From the imdb trivia page, my favorite Dogville story:

Paul Bettany didn't want to play Tom Edison because they were shooting it in Sweden. Then his friend Stellan Skarsgaard said that Lars von Trier's shoots are so funny that "you'll miss something extraordinary if you turn the part down". After shooting half the movie Bettany asked Skarsgaard when the fun will start, which Skarsgaard replied: "I lied. I did it because he is amazing to work with, and you wouldn't be able to see that before you were actually here yourself. I wanted to give you a chance, and you wouldn't have shown up if I had been frank with you"

Haven't seen it, but does Million Dollar Baby really belong on that list?

I don't think so. But I didn't really like the movie anyway, so I wouldn't see it again regardless. I don't think it's Requiem-level painful or anything, though.

Grave of the Fireflies is the only movie on that list I've seen, and if I'd known what I was getting into, I wouldn't have watched it. I am totally okay with my low score.

Actually, I probably need my own list of "Movies that don't really deserve to be watched even once, but which I love anyway."

I can't watch Million Dollar Baby, but I could just barely watch the Simpsons that referenced it. Some injuries I just can't bear to see. Or visualize. Fingers and toes getting broken or cut off also fall under this.

I skipped over that Safe was on that list. I liked it quite a bit and could see watching it again sometime.

I think When The Wind Blows belongs on that list. I saw the first half of it. I forget why I stopped watching, but I could tell it was going to get very bleak and end very badly....

I might only think that I would watch When the Wind Blows again because it's been a long time since I've seen it.

Yeah. Yesterday I was thinking about the whole cold war "We could all die any second from a massive nuclear strike!" fear, and thinking how younger folk would have no idea what that's like. (Not that there's no risk of nuclear war now, but an all-out nuclear war seems much less likely.)

So anyway, now I wonder if that movie would strike the same chord in me....

Okay, I was steeled for that alright. After the very start there was a limit to how good an ending I could expect, but I bopped by the IMDB page halfway through and read what it said the story was based on which pretty much gives away the second half of the movie.

It was poignant and slow and sweet, but still not compelling. I wanted to see how the end was done, even after I knew what would happen. But I feel no real pull to watch it again, ever.

Except--what was in the wooden box he was carrying around? Ashes of his mother? They panned to it when he told Setsuko that she was buried in the pretty graveyard.

I switched over to the Japanese voices and subtitles midway through. I should have remembered to do that right away. The voice acting was much letter. Less sugary (I see from IMDB everyone was age appropriate).

Oh, I've seen LLV too. And they're right. I don't really want to again, though I liked it at the time.