Almost everyone has experienced at least one movie breakup moment. Even if the decider didn’t act on it right away. You know what I’m talking about. Any time you fall heavily for a film you always want to see it two or three times, at least, and so you take the hot lady of the moment to see it and she doesn’t get it — she’s either mezzo-mezzo or distracted and hates it or whatever. And right away you know.

You might continue to see each other and have some really good times, but that sinking feeling tells you it’s never going to pan out, not really, because she wasn’t wise or seasoned or deep enough to get that film. Because rejecting exquisite films is a blade of grass that tells you a lot about a person. Not everything but a lot.

I would never break up with a woman if she didn’t like Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom. That’s a highly respectable film but very tough to watch, and I would never think less of someone who actively hates it. Ditto Repulsion, My Darling Clementine, Repo Man….the list goes on. But I once secretly decided to part company with a dazzling blonde who used to gasp and scream in bed when she said she didn’t like David Fincher‘s The Social Network.

I also once decided not to go on any further dates with an otherwise attractive lady after she said she really liked the wrong Reese Witherspoon movies — Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama, This Means War, Like Water For Elephants. It would’ve been a horse of a different color if she’d said she loved Witherspoon in Election, but she hadn’t even seen it. Case closed.

Then again I might fall harder for someone if they said they don’t like Django Unchained or Inglorious Basterds.

Another form of vague movie anguish is when a woman you really like in a strictly-friends sort of way falls head over heels for The Social Network, and you’re thinking to yourself, “Why is life so unfair at times? Why can’t the girl I find immensely attractive and whose nakedness is one of God’s greatest glories…why can’t she get The Social Network the way my platonic friend does?”