or "Anchorman" and is there one where he's a racecar driver? And a figure skater? There was a dodgeball one, too, right? None of those.

- Any "Mission: Impossible" movie.

- I saw the first half of the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" but I thought it was so boring I turned it off.

- Most Ben Stiller movies. I don't think Ben Stiller's been in anything I've wanted to see since "The Royal Tenenbaums." No "Zoolander" or any of those Focker movies.

- Oh, wait, I thought "Tropic Thunder" was funny. He was in that, I guess.

- Most later Tarantino. Never saw the "Kill Bill" movies.

- "The Sound of Music."

- I've never seen "Blade Runner." I know, I know. Peeps is gonna FREAK OUT.

- Almost any musical. I've never seen "Singin' in the Rain" or "The King and I" or any of that shit.

- Any of the "Matrix" movies.

- Until recently, I'd never seen "Point Break" all the way through. I find it hilarious that "Point Break" is on The Times of London's list of The 100 Greatest Films of All Time. It was OK if you like terrible dialogue and laughable plots.

- Never seen "Schindler's List."

I'm sure there are a lot more big ones I can't think of right now. Crazy, huh?