Do you have any “Deal Breakers”, when it comes to movies? If your girlfriend, boyfriend or undefinable one hates a certain film that you love, is it time to be moving on?

As a single man, I had two criteria: Anyone that I seriously dated had to love Robocop and Dawn Of The Dead (1978). No more, no less. I met a girl once that I had really hit it off with, until she mentioned that she hated zombies. Not that she was “afraid of” zombies; she straight up “hated” them. I could see no possible future with this poor, deluded creature.

Luckily, I found the girl of my dreams. Our very first conversation was about the inherent awesomeness of zombies, and she loves both Robocop and Dawn Of The Dead. We date, time passes, yadda yadda yadda. . . and now we’re engaged.

In a years time, on September 10th, 2011, we will be wed. In order to prove our love to one another, we’ve created a list of challenges for each other, to be completed before our wedding day. Beyond the creative and physical challenges, we each have a list of nine movies to watch. Nine movies that we haven’t seen before, and that our partner deems necessary for us to view before our legal union.

I was back and forth on my list. Obviously, I wanted to include a lot of “dude” movies that she would have no interest in watching normally. On the other hand, I wanted them to be films that I think she would actually enjoy. So, while I was originally tempted to make her watch the entire Lord Of The Rings trilogy, I think that it would bore her out of her mind, and honestly, while I enjoyed the series, it doesn’t really hold any sort of special place in my heart. These films, I decided, would above all else have to be representative of who I am, and what I truly love.

So, I present to Anna the following 9 films to watch:

1. Total Recall
2. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
3. Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai
4. Starship Troopers
5. Halloween (1978)
6. Akira
7. The Gold Rush
8. The Road Warrior
9. Seven Samurai

And her list for me is:

1. Taste Of Cherry
2. The White Balloon
3. Madchen in Uniform (1931)
4. Lost and Delirious
5. White Oleander
6. Don’t Eat The Pictures!
7. Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
8. Bend It Like Beckham
9. Harlan County, USA

We’re both extremely broad in our tastes, so it’s not like these are movies that we would be adamantly against watching, so much as films that wouldn’t be our first choice on a lazy Sunday evening.

The gauntlet has been thrown, and I’m interested in seeing what the reaction to these will be. And honey- These aren’t deal breakers. Even if you don’t like Seven Samurai, I’ll still love you. But by god, you will suffer through it!