It doesn’t get any more personal than your favorite movie.
For many dudes, it takes a “Fight Club” or a “Star Wars” or, if the guy wears glasses, a “Wrath of Khan” to find out if a girl is a cool chick who can hang with the boys.
But truth be told, everybody has the Movie Test.
In fact, one of The Onion’s most classic headlines is “Area Girlfriend Still Hasn’t Seen ‘Apocalypse Now.’ ”
As the story from the satirical newspaper goes, “ ‘You gotta be kiddin’ me, Bran!’ said Tillich, 21, a senior marketing major at Azusa Pacific University, upon discovering Jensen’s ignorance of the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola-directed Vietnam War epic. ‘It’s only, like, arguably the most ambitious anti-war statement in American movie history. Jesus!’ ”
Perhaps the only thing worse than ignorance is a strong opinion about a favorite movie’s suck factor.
Hating someone’s Top-5 flick is sometimes worse than hating someone’s mother. Seriously — you’re the only one allowed to talk smack about it.
Oh, really, the dialogue is clichéd in “When Harry Met Sally”? Yes, but you don’t understand what Nora Ephron’s childhood was like. Just appreciate the brilliance of the orgasm scene at Katz’s Deli — and move on.
Post film critics Lou Lumenick and Kyle Smith admit they both have strong feelings on the topic. Lumenick says, “My test was that if they wouldn’t watch ‘Vertigo,’ there really wasn’t any point in proceeding. I once walked out on a woman mid-dinner over that deal-breaker. I saw it with my present wife at the Ziegfeld on our second date.”
But Smith has a more cynical, practical view, explaining, “I gave up long ago since girls have so many reasons they don’t want to watch a cool movie . . . too foreign, too weird, ‘I don’t like war,’ etc.’ ”
But we women have our own Movie Tests, too.
For anyone who wasn’t a cheerleader, a cult classic like “Heathers” is
often a barometer. Don’t like it? Well, then you don’t understand mean girls. Do you hate “Annie Hall”? Then you’re not funny. Didn’t “get” “The Graduate”? Sorry to tell you, but you have no emotional depth. Trouble understanding “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”? You’ve never been in love. Don’t like “The Princess Bride”? Well then, you may be a robot.
Hate “Pretty Woman”?
OK, fine. Then you probably have pretty good taste.
But if you have the confidence to admit it’s a Grade-A, top-of-the-line guilty pleasure — especially, OMG, the shopping scene! — well then, it just might be love.
mstadtmiller@nypost.com