These milk duds were made for walking.

July 5, 2007 10:28 PM

Movies the staff of the Chicago Tribune have walked out on.
posted by damn dirty ape (224 comments total)

I dont think I've ever walked out on a movie. I came close once when watching one of the candyman movies way back when. I once did see a couple of older women walk out of Twin Peaks about 30 mins into it looking thoroughly confused.
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:29 PM on July 5, 2007

Someone walked out on Barry Lyndon? What, it didn't have a chase scene or enough fucking guns??

Philistines.
posted by strawberryviagra at 10:35 PM on July 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Moulin Rouge. This is possibly the worst and most overblown movie I have ever attempted to watch. Three times I have tried to watch it, and never made it past the 30 minute mark.
posted by alltomorrowsparties at 10:36 PM on July 5, 2007 [3 favorites]

The vibe of a darkened movie theater is way too sublime for me to [i]ever[/i] walk out on a film, no matter how execrable, and I've seen some stinkers. Therefore, I was shocked (shocked!) to find myself sprinting up the aisle toward daylight about 32 minutes into [i]School of Rock[/i]. I dunno, as you start careening wildly toward later middle age, you start hearing your smarter self more and more whispering, "It's sunny and breezy outside, and these are minutes you'll never get back, dimwit."

Speaking of dim, how 'bout that Regina What'sherface?
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:37 PM on July 5, 2007

What an odd list. No true stinkers there.
posted by Artw at 10:38 PM on July 5, 2007

Evita

I tried to walk out on it but the stewardess stood in front of the door and threatened to have me restrained by an air marshal if I tried to open it again.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:40 PM on July 5, 2007 [30 favorites]

To echo FelliniBlank:

'Reservoir Dogs': It was too violent and crazy. --Regina Robinson, On the Town
posted by ORthey at 10:41 PM on July 5, 2007

Yeah, Moulin Rouge was unwatchable. But Barry Lyndon? Filmed entirely in natural light? One of my favourite movies.

I remember taking a female friend who had just broken up with her boyfriend to Reservoir Dogs. She cowered in fright and hid her eyes the whole time.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:41 PM on July 5, 2007

Airborne (1998) staring Steve Gutenberg. Horrible movie. Walked out of the free screening the imdb comment mentions.
posted by bobo123 at 10:42 PM on July 5, 2007

The only movie I've ever walked out on was "Disclosure" and that was after only the first 10 minutes or so (as it happens, it was showing at a multiplex and we stumbled out of that stinker and into "Before Sunrise" instead).

That said, I'm seriously considering putting on my tombstone "I wish I'd never seen 'Spanglish'".
posted by mazola at 10:49 PM on July 5, 2007

Probably the worst movie I've ever ever seen was Stephen Seagal's On Deadly Ground (don't tell the admins, but the Wikipedia entry is rather humorous) on a smoky KoreanAir flight back in 1994. Death, torture, explosions, all in-flight.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:58 PM on July 5, 2007

Fewer phrases are more chilling than "staring Steve Gutenberg".
posted by stavrogin at 10:59 PM on July 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've walked out on one movie that I can remember in all my life. "March of the Penguins", after about 15 minutes. It might have been 20, actually. What utter shit.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:04 PM on July 5, 2007

stavrogin: funnier than intended!!

I walked out of Independence Day (then back in because I didn't drive there)
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:10 PM on July 5, 2007

I feel bad for the guy who walked out of Empire Records. Not because the movie was horrible, but because he went to see a film on the basis of a song on the soundtrack.
posted by chrominance at 11:13 PM on July 5, 2007

When I think "Chicago Tribune" and "movies", I think Gene Siskel and Michael Wilmington. The rest of the paper's reviews, as I remember them, blow. The fact that this blog publishes the opinions of people who don't even work in the film section - I mean, who gives a shit?
posted by phaedon at 11:13 PM on July 5, 2007

Jane Austen's Mafia. When the little Italian boy makes the "Nice ass" joke to his donkey, I looked at my buddy, he looked at me, and we both stood up and walked over to see Antonio Banderas in a Zorro flick.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:25 PM on July 5, 2007

But Barry Lyndon? Filmed entirely in natural light? One of my favourite movies.

From IMdB: "Contrary to legend, this film did use artificial lighting. Artificial lights were used, for example, in the scene where Brian learns he's getting a horse. However, it is true that no artificial lighting was used for candlelit scenes."

I really love the Kubrick, but I also had a hard time making it through that movie.
posted by Ljubljana at 11:42 PM on July 5, 2007

Ljubljana: D'oh Gaaaaah!

You have to admit Barry Lyndon is faster-paced than 2001.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:47 PM on July 5, 2007

'Reservoir Dogs': It was too violent and crazy. --Regina Robinson, On the Town

Wow. She sounds like a fucken hoot. Stick to dinner theater reviews, honey.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:48 PM on July 5, 2007

Even when I'm not particularly digging the movie, walkers always piss me off. Even Blues Brothers 2000 has like 300 people in the credits, most of whom worked too hard and didn't get paid enough for your throwaway entertainment. Show some respect.

But what especially gets my goat are the angry walkers, who seem to feel the need to insult everyone enjoying the movie. During the awesome turning-point moment of Punch-Drunk Love, one couple literally walked up and down the aisle saying, "Who would pay to watch this crap?" very loudly to each other.
posted by roll truck roll at 11:50 PM on July 5, 2007

You have to admit Barry Lyndon is faster-paced than 2001.

Why does everyone always say that about 2001? Having spent years hearing everyone talk about how slow the movie is, I'd prepared myself for a long, trancelike experience. When it was over I actually said, "Where's the second video?"
posted by roll truck roll at 11:53 PM on July 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

From the site:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST, BUT COMMENTS CLOSED AT 5:30 P.M. JULY 5.

So basically they have a low-paid peon who works 9-5:30 doing nothing but weeding out bad (ie most) comments, and when the peon goes home the doors to the web site close (leaving you to browse the windows, as it were?)

At first I was embarrassed for them, but now I realize it's the secret to a perfect corporate Internet: close it down at quittin' time, and open it again the next day. Genius!

The next time I visit MetaFilter in the middle of the night, I expect to see a "closed" sign and the posted hours of business.
posted by davejay at 12:00 AM on July 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

Was this supposed to make me hate the Chicago Tribune?

Also, the only movie I "walked out" of was the reissue of Star Wars 10 years ago. The film got stuck and melted. Also, it was the second time I saw it, so I didn't miss anything.

I don't get laid in the traditional sense...
posted by dirigibleman at 12:06 AM on July 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

I've never walked out of a theater of my own volition. I almost walked out on Solondz' Happiness, when the guy starts mowing people down with a machine gun in the park. I should have walked out, since I was there with someone on a first date. Needless to say, we aren't married with kids. Or even in touch.

I remember a few people walking out of Dancer in the Dark though, the angry-mumbler types. That was annoying. Granted, the film was pretty over-rated, but definitely had some interesting things going for it.

When I was maybe 10 or so I remember going to see The Breakfast Club with my mom and step-dad. When Judd Nelson bites into Molly Ringwald's panty-clad vajayjay, yeah, we left pretty quick. But it wasn't my decision!
posted by bardic at 12:16 AM on July 6, 2007

I actually asked for my money back half way through Waterworld.
posted by phaedon at 12:21 AM on July 6, 2007

My friends and I once rented the film Castle Freak as a bad-funny movie to laugh at and have fun with. 30 minutes in or so, after a nipple had been bitten off, we decided we'd had enough. The room was silent, and we all wanted to eat hand grenades.

This is coming from a social circle which has willingly sat through Dreamcatcher once and Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part 2 many, many, many times, once with commentary.

I also loathe Get Carter. Voof, what a miserable night that was. I later found out that my friend was hating it as much as I had been.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:26 AM on July 6, 2007

I remember a few people walking out of Dancer in the Dark though, the angry-mumbler types. That was annoying. Granted, the film was pretty over-rated, but definitely had some interesting things going for it.

When I saw that, there was a couple loudly making out behind me. Of course.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:28 AM on July 6, 2007

Even when I'm not particularly digging the movie, walkers always piss me off. Even Blues Brothers 2000 has like 300 people in the credits, most of whom worked too hard and didn't get paid enough for your throwaway entertainment. Show some respect.

Millions of people pay $6-10 per ticket for movies at the front door. If they renege and leave, discreetly, without movie hopping, I can't figure out how that's disrespect. Hollywood films are not throwaway entertainment and they're not personal.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:32 AM on July 6, 2007

I've walked out on two movies.

The Exorcist re-release a few years back because the projector was doing some shitty things with the print.

And Toys with Robin Williams because it was just plain shitty.
posted by eyeballkid at 12:33 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

The cinema at my uni gave you a refund if you left within the first half hour of a movie - I never used it, thought it was a great idea, but probably only possible at an end-of-run subsidised student cinema.

I wanted to walk out of Independence Day, but my dad had spent almost $AU80 on 4 tickets, so I stayed. My mother made us walk out of Inner Space, although I think the rest of us were enjoying it.

The last movie I saw at the cinema was Adaptation - now if I don't like a movie I just press stop and then start another .avi.
posted by goo at 12:41 AM on July 6, 2007

If I walked out of every movie I didn't like, I would have missed lines like Road House's "I've fucked guys like you in prison".
posted by maus at 12:43 AM on July 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

Even when I'm not particularly digging the movie, walkers always piss me off. Even Blues Brothers 2000 has like 300 people in the credits, most of whom worked too hard and didn't get paid enough for your throwaway entertainment. Show some respect.

With all due respect, this attitude boggles my mind. If I spend good money to see a film, and it sucks beyond comprehension, I'm supposed to endure the remaining hour-plus out of respect for people I don't know and who wouldn't know that I walked out anyway? It's not like I'm spitting in their popcorn and cursing their childrens' children on my way out. Well, maybe Dan Aykroyd...

Moreover, when it comes to art, "how hard they worked" isn't necessarily a viable metric of appropriate appreciation. An artist could spend ten years constructing a trolley-sized model of a tampon and coloring it with his own blood but that doesn't mean I owe him an audience.
posted by Riki tiki at 12:46 AM on July 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

Even Blues Brothers 2000 has like 300 people in the credits, most of whom worked too hard and didn't get paid enough for your throwaway entertainment.

I had an amusing guest class with John Landis. He himself is none too fond of Blues Brothers 2000, and freely admits that he did it mostly to work with so many great musicians.

He had wanted to show a scene from it for some reason - I think mostly to show a scene he liked from a movie that he did not like, which is also a movie that almost no one has seen. However, NYU didn't have it in their library, so a TA was sent to pick it up from the nearby-ish Virgin Megastore. Then even that DVD wouldn't work in the player.

God does not want people to see that movie, apparently. So he spent the rest of the class talking about Michael Jackson and what it was like to direct David Cronenberg in The Stupids. (The class was forbidden from mentioning The Twilight Zone.)

Sorry for the derail, but I can't hear about Blues Brothers 2000 without thinking of Landis sighing about it on every level.

Months later, I saw him when I saw Spider-Man 2 in theaters. I think he'd broken his leg or something. I didn't bother saying hi or anything.

The end.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:47 AM on July 6, 2007

I've never walked out on a movie. I can't! I have the hardest time turning a movie off, even when it's just on TV. I'm not a curious person by nature, but I HAVE to know how it ends. Hell, I watched "Wheels Of Terror" all the way through for this very reason. When flipping through channels, I'm careful not to leave it on a movie for very long, else I'll get drawn in. Plus, if I managed to find the drive to actually make plans to go to a theatre, pay for a ticket, and see a movie, I'm hardly capricious enough to find something ELSE to do, were I to walk out.

In spite of all this, I came REAL close to walking out on "House Of 1000 Corpses". I told my girlfriend in all earnestness "If you don't want to be my girlfriend anymore after taking you to this movie, I will understand." I'm a huge Rob Zombie fan, White Zombie is still one of my favorite bands, but holy CHRIST did this movie chip away at my soul.

What's worse is, since our group was scattered about the theatre, none of us knew the rest of us felt the same way.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 1:00 AM on July 6, 2007

I remember a few people walking out of Dancer in the Dark though, the angry-mumbler types.

Several people walked out when I saw it too, although I think they left out of distress. It was quite interesting seeing the film with an audience, I had a sense of people squirming in their seats. I loved the film myself.
posted by bobo123 at 1:02 AM on July 6, 2007

Reservoir Dogs': It was too violent and crazy. --Regina Robinson, On the Town

I wasn't there but a friend of mine actually vomited in the cinema when watching this. She claimed it was just nerves. She was probably right. There was a lot of hype back then for Tarantino movies.

I walked out on "Things to do in Denver When You're Dead". And I was reviewing it for the student newspaper. I took along a friend who filled in the details. I walked out because it was clear the director had got an enormous hard-on watching Tarantino and wanted to copy him blow-by-quite-literal-blow. Let's watch lots of people being creatively killed, should we? No.

Most shocking film I ever saw was Taxi Driver. Wandering through London's Soho with a friend late 90s, looking for something to do (yeah). Walked into a cinema showing classics. Only a vague idea of what the movie was about, and those memories were mixed with vague memories the TV show Taxi. So I had half a mind I was going to see a pleasant comedy.

That said, I was mostly pleased with the film, thinking it an acute social commentary. Some lines stick in my head even now: "Some day a real rain will come..." etc. Then the ultra-violent ending arrives. I can't actually leave because my eyes are glued to the screen as we see in slow motion bullets entering the skin of one of the hitmen. A little over the top, I think. A bit like making a cake and then applying the frosting using a sledgehammer. Pretty representative of American cinema, though.
posted by humblepigeon at 1:27 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

This article is a really promising headline that just doesn't deliver the goods.
posted by rhymer at 1:29 AM on July 6, 2007

Mostly I walk out if there are technical problems (broken speaker and volume up way too high for Resident Evil, and half of the picture being shown on the ceiling rather than on the screen for The Messengers), but I did walk out of Romeo + Juliet for just being goddamned annoying.

I should've walked out on Moulin Rouge as well. For the same reasons.

A lot of the time, though, since I have my Cineworld card, I figure "Hey, this movie is only costing me around 50p. I might as well stick with it." Which is why I sat through Ultraviolet, despite how appallingly awful it was.
posted by Katemonkey at 1:48 AM on July 6, 2007

This article is a really promising headline that just doesn't deliver the goods.

Agreed. The comments are particularly worthless.

Having said that, I vividly remember the first movie I ever walked out on—Santa Sangre. I think my head was on fire.

Perhaps the most entertaining walk-out I've ever seen was a hop-head couple who went into The Glass Shield obviously expecting an Ice-Cube-kicks-ass movie, then became belligerently aggrieved when it turned out to be all intelligent and shit.
posted by Sonny Jim at 2:03 AM on July 6, 2007

"The true stinkers are thankfully repressed in most people's deepest recesses of their subconscious. You might think that you've never walked out on a bad movie, but it's more likely that you were so traumatized by the movie that your mind has disconnected that neural column so you can get on with life."

That actually happened to me with Lucky Numbers. The only thing I could remember about it the next day was that John Travolta had his own booth at Denny's.
posted by concrete at 2:15 AM on July 6, 2007

I nearly walked out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. God what a crappy movie. But I didn't.

And whilst I stayed in there my car got broken into and all my stuff stolen from the boot. The timecode from the car park CCTV proved that if I'd walked out, I'd have been long gone before the thieves arrived in the car park.

*gnashes teeth, blames Terry Gilliam for everything*
posted by dowcrag at 2:39 AM on July 6, 2007

I'm proud to say that I walked out of Lawnmower Man II. Of course it's extremely questionable that I was ever in the cinema in the first place. I note that it comes in #30 on IMDB's Bottom 100, which features many other fine walkoutable films, including Car 54, Where Are You? and Teen Wolf Too.
posted by attaboy at 2:40 AM on July 6, 2007

I've deeply hated a lot of movies, but there comes a moment where I feel that it's Me VS The Filmmaker. The rain of frogs in Magnolia, for instance. If I walked, PT Anderson, that overindulged gasbag, would win. And same for Zombie Frank Zappa when I refused to exit 200 Motels. Boy, I really showed them!

Anyhoo, the only movie I ever walked out on was Cronenberg's "Dead Ringer". Not because I thought it was a bad movie, but because I had a gynecologist appointment the next morning and that moment where the bad twin displays his 'improved' tools of the trade... well, suffice to say that pushed a couple of my medical phobia buttons.
posted by maryh at 2:49 AM on July 6, 2007

roll truck roll writes 'Even when I'm not particularly digging the movie, walkers always piss me off.'

Hey, they've already had my money, I'm damned if they're gonna get my time as well. And if some gaffer, best boy or assistant to Mr. Cruise's hairdresser feels personally slighted because I've rejected his creative choices then that's just tough titty. Hopefully next time they'll make better choices as a consequence.

most of whom worked too hard and didn't get paid enough for your throwaway entertainment

There are zillions of people whose employment terms and conditions warrant my sympathy. Those working in the film industry really don't come very high up on that list.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:14 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I try not to walk out on a movie...no matter how bad it is..
because you end up watching it again to see if you really hated it.
posted by doctorschlock at 3:49 AM on July 6, 2007

When in my early twenties, I visited my sister and her new husband. They were not the types to appreciate interesting film. I accidentally took them to see the Naked Lunch. There was a sex scene during which a strange, monstrous thing that (sort of) looked like a deformed torso appears out of nowhere and starts flopping around on the bed with them. I had to get us out of there. I have always wanted to see the rest of it, but I never have.

I think I must have been twenty exactly when my roommates mother came to visit for the weekend. A friend had recommended Deliverance, a movie "about some people who canoe down a river." My roommate threw herself onto the TV like it was a grenade.

I can't say they're my favorites, but I have to stand up for a couple of the movies here- Lucky Numbers and Spanglish weren't so bad in my opinion. I'll say it. I liked them.

I wish I had had the nerve to walk out on Star Wars Episode III, truly the worst movie ever. I would have at the point where the Emperor is shooting Samuel Jackson with Lightning and suddenly turns old, but I felt like I was twenty minutes away with being finished with the whole Star Wars saga forever.
posted by jiiota at 3:53 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

> Hey, they've already had my money, I'm damned if they're gonna get my time as well.

Hear hear. I've done it a few times:

Wings Of Desire
The Waterboy
As Good As It Gets

A friend of mine who was religious about not walking out of films finally had his will broken by Dirty Work. And my sister has a funny story about going to see Chasing Amy; during the lengthy oral sex monologue, an elderly couple who probably saw the poster and thought it was a cute romantic comedy got up and walked out. When they reached the exit at the front of the theatre, the old guy yelled "I AM OFFENDED!!!" at the top of his lungs.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:57 AM on July 6, 2007

Oh, and my wife and I walked out of Gigli. What were we doing there in the first place? We thought it would be a good bad movie. We were wrong.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:10 AM on July 6, 2007

show some respect

I do when they do - as in, not releasing some film that turned out crappy, even though they've spent a lot of time working on it. Respect is a two-way street.

The only movie I remember walking out of is Dracula, the one with Frank Langella.

Movies I should have walked out of:
1941 - painfully amateurish, as though the characters from Animal House were given a big-film budget and no oversight.

Flash Gordon - the 1980 one.

Sunday Bloody Sunday - nothing bloody happens. Oh, wait - the dog got run over. Offscreen.

The Jungle Book - the 1995 cartoon. The things I do for my kids.

The last 45 minutes of Apocalypse Now. Up until Brando appears, the film felt true to the reality of the Vietnam War. When he showed up, it all fell apart.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:42 AM on July 6, 2007

My friend told me it was a good idea to take hallucinogens and go to LOTR: Two Towers. Who knew how terrifying it could sound when people eat popcorn.
posted by unknowncommand at 5:13 AM on July 6, 2007 [4 favorites]

I walk out of a movie theater when my wife says we're going. I have the attitude that 'we paid for it- we gotta sit through it'.
Only movie we walked out of twice was Players, with Ali McGraw and Dino Martin.
(sample review- This is not actually the worst sports film I have ever seen, but...)
I walk out of them all the time at home.
posted by MtDewd at 5:19 AM on July 6, 2007

Your favorite movie sucks.

What I find funniest about all of this is how many of the movies listed are movies that I've seen multiple times...
posted by gregvr at 5:22 AM on July 6, 2007

I walked out on Raindeer Games because after the guy represented himself to the girl as his dead friend, I had zero sympathy for him. When you think the hero protagonist deserves to die there's not much point.

I also walked out in the middle of The Good Shepherd. I actually just meant to go to the bathroom, but when I was through with my business I just found my feet heading for the door instead of back into the theatre. A very lush, well acted, but bone crushingly boring show.
posted by localroger at 5:25 AM on July 6, 2007

I very rarely walk out of movies, for the same reason as MtDewd. The only time I've done it (Girlfight) was when I paid $2 at the college theater. And one other time I almost left (Belly - I kept wondering whether they'd start an actual storyline before the end of the movie. They did!)
posted by Plutor at 5:30 AM on July 6, 2007

Since most of my movie viewing these days is in my home with a DVD, "walking out" is a variable thing. Sometimes I just sort of start drifting around the room, doing other things while the movie plays.

As far as actually walking out of a theater, I've only done that once...A friend convinced me to go see Rust Never Sleeps.

I think I made it through 30 minutes of that horrid slog before I had had enough and bolted. The movie itself was bad enough, but I think it was the burn-out on the other side of the theater constantly yelling "I was there, man." put me over the edge.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:43 AM on July 6, 2007

The only movie I've ever walked out on was Gothic (1986), with wife #1. I really, really wanted to walk out on Fahrenheit 9/11, but I'd made a big deal out of taking a friend to see it, and didn't want to be rude.

fun thread!
posted by sidereal at 5:46 AM on July 6, 2007

I've never walked out of a movie I paid for, but I have theaterhopped into movies I didn't stick with (Triple X...is that what it was called?)

I'm a big believer in "The One Thing". A movie friend of mine gave me this philosophy. In every movie, good or painfully bad, there is "one thing" that makes it worth seeing. And the great thing is, that "one thing" can be different for every single person in the theater. The challenge, when leaving the theater, is to think of the one thing you liked about it, rather than bitching about all it lacked. It may be a particular performance (or even a casting choice), a turn of phrase, a well lit scene, an amazing stunt, or a song expertly chosen.

Having this kind of positive attitude (even with absolutely terrible movies) elevates the entire experience. Try to look for "The One Thing" when you see a movie. It's harder than it sounds.
posted by ColdChef at 6:03 AM on July 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

Make fun of movies that suck, rather than just enduring them. You paid your money, you might as well wring some entertainment out of the experience.

I have never left a movie, no matter how bad, although some dates of mine have. Pro tip: Never take a date with a lot of "female troubles" to go see an arthouse run of Dead Ringers. When they get to the scenes with the gynecological instruments for mutant women, your date will exit fast enough that you might expect her to throw off Cherenkov radiation. Never take someone who has daddy issues to The Stepfather.

I made it through Freddie Got Fingered. Roughly eighty percent of the moviegoers left the theater in three distinct waves. Those of us left were selected for an assortative mating process that, combined with fast-grow clone tanks and icepick lobotomies, generated the test audiences for Gigli. Strong genes, dim thoughts.

It's much more fun to heckle a film that is going badly. The audience reaciton to the recent remake of The Time Machine surprised me. Towards the end came a sound I had never heard before: the remaining theater-goers were actually hissing at the screen like angry cockroaches, which transformed into another surprise: loud, dialogue-drowning boos when Jeremy Irons, clad in a long white wig, leather, and cataract-filmed eyes, tottered away from ever getting an Oscar again and onto the screen. I yelled, "I think it's Marilyn Manson's grandpa!" and the film suddenly became more tolerable.

My sole confession is to turning off a DVD early. It was one of those "six horror movies for six bucks" deals I often pick up at Best Buy. The films are almost invariably shot in miniDV by people who don't know what a fill light is and the script consists of a thrice-photocopied fistful of cocktail napkins, with "IMPROVISE!" written atop in red marker. Still, I trudge through them for some level of entertainment, even if only to make fun of it. At Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires, though, I had to just turn it off. Subtitled The Curse of Ed Wood, not even the venerable, enthusiastic Wood could have approved of this turkey.
posted by adipocere at 6:10 AM on July 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

Wow, you walked out of fucking Wings of Desire? Where's your soul, damn it?
posted by ghastlyfop at 6:15 AM on July 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

I walked out of Swordfish. I think that may truly be the most crap film ever made.

Thing is, now i want to see Dancer in the Dark to see what the big deal is.
posted by Windigo at 6:16 AM on July 6, 2007

I desperately wish I'd walked out of The Matrix Reloaded. I thought (and think) The Matrix was the most overrated film of the last ten years, but I don't HATE it, exactly. So when a friend who loved it -- Matrix screensaver, frequent Matrix quotes inserted into otherwise normal conversation, etc. -- asked me to see the sequel with her, I figured sure, whatever...how bad could it be?

Oh God. Oh GOD.

And I couldn't leave, because I knew she'd not just be pissed, but crushed...she certainly wasn't about to leave, it was something she'd waited to see for months, so it would have been like flipping her off and stalking out. So I sat there. And time stretched. And stretched. And stretched.

(As it turns out, of course, she told me in the parking lot afterward that she would have followed me out had I walked -- like any sane person would, she hated it, too.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:30 AM on July 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

I've turned off a handful of DVDs in my time-- usually, like adipocere, indy horror jobbies with bad acting, bad writing and bad directing. I've only walked out of a movie in a theater of my own volition once, though. It was Men in Black II, and it started off with projection and sound errors compounded with a couple of loud-talking jerks behind me. Re-entering the theater for a later showing is one of my greatest regrets.

But seeing as how my list of movies that I've seen in the theater and not walked out on includes Battlefield Earth and Inspector Gadget, I probably have a higher tolerance for crap and/or less valuable time than most people.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:30 AM on July 6, 2007

I don't walk out, I heckle.

I went to see The Haunting with a friend in 2000, and spent the entire time laughing at what a wretched film it was. I think it was calling out Austin Powers' failed "head" jokes when the guy gets his head bitten off in the fireplace that got the best laughs.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:35 AM on July 6, 2007

Raising Cain is still the only movie I've walked out of.

I wanted to walk out of Dancer in the Dark, but my girlfriend wouldn't let me.

If I ever get to meet Lars van Trier, though, I'm going to kick him in the nuts, though.
posted by empath at 6:36 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've never walked out of a theater (though I came to regret not walking out of Devil's Advocate and John Carpenter's Vampires.).

What's fun is sitting through a film in a theater that seems designed to make people walk out on it. The last three David Lynch movies I've seen in a theater had plenty of walkouts (even Inland Empire, for which it was unusually hard to get tickets). Same for The Aristocrats, South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, and Team America: World Police. In those cases people clearly didn't know what they were getting into.
posted by Prospero at 6:37 AM on July 6, 2007

The only movie I can remember walking out of was "Breathless" starring Richard Gere.
posted by MikeMc at 6:38 AM on July 6, 2007

The only movie I've ever walked out of was Ellen Degeneres' "Mr. Wrong." There were so many levels of unexplored wrong, I'm glad I left before the denoument. (And I still think the only reason I did was because we had free passes. If I'd paid, I bet I would have stayed to the bitter end.)
posted by headspace at 6:39 AM on July 6, 2007

"Windtalkers"

Nic Cage.

PLeaghecaghehjbwtal wgh;ead/s.f gdf!111!!!!!!
posted by Pecinpah at 6:40 AM on July 6, 2007

What's fun is sitting through a film in a theater that seems designed to make people walk out on it.

I've never seen so many walkouts in my life as I did during Grindhouse. The first round was between the features; most of those people returned, so I'm guessing they were just hitting the head (a few did not return...I presume they didn't realize it was a doublefeature, and were probably kinda pissed off when they found out later). The second round was during Tarantino's Death-Proof, at a point where a room full of vapid young ingenues kept talking...and talking...and talking...and talking...
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:48 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thing is, now i want to see Dancer in the Dark to see what the big deal is.

It's not that its offensive, it's just that it's stupid. A couple of the musical sequences are glorious, but the rest of the movie is just nonsense. Not a single true character moment in the entire piece. It's like von Trier has never met an actual human being.

And generally, when constructing a narrative, you include some dramatic turns. You don't just start off in a bad situation, and continue making it relentlessly worse for two hours. Particularly when you have to contort reality in such obscene ways to make it happen.
posted by empath at 6:48 AM on July 6, 2007

Prospero's Books

and

High School High

Two steaming turds of cinema.
posted by papercake at 6:49 AM on July 6, 2007

I bailed on "Body Double" when they pulled out the big drill.
posted by hwestiii at 6:49 AM on July 6, 2007

I still cant understand why people hate the Matrix trilogy. Gosh, its not perfect, but quite deep. Maybe its the amalgam of philosophy? Who knows. I still watch it! Hard to find film out there taking on good metaphysics problems like the Evil Deciever!

What is most interesting to me is how people can be offended by fiction. They act as if it is real and that the filmmaker owes them a non-offensive experience. They CHOSE to go to the film...and worse to bring their kids to an R-rated flick. Aside from the inanity of a piece of "art" pleasing everyone, or the filmmaker somehow knowing what offends filmgoer X, it says alot about the fragility of a mind when an image on a screen "offends". I truly feel sorry for those like Ms. Rebecca on that page.

That said, bad acting hurts like a cheese-grater on the skin. Nick Cage, Im talkin to YOU!
posted by Dantien at 7:04 AM on July 6, 2007

When I was about nine I made my Dad take me home right away during The Last Starfighter, because I got terrified when the friendly alien huckster took off his face. Yeah, I was a puss. That was the only movie I walked out on. I guess I've turned off one movie, A Woman Under the Influence. Heard great things about it, but the acting style just grated on me too much for some reason, and I couldn't bear to continue. It's weird, because I've endured much worse.

My wife and I still wish we ditched AI though. I'm still not sure why we sat through to the stupid, stupid end. Whenever it's mentioned, we share a haunted look.
posted by picea at 7:08 AM on July 6, 2007

Even Blues Brothers 2000 has like 300 people in the credits, most of whom worked too hard and didn't get paid enough for your throwaway entertainment. Show some respect.

Actually, we feel bad that you spent your hard-earned dollars on a movie that you should've known would be absolute crap.

Put some effort into your movie-going.
posted by dogwalker at 7:09 AM on July 6, 2007

Wow, you walked out of fucking Wings of Desire? Where's your soul, damn it?

I was a college freshman when I walked out on that one. I allow for the possibility that, were I to watch it now, I might find it profound where before I found it merely tedious. But I'll probably never put it to the test.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:12 AM on July 6, 2007

The only movie I can remember walking out on was Billy Madison, and that was in the first five minutes.
posted by davejay at 7:23 AM on July 6, 2007

Oh, and no thread about walking out of movies would be complete without a nod to Urotsukidôji: Legend of the Overfiend, which I saw at a rep theatre in university. I made it all the way through, although only fear of being labelled a lightweight by my peers kept me there, but a good chunk of the audience trickled away throughout the film. One guy near the front of the audience, in the midst of the nth scene of 500 foot penises waving around or cheerleaders being killed during sex with demons, got up and yelled "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!" and ran out of the theatre. I assumed he was exaggerating his reaction to the film for comedic effect, but can't be certain.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:25 AM on July 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

Oh god, Urotsukidoji. Given to me by a Harry Knowles wannabe in Asheville at some hole-in-the-wall VHS place as "oh dude, you gotta see this". Not enough pot saved me. I've blocked it all out now.

I'd rather watch Sliding Doors YET AGAIN.
posted by Dantien at 7:28 AM on July 6, 2007

I walked out on Bushwhacked, because the humor was so low-brow it just annoyed the shit out of me.

There was another movie I walked out on... oh yeah, Highlander II. Nuff said.

My best friend got pissed off at the "Rap Culture" overload in New Jack City so he walked out and I followed, although later on I saw the whole thing and liked it. FWIW he also walked out on A.I. and Minority Report .

I wish I had walked out on Screamers. The breaking point for me was when they were supposed to be on this alien planet, but are actually in a quarry somewhere. The dump trucks hauling away rocks in the background was a dead giveaway.

I remember a bunch of pissed off kids walking out on The Fellowship of the Ring, saying "this is stupid!" Also a bunch of confused rednecks walking out on Contact, saying "The aliens were her dad? This is STUPID!" Dumbasses all.
posted by smoothvirus at 7:30 AM on July 6, 2007

...but empire records is so awesome!
posted by timory at 7:33 AM on July 6, 2007

I think I walked out of Halloween III, Colors, and Crash (movies about cars, OK; movies about fucking, OK; movies about fucking cars, maybe not so much). Lately I have an excellent bad-movie filter and hardly ever go to movies I can't at least tolerate, although Miami Vice was close (and I love Michael Mann's other movies).

The opening explosion in Swordfish was cool, plus it had Halle Barry.

I still cant understand why people hate the Matrix trilogy.

Incoherent storylines and inconsistencies between movies.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:41 AM on July 6, 2007

I'm incapable of not finishing a movie I've started to watch. I almost walked out on Inland Empire ... I found it to be like Mulholland Drive only longer, more confusing, and much less actually happens.

But, yes, I've sat through a number of horrible movies in theaters. Like Chain Reaction with Keanu Reeves. Or Spiderman 3.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 7:45 AM on July 6, 2007

"State and Main" and "The Good Girl." Jesus those movies were awful.
posted by saladin at 7:45 AM on July 6, 2007

I would have walked out on Tough Guys, but I was reviewing it. What a piece of crap. I could feel that movie reaching to find the lowest common denominator. A total waste of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster. My wife said she would have walked out of Dead Ringers but she thought she would pass out if she stood up. We still argue about that movie. For some reason men seem to be less disturbed by it. Can't figure out why.

I turned off the DVD of Leaving Las Vegas. Terrible, except for one line: "I'm a prickly pear!"
posted by Man-Thing at 7:48 AM on July 6, 2007

Hope Floats.

Team America.
posted by thejoshu at 7:50 AM on July 6, 2007

Oh, I walked out of Meet Joe Black, too. I only went to see it because it had the first trailer for Episode I in front of it. I'd say about 75% of the theater walked out of it.
posted by empath at 7:56 AM on July 6, 2007

The next time I visit MetaFilter in the middle of the night, I expect to see a "closed" sign and the posted hours of business.

The sun never sets on the global internet. You are either part of the solution, or worth two in the hand. You can't count your eggs before they split, so why should you? A stitch in time is more important then a penny saved to you people.
posted by oxford blue at 8:06 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

The wife and I rented Hard Candy a few weeks back, and about half way through I turned to the wife and said, "The only possible satifactory ending for this turd is for both main characters to die choking each other." It was at home and I couldn't walk out but I did metaphorically by retreating to my laptop for the last hour of that stinker.

Subcategory: Movies that won Academy Awards that I wish I'd walked out of:

-Forrest Gump
-Out of Africa
-Life is Beautiful
posted by Mcable at 8:17 AM on July 6, 2007

Other People's Money. God, that sucked.
posted by wsg at 8:18 AM on July 6, 2007

Life's too short to waste it watching shitty movies.
posted by wsg at 8:18 AM on July 6, 2007

kirkaracha, what inconsistencies? and incoherence is more about your ability to understand than the storyline n'est pas? I mean, *I* dont find it incoherent at all. To put it succinctly, first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.
posted by Dantien at 8:19 AM on July 6, 2007

Irreconcilable Differences, with Drew Barrymore divorcing her parents. Loathsome.

And some 80s movie with a girl with her leg in the cast on the poster. That one was particularly cruel, as I sat there endlessly bored out of my mind and then a girl flashed her breasts onscreen for about half a second, and that somehow made the whole experience much, much worse.

The funniest walk-outs I've ever seen were during a showing of "Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me" in a smalltown theatre on opening night. People were just screaming their anger and confusion at the screen, it was hilarious.
posted by stinkycheese at 8:20 AM on July 6, 2007

Just as a reference point, since most of you will surely be tempted to walk out of a crappy movie again in the future, it's really not that hard to get a refund from most movie theaters in the US. As long as you walk out fairly early in the movie (before the 1 hour mark, say), the theater doesn't care if they refund your ticket price. On opening weekends (when they're going to generate most of the sales for a particular movie) the distributor takes up to 99% of the ticket sale revenue- the theater is simply selling you the seat so that you can come buy concessions. So really movie theaters aren't in the business of selling movies, but are in the business of selling concessions by way of advertising movies. Which means that if you go buy some overpriced candy and syrup-water, they don't really care if you enjoy the movie or not and will give you your money back.
posted by baphomet at 8:26 AM on July 6, 2007

I will almost always stick it out to the very end of a film, even if just to heckle. But Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom was a bit much for me. Might have been the shit eating scene, or one of the many ritualistic killings.

I'm not saying it's a bad movie, just more than I could take at the time. And far, far slower than you'd think a movie like that would be.
posted by mzanatta at 8:29 AM on July 6, 2007

The one mass exodus I remember witnessing was during the "let's get it on" scene in Longtime Companion when many members of the Middle American NPRmy, who I guess were expecting a film about gay men that didn't include any actual gayness, bolted right outta the arthouse. My date saved us from being ejected by dissuading me from moving over to an aisle seat and tripping them as they passed.
posted by FelliniBlank at 8:30 AM on July 6, 2007

Hate Salo, hate Hard Candy. Two films I'd love to see choke one another to death.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:32 AM on July 6, 2007

...but empire records is so awesome!

Those of us who like Empire Records didn't go to see it because it had a Gin Blossoms' song
posted by khaibit at 8:36 AM on July 6, 2007

-Nothing But Trouble

From 1991? Dan Aykroyd had a fake nose like the end of a penis? I was 15 and my mother and I both walked out. Holy crap that movie was bad.

I also walked out of Bulworth. That movie had my skin crawling in five minutes. Erfh.

And, strangely, I have since seen this movie on cable and chuckled, but when it came out I went to see Kingpin at the drive-in. And we DROVE out.
posted by metasav at 8:38 AM on July 6, 2007

"Evita."

What. a. piece. of. SHIT.

I wanted to walk out of "Batman Forever," but I rode in someone else's car and had nowhere to go. So I just kind of turned sideways in my chair and tried to shield my face and ears.
posted by erikharmon at 8:45 AM on July 6, 2007

incoherence is more about your ability to understand than the storyline n'est pas?

Why is it that when anyone questions the genius of The Matrix trilogy, fans claim they must not "get it"? It really wasn't nearly as difficult to follow as you think it was.

Mind you, I like the movies (the first one a lot because it broke new ground, the sequels less so) but just because someone else didn't enjoy them, it doesn't mean they were lost in it's "depth".
posted by JaredSeth at 8:49 AM on July 6, 2007

I can't remember ever walking out of a movie.
posted by PHINC at 8:50 AM on July 6, 2007

'Even when I'm not particularly digging the movie, walkers always piss me off.'

There will be a lot of good comments made in this thread, some lousy ones too. I do not feel impelled to stick around and read them all. Maybe I'll come back later, but maybe not. Your effort does not require my attention. Good night!
posted by blue_beetle at 8:58 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've never walked out on a movie. It would have to be a pretty boring movie for me to ditch it. I'm the type who finds something enjoyable in bad movies, so I'm inclined to stick around to have a good laugh.

Though I considered walking out of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but when I looked over at my wife to suggest it I saw that she was asleep and I couldn't bring myself to wake her up.
posted by JT at 8:59 AM on July 6, 2007

JaredSeth, that's my point. it's not that hard to understand but Kirk was saying it was "incoherent". I think it wasnt and was enjoyable.
posted by Dantien at 9:03 AM on July 6, 2007

I've walked out of two movies in recent memory - The Producers, because it was so incredibly awful, and Monster, because I was really really upset. I calmed myself down and went back in to see the rest of Monster. I have turned DVDs off part way through though, most recently Running with Scissors. God, what schlock. The book was just as bad - I wish I had given up on it halfway through.
posted by arcticwoman at 9:03 AM on July 6, 2007

I walked out of Moulin Rouge even though it meant I had to wait in the lobby for my girlfriend.
posted by callmejay at 9:08 AM on July 6, 2007

Oh, right. I should amend my previous claim to having walked out only from Independence day, because, in a big way, seeing crossroads with a fifth of Jack Daniels and a girlfriend is just the same. Tippling on the sly is a great and noble way to have a blast at a bad movie. Laugh quietly.

I've also been known to deliberately buy the wrong tickets: I wanted to see AI though I knew it would piss me off and I didn't approve of it exactly, so chalk up the box office success of Joe Dirt to me.

More people walked out of Grindhouse than any movie I've ever attended, but that's sensible.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:13 AM on July 6, 2007

Barry Lyndon and Moulin Rouge are both great films.

I've never walked out of a movie, but I did stop the dvd rather than finish watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
posted by washburn at 9:15 AM on July 6, 2007

Some of these movies, I can understand people leaving. Others just baffle me. And others -- jesus h. christ, why did you pay to see it in the first place? Yeah, I'm looking at you, people who paid to see "Hope Floats" and "Blues Brothers 2000."

The only movie I ever walked out on (and I made it all the way through "Dirty Work" fer godssake!) was "One Crazy Summer," which I had won tickets to at a campus bar. I was young, with my girlfriend at the time and we suddenly realized had better things to do. If you catch my drift.
posted by schmedeman at 9:22 AM on July 6, 2007

My dad and I walked out on Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but having seen it on my own screen since then, I kinda like it. I don't think I'd sit through it at a theater again, though. For one thing, you can't go and do your laundry during the boring parts at the theater.
posted by katillathehun at 9:27 AM on July 6, 2007

I'll sit through some terrible movies, and I have suffered my way through quite a few of them - but for the love of god, if anyone suggests you watch a Tyler Perry movie save yourself the trouble and just opt to claw your eyes out instead. My dad said "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" was "funny". I still have not forgiven him for that. Dressing a large black man as an old woman does not automatically make a movie hilarious. Unfortunately, it seems that every black comedian (and a great deal of white ones - I'm looking at you, Robin Williams!) are contractually obligated to make at least one really awful movie while in drag.

It does amuse me to see people get all huffy about some of my favorite movies, though. Clearly, if everyone liked it, it wasn't distinctive enough to really be a great movie. (Or, as Huey Lewis put it, "We're #1? I thought we were better than that." Great quote, whatever your opinion of the band.) The best will never be rated #1. Good movies are controversial. My mom's judgment of whether a movie was worth seeing was watching Siskel* and Ebert's reviews - if they agreed on the movie, it was probably OK, but if they disagreed it was much more likely to be worth the money to see.

Some of the best movies I have ever seen were the ones that left me unsure about whether I liked it or hated it at the conclusion. Pulp Fiction, for example. Took my wife to see it. She was appalled. Just completely did not understand what she had just seen. I hadn't told her a thing about the movie, she hadn't seen any previews and was utterly unprepared. A friend called us later that week and asked us to go see the movie with him. We went again. Upon second viewing, she loved it.

*Yep, I did mean Siskel. I know he's no longer with us, but Mom has been gone for a while now.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:37 AM on July 6, 2007

JaredSeth, that's my point. it's not that hard to understand but Kirk was saying it was "incoherent". I think it wasnt and was enjoyable.

There's plenty to dislike about the Matrix sequels. A few items off the top of my head:

1. Keanu Reeves acting inability
2. The fighting scenes that go on WAAAAAY too long
3. The sex scene (unintentionally hilarious)
4. The dull as hell final confrontation between Smith & Neo
5. The pseudo-"deep" subtext. Oooh, look, Neo is a Christ figure? Get OUT!
posted by papercake at 9:49 AM on July 6, 2007

But then again, I loved "The Fountain" which most everyone else hated, so feel free to continue to love all things Matrix and ignore me.
posted by papercake at 9:50 AM on July 6, 2007

Where are the Andy Warhol films, the Batman & Robins, the films staring Courtney Love?

I am seeing nothing here genuinely walkable.
posted by Artw at 10:04 AM on July 6, 2007

the problem is one of opinion. In papercake's list above, a few of the points are solely of his opinion. As for point 5, I dont think the Christ allegory was meant as deep. That was surface stuff. I think there were many deeper points made, like the body/mind/spirit coordination throughout the film (denoted by Zion/the Matrix/the Machines). The merging of the three at the end WAS deep...at least for a sci-fi kung-fu film. Neo coming to understand what to do with his enlightenment that steps outside the cycle of death and rebirth was fresh in this genre! I doubt most people got that...I know many didn't understand the significance of Neo's "sacrifice" at the end either. Doesn't make it a bad movie if you ask me, just means it may have been misunderstood. I sure as hell was entertained though!

But Jesus, what did you expect the Matrix to be? Tolstoy? Joyce? It's summer fun. And the acting wasn't meant to be superb (well, the scene chewing of Lambert Wilson was fun and Gina Torres rules in anything). I mean heck, they cast Cornel West!!! But gosh, the layers of subtext, the immense history of philosophy, the genuine postmodern uniqueness (if you can call it that), all of this was commendable. Try to find that in Ultraviolent or whatever crap Paul Anderson is doing today.

There is no accounting for taste I suppose. The Matrix trilogy had it's bad points (I still fastforward through the rave/sex scene, even though I understand it's symbolism (arch, flesh, celebration of body, blah blah)) but for an action movie, it was great. Plus it actually talks about enlightenment in a way that is realistic and not "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" style. They should make more movies like the Matrix trilogy. Maybe better ones, but more efforts like this and less Shrek.
posted by Dantien at 10:05 AM on July 6, 2007

1. Keanu Reeves acting inability
2. The fighting scenes that go on WAAAAAY too long
3. The sex scene (unintentionally hilarious)
4. The dull as hell final confrontation between Smith & Neo
5. The pseudo-"deep" subtext. Oooh, look, Neo is a Christ figure? Get OUT!

6. Morpheus in a turtleneck
7. Goddamn hippies (if the alternative to the world of the Matrix is Burning Man or whatever that was with the ravers and all, I'll take the fuckin' Matrix, thank you very much)
8. Too. Fucking. LONG.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:07 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Where are the Andy Warhol films, the Batman & Robins, the films staring Courtney Love?

"'Chelsea Girls': I have never walked out on a movie--and stayed out. I did leave Andy Warhol's "Chelsea Girls," a six-hour film shown in three hours by split-screen projection, when a partially nude drag queen in bed was singing "They Say That Falling in Love is Wonderful," but I went back, only to eventually get a headache from the overlapping soundtracks. I wanted to leave a re-release of "Fantasia" that bore a written dedication to Leopold Stokowski, the original conductor, but spelled his name wrongly, replaced his 1940 musical contributions with digital sound re-recorded by a hack and dubbed his voice when Mickey Mouse shook hands with him. However, I didn't leave because I was writing about it. --Alan Artner, art critic"
posted by katillathehun at 10:07 AM on July 6, 2007

Doesn't make it a bad movie if you ask me, just means it may have been misunderstood.

Hmmmm. Yeah, but...no. It's perfectly possible to "get" a movie and still think it blows. I don't think everyone who cracks on Uwe Boll is just failing to grasp what his films mean, you know?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:13 AM on July 6, 2007

I walked out of The Apostle, which everyone was like "Oh man, Robert Duvall is a genius, it's so touching and sad and whatever" and I was all "zzzzz". It was too fucking boring. So, so, so boring. I am sorry Robert Duvall, I love you, but your movie bored me almost to death.

I would have walked out of Saving Private Ryan, but I saw it opening weekend and I live in Texas. I was afraid some redneck uberpatriots were going to follow me out to the parking lot and ask me why I hated America, punctuated by rib kicks.
posted by mckenney at 10:16 AM on July 6, 2007

I have hit the stop button on countless DVDs and VHS tapes. In fact, these days I finish watching only about, eh, twenty percent of the movies I begin. Recently I pulled the plug on Children of Men (just a string of cliches I'd seen done better in cheesy eighties sci-fi movies) and something called Dead Girl. I've bailed on Moulin Rouge, Girl With Pearl Earring, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (the first soliloquoy was so overdone I was actually in pain), Chumscrubber, Brick (was anyone in this movie even trying to act? Yeah, yeah, I know... it's like so film noir and totally ironic, dude.) and literally dozens (if not hundreds) of others.

Lots of things can annoy me enough to kill the film, but most of them fall under the category of exposing the seams. If I see the writer, director, or actors trying without accomplishing, then it completely kills the mood. Ridley Scott leaps to mind as an example. Everything he's done since Crimson Tide has had this overwhelming "Hey! Look! This is cool! These effects are AMAZING! These characters are BADASS!" feel to it. Like he's sitting next to me the whole time, coked out of his mind, poking me in the ribs, talking a mile a minute about camera angles and military hardware and smoke grenades. He's hoping that if he doesn't let up I won't notice that the characters are pretty one dimensional, the plot nothing to write home about and the dialog inspired not by anything in real life but only by other movies. There are plenty of other directors infected with this particular disease (John Woo comes to mind, though I've only seen maybe two of his movies), but I was particularly disappointed when Ridley succumbed.

Maybe the biggest disappointment in recent history was Batman Begins. I'd heard so much about it, it was the best Batman movie ever, it was based on Miller's Batman: Year One (which was damn near perfect in every way), and on and on. So I watched the DVD and... uh... ninjas? A whole secret school of ninjas? Whom Batman takes on single handedly in a scene that looks like it should have starred Jet Li? Yeah... that's exactly what Miller wrote about in "Year One." Sure. If they'd had decent dialog or interesting characters, maybe it could have been saved, but it sounded like it was written by high school fanboys. I shut it off about the time Bruce Wayne made it back from Tibet.

Movies I've walked out of in the theater? Clifford with Martin Short. We left about twenty minutes in; Short was making Charles Grodin grind his teeth at a cocktail party, I think. It hurt to see Short go down in flames like that but, really, there just wansn't anything funny in that movie. We saw The Paper instead and it remains, to this day, one of my favorites.

When I witnessed Christian Slater delivering the line "I don't wanna be a greasy immigrant!" I felt sorry for him, stood up, and walked out of Mobsters. Unfortunately, I ended up sitting through New Jack City, so it was basically a lateral move. New Jack despite its overall badness, though, didn't grate on my nerves nearly as much.

Oh, and I would have gleefully walked out on The Producers, but it was a Christmas gift to my Mom (she hadn't been to a theater in years). I would've cheerfully microwaved the Bullet Proof Monk DVD and then paid Blocbuster the $16.95, but I was watching it with my then GF and her family and there just wasn't much I could do besides sit through it.

Also should have walked out on Renaissance Man and Life With Mikey. On the latter, I was seduced by the scene in the trailer where the child actor, forced to eat umpteen sponfuls of cereal, lashes out "What am I? Job??" It was the only funny line in the movie, of course. I've no idea why I thought Renaissance Man was going to be any good. All I can say is that, at that time, Danny Devito's track record was pretty good.
posted by Clay201 at 10:20 AM on July 6, 2007

>I'm a big believer in "The One Thing". A movie friend of mine gave me this philosophy. In every movie, good or painfully bad, there is "one thing" that makes it worth seeing.

My "one thing" list:

Matrix II: The swordfight scene.
Magnolia: Philip Seymore Hoffman's interesting turn as a male nurse.
Mulholland Drive: Naomi Watts disrobed.
posted by Gordion Knott at 10:22 AM on July 6, 2007

Clay201: I think you have Ridley Scott confused with Tony Scott.
posted by Prospero at 10:25 AM on July 6, 2007

Oh, yeah, I did once walk out on Eraserhead. Staggered out, actually, after vomiting loudly and at great length without seeing a frame of the film. Did I mention that I was in college? And that I was drunk? Once I had finished painting the floor with my Kraft macacroni and cheese dinner I lurched to my feet to announce, "And now I think I shall depart!" before stumbling outside and passing out in a parking lot.

Good times.

I've since seen Eraserhead several times without vomiting.
posted by Man-Thing at 10:27 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I did not heart Huckabees.
posted by Skot at 10:32 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh, two quick notes from my video clerking days:

Once had a woman return a copy of Pulp Fiction: "There's something wrong with this movie. First it's about these two gangsters... then it switches to this story about a boxing man... then it goes back to the gangsters." My co-worker and I looked at each other, turned to the woman, and responded "Yeah, that's basically Pulp Fiction."

The movie with the highest percentage of negative customer reviews during my four years behind the counter was Ellen Degeneres's Mr. Wrong, but Stallone's Judge Dread was a close runner up. On titles like that it wasn't uncommon to warn a customer before they took it home and volunteer to swap it out for something else if they really hated it. Not all that many took us up on it, but there were some.
posted by Clay201 at 10:40 AM on July 6, 2007

Trapped in Paradise. I still have Dana Carvey's line about Ring Dings stuck in my head. Not the line itself, but his brain-damaged delivery bouncing around in there. Walked out after that.

And the Matrix sequels sucked ass. Science has proven this.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:43 AM on July 6, 2007

Prospero:

Tony's gone down hill too, hasn't he? It's so sad. True Romance is a a spectacular piece of directing. Tarantino's scripts can become Reservoir Dogs or Natural Born Killers. It's all in the execution and Tony hit his pitch out of the park. But these days it's like he's just given up.
posted by Clay201 at 10:44 AM on July 6, 2007

We saw The Paper instead and it remains, to this day, one of my favorites.

Paging gompa! gompa to thread 62687!
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:46 AM on July 6, 2007

But Jesus, what did you expect the Matrix to be? Tolstoy? Joyce? It's summer fun.

Ah, see, but that's where it fails. The first movie MOVES and is very streamline and action-y.

The other two became weighted down by this Importance with a mile-high capital "I" that the filmmakers yoked around its neck, and that was the excuse they used to make it over-long, unintelligible in places, and just plain over-the-top BAD in many places.

Matrix II: The swordfight scene.

That's when the movie lost me. This scene went on FOR-EV-ER and how fucking stupid are Neo's adversaries? They take turns attacking him and let him do his stop-the-bullets trick and don't adapt at all. It was all downhill from here for me.

And, hey, that's probably enough about The Matrixes (which I really don't care all that mucha bout) from me.
posted by papercake at 10:47 AM on July 6, 2007

I must have a higher threshold for really crappy movies than others here, because I'm seeing a lot of movies listed that I really enjoyed.

I don't think I've ever walked out of a movie unless there was some sort of technical difficulty.

The closest I can come is movies that I've rented, downloaded, or are playing on cable, which I start and just don't finish. But even those are pretty few and far between. I guess I sort of subscribe to ColdChef's 'The One Thing' philosophy, even a bad movie can have a quality moment that is worth seeing.

Though Batman and Robin remains the worst movie ever made.
posted by quin at 11:02 AM on July 6, 2007

People making jokes about hippies? $5
People saying a movie is bad because of one small factor? $10
People with no filmmaking talent critiquing scene length? $20
Walking out of Batman Begins before it gets good? Priceless!
posted by Dantien at 11:09 AM on July 6, 2007

'A Scanner Darkly' has been the worst movie I've tried to watch recently. I tried three times, but just couldn't keep watching.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:11 AM on July 6, 2007

Pulp Fiction, for example. Took my wife to see it. She was appalled. Just completely did not understand what she had just seen. I hadn't told her a thing about the movie, she hadn't seen any previews and was utterly unprepared. A friend called us later that week and asked us to go see the movie with him. We went again. Upon second viewing, she loved it.

I had kind of a similar problem with Pulp Fiction. I was doing market research at a Bad Boys preview screening and couldn't bring myself to watch it a second time. So I walked over and watched Pulp Fiction instead. Totally unprepared for it, didn't not get what was going on. Didn't quite know if I liked it or not.

Had to watch it a second time with friends to really understand it, then watched it a 3rd, 4th, 5th time. Basically kept watching it until I had every line of dialogue memorized.
posted by empath at 11:11 AM on July 6, 2007

I am seeing nothing here genuinely walkable.

Walkable-ness is in the eye of the beholder.
posted by wsg at 11:13 AM on July 6, 2007

Dantien:

I've got a copy here on DVD. If I want to begin at the point where "it gets good," to what point should I fast forward?
posted by Clay201 at 11:13 AM on July 6, 2007

and to address Kitten's eloquent point on hippies...

Before you dismiss them dude, remember that they were right!
posted by Dantien at 11:14 AM on July 6, 2007

Clay, when he gets his act together and returns from Tibet.
posted by Dantien at 11:15 AM on July 6, 2007

I turned off Rent about 15 minutes in.

That said, I thought Batman and Robin was delightfully cheesy.
posted by sian at 11:22 AM on July 6, 2007

Oh, this thread is absolute gold. Really and truly a treasure.

There are three movies I remember walking out of:

- Lost in Space - went with my buddy Stuart, we're both big FX fans, but we ditched that movie within about 15 minutes. Didn't even say anything to each other, just turned, looked at each other, got up and left.

- The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - I made it about halfway through, and then walked. I adore Gilliam, but damn, this one was too convoluted for even me to follow. I suspect that some sort of chemical assistance would have helped, but perhaps not.

- And here's the best one: I worked for months as part of the ILM FX crew on Hook. I went to the employee screening because my then-wife was a HUGE Peter Pan fanatic, she was so thrilled that I worked on Hook, but damn, I didn't make it through more than half the movie, I just HAD to leave the theater halfway through and sit outside. You shoulda seen the looks of my compatriots and ex as they exited the theater. Fuck it, I had already wasted enough hours of my life on that bloated turkey. I quit ILM shortly thereafter. I like to refer to it as Spielberg's first dinosaur flick.

I also worked on Memoirs of an Invisible Man and Hudson Hawk, didn't bother even going to the ILM screenings, never seen either of 'em, never plan to.

As far as DVD, hell, that's a long list of movies rented, run for 10 minutes or less, ejected and returned. Freedie Got Fingered didn't last more than 5 minutes. The fact that Tom Green probably has more financial security than me really irks me, but the fact that he has one less testicle then me is somewhat comforting.
posted by dbiedny at 11:23 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've never walked out of a film seen in a theater. Not even My Own Private Idaho, which was probably the most excruciating experience I've ever had in film (although it looks like "Harsh Times" may well equal it.. I haven't made it all the way through that one yet).

I have, however, stopped and immediately destroyed a DVD: John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. Ice Cube and the rest have just battled their way through hordes of zombie Martian ghost aliens, made it onto a train after losing a number of people, are on their way to safety, and Natasha Henstridge - the most flawless beauty I've ever seen in my life, and one of the two reasons I was watching the film - says "We have to go back."

I just sat there, mouth gape for a moment. I don't remember what bullshit reason they gave for extending the violence another hour. The reaction was just visceral - to have this stupidity permanently removed from my life as quickly as possible.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 11:23 AM on July 6, 2007

I guess I sort of subscribe to ColdChef's 'The One Thing' philosophy, even a bad movie can have a quality moment that is worth seeing.

Going back to Disclosure, I guess The One Thing to see was Demi Moore raping (or attempting to) Michael Douglas in the first reel of the film. I anticipated the rest of the flick was Michael Douglas playing The Victimized Male and I don't think I could stomach that for another hour and a half.

I enjoyed Ebert's review way more than the ten minutes I saw of the movie, though perhaps I should have stuck around to see the Virtual Reality chase scene through a corporate database (!).

Full disclosure: I typically watch any old crappy movie to the end, right through the credits, so walking out on this movie was really a special event for me
posted by mazola at 11:23 AM on July 6, 2007

Oh man, the ol' Mastercard ad chestnut. I can't tell you how absolutely thrilled I am to see that being used for the 90-millionth time in a way that makes no sense.

P.S. The second two Matrices blew. I mean, what the fuck? Why was Colonel Sanders there? In a giant TV room? Fuck those movies.
posted by mckenney at 11:24 AM on July 6, 2007

Thanks for responding to my point mckenney. Enjoy your fifteenth viewing of Swordfish.
posted by Dantien at 11:28 AM on July 6, 2007

I haven't walked out of many movies, really, at least ones that other folks have seen (I walked out on something during the Ann Arbor Film Fest every year, usually more than one thing per year, but it's supposed to be experimental and sometimes I just don't care about 16 minutes of your literal blood on the celluloid if there's nothing else going on, thanks). I'm a heckler, which is why I go to the second-run movies near the end of their tenure— anyone who's wanted to see it without the risk of a drunken lout had their chance

I have become an inveterate DVD stopper, however, amplified by my love of the library for movie rental. Just last night, I bailed on South Beach Academy, a 1995 Corey Feldman endeavor that was interminable. I did, however, make it through Rock and Roll High School Forever, which was a servicable 1990 sequel (also with Feldman). And I'm much more likely to pull the plug on rewatching— I axed Tetsuo: Iron Man because the first time I saw it, I was on acid and I had remembered it as far less boring and creepy.
posted by klangklangston at 11:32 AM on July 6, 2007

The One Thing

Hmmmm. I'm not sure it exists in something as gaspingly awful as Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. I mean, I couldn't even make it through the IMDB cast list without having a transient ischemic attack.
posted by Skot at 11:33 AM on July 6, 2007

I've never walked out of the cinema, though I was tempted during the recent Keira Knightly version of Pride & Prejudice. And The Hours, that was hell too. And The Avengers. God that film sucked.
posted by Fence at 11:37 AM on July 6, 2007

I axed Tetsuo: Iron Man because the first time I saw it, I was on acid and I had remembered it as far less boring and creepy.

Hah, for that very same reason, I've been avoiding watching The Emperor's New Groove again, because it can't be as good as I remember it being when I watched it on acid.
posted by empath at 12:00 PM on July 6, 2007

So, to recap, if you didn't like love the last 2 Matrices, you are dumb, and you like Swordfish.
posted by everichon at 12:13 PM on July 6, 2007

I do like seeing Halle Berry's boobs, so maybe he's right, and I just have never realized what a cinematic genius John Travolta is!

Oh wait, no.
posted by mckenney at 12:16 PM on July 6, 2007

Wow. Zing!
posted by Dantien at 12:25 PM on July 6, 2007

Look, those hippies don't count. I'm talking about the ones who borrow money they never pay back, give you crabs, never bathe, can't hold down a job, listen to endless Dead bootlegs and like the Matrix sequels. If these are humanity's best and brightest, I side with Agent Smith!

(And I would argue that Batman Begins is at its best when he's training in Tibet. The extreme cheesiness of Ra's' [Ra's'? really? hell, I dunno] plan was too much for me, and I also...well...didn't like this version of Batman, who isn't a scientist, a detective, or anything other than kind of a gravelly-voiced thug, which isn't Batman to me at all. I hold out hope for the next one, though.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:28 PM on July 6, 2007

Okay, just as an experiment in seeing how well I follow my own philosophy, I pulled up a list of my "Worst Rated" movies on Netflix to see if I could remember what "The One Thing" I liked in each of them was.

40 Days and 40 Nights I liked his apartment in the movie. And his teeshirt in one scene.

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls The naked rhino birthing scene cracks me up.

America's Sweethearts I remember thinking the Arizona resort would be a nice place to visit. And there was a scene with a fat Julia Roberts that I liked.

Batman Forever It was fun to watch Tommy Lee Jones's credibility melt.

Blues Brothers 2000The big finale was set in Louisiana. I liked that. That is all.

Cool World The cartoon sex scene was hot in a creepy, icky way.

The Faculty I sat behind Harry Knowles at a screening and when he appeared in the movie, he yelped like a little girl.

Johnny Mnemonic That awful awful speech Keanu gave at the end still cracks me up.

Nothing But Trouble The Humpty Dance.

Pay It Forward When the kid dies. God help me, I loved that part.

Prozac Nation Full frontal. Opening scene.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil Kevin Spacey chews every scene he's in.

Toys I TOTALLY wanted some of those "War Toys" we were supposed to hate.

Vegas Vacation Cousin Eddie cooking chicken on the radioactive rocks.

White Men Can't Jump I learned some new "Yo Mama" jokes.

Wow. This was a painful exercise. I don't recommend it.
posted by ColdChef at 12:30 PM on July 6, 2007

Yeah, Sling Blade, Forrest Gump, Midnight Express, Year of the Dragon, those all really sucked. No wonder they all got no critical acclaim at all.
*WTF? face*

The rationale at the Trib is bordering on idicrazity (idiocy/craziness) you like Will Farrell in “Elf” but can’t stand Ron Burgundy?
Huh?
That’s like saying “You know, I like flashy insipid shallow pointless movies about dancing, but I didn’t like ‘You Got Served.’”
They walked out on “The Godfather” or “Reservoir Dogs” because ‘it’s too violent’. It’s a fucking ORGANIZED CRIME movie you daffy bastards there are GUNS n’ harsh language n’ shit.
Ugh.
People conflate their personal tastes with what is actually worthy. I very much disliked “The Aviator” but I recognize that it was a quality film, excellently directed, and some of the scenes were magnificent. But - not my thing.
So how hard is it to absorb and analyze the film apart as a work and appreciate or criticise it for what it is?
I didn’t walk out of Point Break (Eye aman EF.... BEE.... EYE... Asiant!)
Hell, I didn’t walk out of Howard the Duck. I mean it’s so gratifying to know that I know basically dick about how to make a movie and if you gave me 1/4 of the money used to make something like Howard the Duck I could make a better movie. All the mistakes are there to be seen. The poor plot, lack of sympathy or believability. You can learn a lot from lousy movies. Like how not to do it.
And it makes you appreciate the difference between a movie you simply don’t have a taste for and one that is actually worthy of criticism. Additionally - any powerful criticism has to be rooted in the fact that you “got” the movie. I completely understand what the Matrix was about f’rinstnce, I got all the references and I’m well aware of Cyberpunk and all the mythos and philosophy. But the Matrix died for me as soon as the laws of thermodynamics were completely rescinded in the “real” world. I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief after that. It’s just too stupid an idea sitting in the middle of what’s otherwise pretty damn good. I do still like the movie and appreciate it on it’s merits, solid action, etc.. The rest of the trilogy not so much. But they’re not bad work really. But if you don’t get something, you can’t really say it’s good or bad.
One can argue the execution of the idea wasn’t done well enough for you to get it, but hey, I got Pulp Fiction and so did a lot of other people, so...
And clearly the timing and type of storytelling in Pulp Fiction was by design and not a mistake. It’s like arguing you didn’t like La dolce vita because there’s too much miscommunication. Well, yeah. That’s the point. Not liking the point is different from criticising it as invalid or poorly done.
But for the most part we’re not talking existentialist and avant-garde and well-made films, but the pop stuff, so plenty of poorly done schlock Howard the Duck stuff there.
I mean, if you didn’t see La dolce vita, you might not appreciate Lost in Translation as much. But that’s a different thing than saying you walked out because it sucked.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:34 PM on July 6, 2007

Things Swordfish had going for it:

The first 10 minutes.
The Tuscan TVR
Halle Berry topless
The song "High Voltage" by The Frank Popp Ensemble
posted by quin at 12:45 PM on July 6, 2007

Go, and Team America.

Should have stopped the disk of East of Eden (semi-softcore but also containing Dan Ackroyd and Rosie O'Donnell. Instead, I counted off every inadvisable moment. Was up to over 100 when done.

As for why people hate the Matrix movies, well, there are plenty of reasons, explicated by people better at it than I. But I hated how smarmy and pseudo-intelligent they were. It's a lot harder to do good symbolism, and the Matrix movies were just too full of themselves.

And, I refuse to believe that Keanu Reeves is any kind of messiah figure.
posted by JHarris at 12:50 PM on July 6, 2007

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

I saw that movie in theaters at least six times. It was in the local cheap-ass theater, and I could always round up $2. Only to see the "You're the Monopoly guy!" scene.

Were it as widespread then, P2P filesharing could have saved me, like, $12.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:07 PM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've seen Legend Of The Overfiend the way it was meant to be: at a loud punk/industrial bar in Chicago, with the jukebox blaring and the TV sound turned down. At least I could turn my eyes away when another tentacle scene started up.

Movies I should have walked out on:

The Cell. Truly, this movie is shite on all levels. When Vince Vaughn went into the alternate reality, my companions and I were loudly joking about how the SFX guy could stop beating off with his SGI at any time. When the film mercifully ended, we spent the next half-hour tearing it apart, much like an MST3K session that suddenly turned vicious.

Very Bad Things. I should have walked out on this one, but I have to admit I was glad to stick it out for the satisfying ending (and no, not when Christian Slater gets pummeled to death). This film is better known amongst my friends as Very Bad Movie.

Lost In Space. This film is useful as a time dilation experiment. If you're brave enough to watch it a second time, the film actually feels longer than it truly is. Perhaps future scientists can use this dilation effect to power rocket engines and approach lightspeed.
posted by stannate at 1:07 PM on July 6, 2007

Then you have clearly never seen Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. The music of Wyld Stallyns brought peace and harmony to the world. Hell, that's more than Jesus or Mohammad ever did.
posted by quin at 1:07 PM on July 6, 2007

Smedleyman, thank you for articulating the difference between not liking something and a BAD movie. I guess that's what I was trying to get at.

I assume you hated star wars cause those X-wings violate every law of space battles....wait...its SCI-FI! Fiction! it's always full of fake crap! What movie isnt?!

The Matrix, full of holes, unrealistic action, bad acting still rocked when Trinity turned that bike around and drove against traffic. At least *I* loved it.
posted by Dantien at 1:07 PM on July 6, 2007

That, of course, in reference to Keanu Reeves as a messiah figure
posted by quin at 1:08 PM on July 6, 2007

Never walked out. Didn't even bail on "Five Fingers of Death" when the reels were shown in the wrong order. It resulted in high comedy as the entire audience (probably 20 people) began to comment aloud on the awfulness of the movie and the theater.

Not only do I not walk out, but in my much younger days I would tell my parents to pick me up an hour later than the movie ended and I would watch the beginning of the movie again. Last time I remember doing that was for "The Poseidon Adventure." (the original)

I almost followed my buddy out of "Coal Miner's Daughter." When Sissy Spacek proclaimed "I'm gonna have me a baby," he stood up and stage-whispered "That's IT!" and stormed out. I stuck it out.
posted by Bitstop at 1:14 PM on July 6, 2007

We saw The Paper instead and it remains, to this day, one of my favorites.

Paging gompa! gompa to thread 62687!

Howdy, Card Cheat.

Clay201, I don't know where to begin . . .

Okay here:

Lots of things can annoy me enough to kill the film, but most of them fall under the category of exposing the seams.

I have to assume that the scene where Marisa Tomei is in the stirrups in the delivery room doing the hammiest-of-all-time birth scene and then we hear the baby's cry and then Ron "Can you drive? Not well" Howard, auteur that he is, cuts to a stack of Michael Keaton's hacktastic tabloid newspapers hitting the sidewalk - that this, somehow, did not "expose" any "seams."

And then I have to somehow reconcile that with a take on Children of Men in which such longstanding cliches as a London street filled with immigrant cages and exotic zoo animal pets strikes someone as so egregious they've gotta run for the exits.

Is it those . . . or maybe the . . . or . . .

*head assplodes*

*considers fact that at least two people in this world are willing to brag about walking out of Fear and Loathing*

*little disintegrated bits of head assplode like a clusterbomb*
posted by gompa at 1:18 PM on July 6, 2007

Also: I've never walked out of a movie, but I really wanted to walk out of Backdraft, and I have old high school friends who still mockingly call me "the critic" for the extended rant I delivered in the parking lot afterward.
posted by gompa at 1:26 PM on July 6, 2007

Your least favorite movie doesn't suck!
posted by mazola at 1:26 PM on July 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

Never walked out of a movie even though Species 2 was a close call. And I didn't even pay money to see it. Then again, the only move I have never finished watching was Sgt. Kabuki Man that I felt was racist and unfunny and I had to stop after 20 minutes. Reading the article makes me think I'm exceptionally unfussy when it comes to films, or I have a high pain threshold. (Sat through Pearl Harbor in dumbstruck amazement of how utterly without merit the entire film was.)

Best walk-out I witnessed was with my girlfriend when we went to see Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE. Two couples gave up after 30 and 45 minutes respectively. One couple sat there for 2 hours before making the move and leaving the cinema. I can just imagine the confusion getting worse and worse, with the glimmering hope of 'maybe the next 5 minutes will explain things' fading with every passing scene for 2 hours and then BAM! nine prostitutes start dancing to the 'Locomotion' and any chance of a rational explanation runs out the fucking door.

Fwiw, we both loved every second of it.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:30 PM on July 6, 2007

I'm with all of you who find it hard to walk out on/stop a movie. But I turned off Tideland the other night after 30 long minutes.
posted by footballrabi at 1:32 PM on July 6, 2007

First Matrix movie: fighting one agent one-on-one is almost fatally dangerous, even for Neo.

Matrix sequels: anyone can beat up the agents, and Neo can fight a bazillion copy-and-pasted AfterEffects agents without mussing his hair.

It's a fucking ORGANIZED CRIME movie you daffy bastards there are GUNS n' harsh language n' shit.

I can understand not wanting to watch violent movies, but I can't understand watching movies whose subject matter guarantees they'll be violent and then complaining about it.

I didn't know anything about Pulp Fiction when I first saw it, and I loved it when the Dick Dale music and credits started.

MetaFilter: nine prostitutes start dancing to the 'Locomotion' and any chance of a rational explanation runs out the fucking door.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:32 PM on July 6, 2007

Some people should walk out of movies.

I mind me seeing Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (which wasn't great, but didn't make me want to flee, but I wasn't 100% there for), and a child starts crying.

And keeps crying.

And keeps crying.

I don't know if the ending would have made more sense had I not, you know, been unable to hear it due to a small child screaming throughout. But God help me, I wish that woman had walked out of the movie, with her child.
posted by mephron at 1:37 PM on July 6, 2007

Going to see Backdraft was my first date.
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:39 PM on July 6, 2007

People with no filmmaking talent critiquing scene length? $20

I may not know art, but I know my ass. And when the ass talks, the feet walk.

Also, outside of escaping a hostage situation or bad marriage, walking out of a bad movie is one of the most sublimely refreshing, life-renewing experiences available to humans. Everyone should try it at least once. Seriously, the second you step outside of the theater, the sun will shine brighter, the air will smell cleaner, and the world will become a magical place for you, bursting at the seams with life and possibility!
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:47 PM on July 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

> walking out of a bad movie is one of the most sublimely refreshing, life-renewing experiences available to humans.

"There were times when I intensely wanted to walk out of the theater and into the fresh air and look at the sky and buy an apple and sigh for our civilization, but I stuck it out."
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:51 PM on July 6, 2007

Should have stopped the disk of East of Eden (semi-softcore but also containing Dan Ackroyd and Rosie O'Donnell.

Exit to Eden is a terrible movie but since it has Dana Delaney in dominatrix gear I can forgive the rest.
posted by MikeMc at 2:02 PM on July 6, 2007

Bird on a Wire

An awful, soulless, rote exercise. Just thinking about it makes me angry. I wanted to leave, but my ride was guffawing himself purple...
posted by oncogenesis at 2:10 PM on July 6, 2007

Freddy Got Fingered.

That's the only one.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 2:12 PM on July 6, 2007

“I assume you hated star wars cause those X-wings violate every law of space battles....wait...its SCI-FI! Fiction! it's always full of fake crap!”

No, it had (mostly) internal consistiency. The Matrix lost that. It’s not merely bad science, they tried to explain away a commonplace physical law - indeed, overexplained it.
I’d’ve been fine with: “The machines are keeping humans alive” for any number of reasons including “we don’t know.”
I’d have gone with ‘creativity’ perhaps or it’s easier on storage or to make use of any number of traits humans have - whatever. Or even no explaination at all - this is what the machines are. Ok.
Using body heat from humans as power because solar doesn’t work? No, doesn’t do it for me.
And I’m fine with the physical laws being radically different in the Matrix itself, that’s the point.
Good sci-fi is good because it’s plausible and internally consistient. Typically any decisions to violate physical principles are explained, and indeed, in early sci-fi that tends to be the fetish: We’re gonna violate this well known physical law - and here’s how and why.
And there is nearly always a dramatic reason to violate physical properties and it’s explained in a manner consistient with the theme.
Where it isn’t, that bit of the story typically plays a minor role.
As a f’rinstnce - Star Wars - I’m fine with the space battles. They’re analogues to WWII fightercraft and capital ship warfare, that’s the deal there and nothing happens to contradict it so no problem. The ships fly a certain way. They make a certain sound. Tie-fighters don’t suddenly sound like X-wings or can suddenly teleport or something.
I’m fine with the lasers. I’m even ok with the term “turbo-lasers” as the term “turbo” was a relative term back in the 70’s bandied about to make things sound tech-ey. It’s not an error per se, but just a way of expressing something technical that you couldn’t otherwise describe. That’s fine. Bit dated now, but fine.

I think the later decision to put robots loading shell casings into the “lasers” in the prequals was a poor one in those terms.
I get the decision was made for the feel of the thing, but it’s not a choice necessary to express anything. They’re guns, they shoot, I get it. I don’t need any more. Lucas gives me more and I start wondering why there’s not an automatic system. Or, more importantly, why he hasn’t shown the same kind of blend of old-world servility and advanced tech. Why aren’t we seeing robots using antiquated machinery elsewhere?
Obviously then the choice wasn’t integral to a theme Lucas was trying to express or he expressed the theme poorly enough that it looks like the scene with robots loading shells he pulled out of his ass. He shouldn’t have expected one short scene to carry a theme for the entire environment.

Same thing with the humans in the Matrix. The machines need them alive. Fine. Let’s move on.
In fact the ambiguity like not knowing the real world date and such was cooler. And I’m fine with the cloud cover being a side effect of the war or whatever. Didn’t bother me at all.
But oh, no wait - we have to explain exactly how this system works and set it up so it completely violates BASIC physics such that a layman like me sees it as a glaring problem.
The main reason it’s a problem is that it’s unnecessary to the overall story. It’s a minor detail, easily changed to reflect whatever other form of parasitism or symbiosis one wishes to express in terms of the machine/human conflict, without any impact on the story.
It’s like introducing a time machine and having this flange dohickey that for no reason at all generates more energy than it takes in. Why not just stick to the time machine? You tell me it’s a time machine - ok. For purposes of this story time machines work. That’s all you need.
Otherwise you need to develop the impact of the flange on the environment.
Ok, the humans are used for their heat energy -where does the biomass they’re fed on come from if the sun is gone? If it’s not dependent on the sun the caloric yield must be tremendously small so - how does that affect the space the machines can use?
Is the rest of the world just food for this one small group of humans?
If so the sense of global claustrophobia should have been emphasized and the machines themselves should have expressed how they’re (physically) paralyzed as well as supported by the humans because they’re so limited by their environment.
Something like that.
But it sticks you in-between. Either show me, or don’t. Inference needs to be supported by the theme, not vice versa.
(Disclaimer: IDNAFS)
posted by Smedleyman at 2:32 PM on July 6, 2007

I Do Not Arm Fighting Squirrels?
posted by quin at 2:48 PM on July 6, 2007

Many years ago I walked out on a Godard movie because I found it misogynist, and sat alternately sulking and being kind of proud of myself in the theatre lobby for the next hour, waiting for my boyfriend and film-school buddies to leave when the film ended. I haven't walked out on anything in the theatre since, but I choose what I see pretty carefully. On the other hand, I have drifted away from the television screen and off to do something more interesting more times than I can count.

But not even the tedium of a trans-Atlantic flight could make me stand more than thirty seconds of Moulin Rouge.
posted by jokeefe at 2:50 PM on July 6, 2007

(Disclaimer: IDNAFS)

I Do Not Arm Fighting Squirrels?

I Do Not Allow Fisting Sex?

I Dig Nationalist Albanian Flute Songs?
posted by MikeMc at 2:56 PM on July 6, 2007

I Do Not Answer For Shit?
posted by mazola at 3:03 PM on July 6, 2007

You people are babies. Big babies. I didn't even bail on What The Bleep Do We Know? when I saw it in the theater. After about 15 minutes I spent the rest of the film furiously concentrating on the upper left 1/16th of the screen, trying just to see abstract patterns. But did I bail? Psh.

This is the One Thing I got from that movie: a story of exquisite aesthetic PAIN.
posted by furiousthought at 3:08 PM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Duh: I Did Not Attend Film School
posted by FelliniBlank at 3:11 PM on July 6, 2007

'Duh' nothing, this is Smedleyman we are talking about. Without a disclaimer to the contrary, it's perfectly reasonable to believe that he might be providing ordnance to sects of militant rodents.
posted by quin at 3:23 PM on July 6, 2007

So far, I think the only movie I've walked out of was the Gus Van Sant remake of Psycho. But I've changed the channel on more movies on TV than I can count.

Thanks to sites like this one, I can now handily find out which movies are likely to suck and why.
posted by pax digita at 3:59 PM on July 6, 2007

'Duh' nothing, this is Smedleyman we are talking about. Without a disclaimer to the contrary, it's perfectly reasonable to believe that he might be providing ordnance to sects of militant rodents.

You make a point: I Did Not Adjust For Smedleyman
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:46 PM on July 6, 2007 [4 favorites]

Someone at the Music Box in Chicago fucked up changing the reels during a midnight showing of 2001 twice. I love that movie but once you lose the momentum, you just can't get it back.

My roommates, my girlfriend and I turned off Napolean Dynamite about three-fourths of the way through, fairly confused at why everyone we knew was quoting it. Actually I think that was the problem. We knew every single line of the movie, out of context and out of order. There was just nothing surprising.
posted by elr at 5:05 PM on July 6, 2007

Marisa Tomei is in the stirrups in the delivery room doing the hammiest-of-all-time birth scene and then we hear the baby's cry ... cuts to a stack of Michael Keaton's hacktastic tabloid newspapers hitting the sidewalk - that this, somehow, did not "expose" any "seams."

I don't remember the specific transition (though I certainly remember Tomei in the delivery room). I'll have to go back and re-watch it. But no, nothing about that whole finale quite got into the territory I was talking about. If I had to pick one scene in the movie where the director's ego almost came busting through the screen, it'd be the Stop-The-Presses-Fistfight, but there was enough humor and intelligence there to keep it from getting out of hand.

a take on Children of Men in which such longstanding cliches as a London street filled with immigrant cages and exotic zoo animal pets strikes someone as so egregious they've gotta run for the exits.

I confess, I didn't see that part. I kept fast-forwarding, trying to find something to make it worth my while. But even if I'd seen these things, they probably wouldn't have been a deciding factor. If I feel the story is lame, the dialogue weak, and the characters flat, there's usually nothing that will convince me to stick around. I may give Children another try at some point in the future, but it'll probably be a while.
posted by Clay201 at 5:07 PM on July 6, 2007

I've never walked out of a movie, unless you count Firestarter, which freaked me out enough that I had to go hang out in the lobby and play video games while my parents watched the rest. I was pretty young.

I'm with Adipocere -- I heckle. One of my best movie memories was about half an hour into Dungeons and Dragons, when the entire audience gave up and turned it into a massive MST3k-fest.

Actually, now I think about it, my friends and I nearly walked out of that vampire move Leslie Nielsen did... but it was a free showing, and we didn't much have anywhere else to go.
posted by rifflesby at 6:33 PM on July 6, 2007

Haven't walked out -- but I never finished "Robocop 2" -- about 15 minutes in, the movie suddenly stops, the lights go up, and a cop marches to the front of the room and says "You all have to leave. Now."

I wasn't sure why -- it was the middle of a weekday, nothing untoward was going on, and in the lobby the management passed out vouchers for a free movie, so it couldn't have been a bomb threat.

But I still owe that cop. Gracias, d00d.

When I saw "Pulp Fiction" I sat near a "talker" -- one of those shout-to-the-screen people, who aren't being clever or trying to entertain the assemblage, but who somehow haven't grasped the notion that THE FUCKING ACTORS CAN'T HEAR YOU, LADY!!!

Ahem. Anyhoo.

This shouter was confused by the non-linear aspect of the plot, and when we saw a major character die, and then reappear a few reels later, she exclaimed "DON'T GO IN THE BATHROOM!!! REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME??" (and she was not joking).
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 7:23 PM on July 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

You people are babies. Big babies. I didn't even bail on What The Bleep Do We Know?

Wow. I was thinking the MeFi populace was turning out to be a bunch of wimps, unable to sit through the merely average, but THAT is fucking hardcore. I salute you!
posted by Artw at 7:36 PM on July 6, 2007

kittens for breakfast writes "Hate Salo"

Never seen it. But this is interesting:

"When I saw the images of torture at Abu Ghraib," he said, "I understood that Pasolini had foreseen everything."

I have never been a big fan of the Italian nihilistic gore flicks or shock cinema in general, although they do have their place, but I may have to see this.

I don't recall walking out of any film I saw in a theater. I wanted to walk on Stargate, but I was with a date and we were sorta still getting to know each other. Seemed like bad form, though I found out right after that she hated it, too. I still don't understand how anyone imagined that a spin-off tv series would be a good thing, or how it spawned yet another. It was no good to begin with, but I suppose it was popular. The comment shown on IMDB is incomprehensible to me: "Stargate is a terrific movie that has produced 2 hit TV shows, conventions and fans from all over the world. This movie started it all." Yeah, well, I'll come clean and admit I love the original Star Trek, but lord, it was overdone, budget sci-fi. And that's a beautiful thing, but overdone, big budget sucky sci-fi is just pathetic.
posted by krinklyfig at 8:19 PM on July 6, 2007

elr writes "My roommates, my girlfriend and I turned off Napolean Dynamite about three-fourths of the way through, fairly confused at why everyone we knew was quoting it. Actually I think that was the problem. We knew every single line of the movie, out of context and out of order. There was just nothing surprising."

Same thing happened to me. I watched it alone on DVD. Didn't laugh too much, but I loved Uncle Rico, and the fact that he turned out to be much less sleazy than expected. The next time I watched it I was with some friends, and we laughed at it the same way we used to laugh at stupid (though hilarious) crap in high school. It was much funnier, mostly because I wasn't worried anymore about knowing the jokes ahead of time and was more relaxed about it. And Pedro rocks. It's not really a great film, but it's pretty good, along the lines of the early Kevin Smith stuff. It's a bit too self-referential and enchanted with mediocrity and kitch, but that's my generation for ya ...
posted by krinklyfig at 8:41 PM on July 6, 2007

Okay, okay, I spoke from the gut -- while my hatred of Hard Candy stands (but would require a lengthy post to expound upon fully, and since no one asked...let's not?), my hatred of Salo, I must note, stems completely from the fact that it made me physically ill. This is very strange for me, as I watch horror movies all the fucking time. But we all have our limits, and mine is apparently a banquet hall full of people eating steaming mounds of shit. Seriously, that is where I draw the fuckin' line. I think Pasolini was really trying to make a serious film about...something, hell if I know what, fascism or whatever, but no. HELL no. I don't think it's a bad film -- it's undeniably a powerful film -- but it is a film my copy of which* I cheerfully threw away rather than attempted to save when, appropriately, my cat puked on it.

(*My COPIED copy of which, I hasten to add -- had it the disc been an original, I would have quite happily sold it to some cineaste with a stronger gut. Salo, after a Criterion release in the early part of this decade, has been out of print in America for years, and the Criterion original is now worth insane amounts of cash...you can probably find a bootleg on eBay or something, though.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:57 PM on July 6, 2007

A friend of mine, after successfully inebriating ourselves with various substances, thought it would be a really good idea to go to a midnight show of The Flinstones--the live-action version with John Goodman. We worked at the same chain of theaters and got in for free.

After about 10 minutes, our buzz faded almost entirely and the reality set in that we were watching the fucking Flinstones movie! Our MST-3K style jokes entertained us for another 5 minutes or so, at which point we turned to each other and said "Let's get the hell out of here/What the hell are we doing watching the fucking Flinstones?" or something to that effect. So we lasted about 15 minutes.
posted by zardoz at 9:06 PM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

kittens for breakfast writes "my hatred of Salo, I must note, stems completely from the fact that it made me physically ill"

Yeah, well, I want to see it because of his ability to provoke this sort of reaction - he was referring to how sexuality is commodified and dehumanized, and how it intertwines in the most horrible way with fascism, at least according to what I've read about it and what Pasolini said about it. But I never really liked Pink Flamingoes, even though I saw it because it's one of those films you have to see if you're interested in the medium at all, sorta like Salo, I gather. But I'm not really looking forward to it ...
posted by krinklyfig at 9:19 PM on July 6, 2007

krinklyfig writes "But I never really liked Pink Flamingoes"

That was a Dan-Quayle-esque spelling error. Whoops ...
posted by krinklyfig at 9:23 PM on July 6, 2007

While we are on the subject of movies that have been poorly received, I would like the world at large, or at least those Mefites still reading this thread to explain the hatred that was generated over the movie Kuffs (1992, Christian Slater...)

I'm watching it on cable right now, and I remember this thing getting shit hammered by the critics. I never understood that. It's pretty clever, it has a good cast, and it's a generic plot for an action vehicle.

The only thing I can think is that people hated the removal of the 4th wall, (Slater talks to the camera throughout the movie) and the silly sound-effects that pop up from time to time.

Honestly, I don't get the animosity.

But then, I didn't get the hate for Hudson Hawk either, and someone in this very thread already referenced that (wonderful) flick.
posted by quin at 9:41 PM on July 6, 2007

No, I get it. I hate Salo the way you'd hate someone who took a dump in your cream of wheat, not the way I hate...well...The Matrix Reloaded. Unlike that film, I think Salo is very successful in what's trying to do, and its audacity alone is worthy of praise. (Not so worthy of praise: The use of very young actors -- legal, I'm sure, but inexperienced, and maybe too trusting and hungry for screen success to know better -- makes me uncomfortable, and not in a good way, or even a way that has anything to do with the movie; I felt as though I were watching Pasolini exploit the fuck out of these people. This is an issue when it comes to any film where the actors are put through grueling paces -- Friedkin and The Exorcist come to mind -- but this is like fifty Linda Blairs, none really called upon to do much of anything other than be abused, often sexually, and...yeah. Squick.) I saw it for pretty much the same reasons you want to, and I guess I don't regret having seen it, but it's not something I'd ever be in a big rush to see again.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:49 PM on July 6, 2007

The Blair Witch... walked out and got my money back

Moulin Rouge... shit sandwich. Walked out.

That Michael Bay piece of shit Armageddon. O-U-T. Out.

Come to think of it I've walked out on about a dozen movies. Life is too short to waste it on shit.
posted by tkchrist at 10:10 PM on July 6, 2007

/FelliniBlank gets it. (although mazola was close)
(also: I don't no anything for shit)
In destiny, not after fire, silence.
(Disclaimer:DILLIGAFF)
posted by Smedleyman at 10:14 PM on July 6, 2007

DILLIGAFF

Do I Like Leopards? I Give A Flying Fuck!

Glad you are on-board cat-wise. You know, what with you rodent opinions and all.
posted by quin at 10:28 PM on July 6, 2007

I actually had to walk out of Blair Witch. My buddy and I
were sitting in the front row and I got motion sick. I caught a lot of flak for that. Been on boats together, flying, whatnot. I have otherwise an iron stomach, I could eat lasagne with Béchamel on a roller coaster on a ship in a squall (given, of course, logistical aids) and not get sick.
Dunno what it was about that movie though.
I still can't watch it. And (from what I can otherwise gleen) I keep thinking they ripped off the Baba Yaga story a bit.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:33 PM on July 6, 2007

tkchrist writes "Come to think of it I've walked out on about a dozen movies. Life is too short to waste it on shit."

Why did you bother with them in the first place? Michael Bay?

Except I liked Blair Witch. First movie to scare the shit out of me in a long, long time. Bought me back to childhood and being that terrified of a movie again. About half the people I knew who saw it hated it. The other half loved it/were terrified by it. It either works or it doesn't; there's not much middle ground. But, man, when it works it really works.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:50 PM on July 6, 2007

I actually had to walk out of Blair Witch. My buddy and I
were sitting in the front row and I got motion sick

I completely forgot about that. I saw that film in a college theater, and was totally ready to buy into the hype of it being the scariest movie ever made, until I realized that was nothing more than a marginally clever low budget flick that was making me a bit ill with the camera movements.

I didn't walk out, but I never watched it again.
posted by quin at 10:55 PM on July 6, 2007

Well this was fun.

Next up: Funerals you've walked out of.
posted by mazola at 1:02 AM on July 7, 2007

What?! You guys hate Blues Brothers 2000?! But remember this:

Walk away [from the movie] now and you walk away from your crafts, your skills, your vocations; leaving the next generation with nothing but recycled, digitally-sampled techno-grooves, quasi-synth rhythms, pseudo-songs of violence-laden gangsta-rap, acid pop, and simpering, saccharine, soulless slush. Depart now and you forever separate yourselves from the vital American legacies of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Jimmy Reed, Memphis Slim, Blind Boy Fuller, Louie Jordon, Little Walter, Big Walter, Sonnyboy Williamson I and II, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Elvis Presley, Lieber and Stoller, and Robert K. Weiss.

Turn your backs now and you snuff out the fragile candles of Blues, R&B and Soul, and when those flames flicker and expire, the light of the world is extinguished because the music which has moved mankind through seven decades leading to the millennium will whither and die on the vine of abandonment and neglect.

That is all.
posted by the cydonian at 1:56 AM on July 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Dantien, that rave / sex scene is the only redeeming feature of Matrix: Recycled (or whatever it was called). Just when the denizens of Zion started dancing, my sister and I turned to each other and simultaneously said "Ewoks!"

That bit, and watching 100's of Hugo Weavings getting the shit kicked out of them. That never gets old. But apart from that the movie is just loud, annoying, and pointless. People who think it's deep must get absolutely terrified when confronted with a saucer of water...

I've never actually walked out of a movie, but I came close with that one. I came even closer with Soapdish, but I'm glad I didn't - because I wouldn't have come back for the second half of the double-bill, which was Thelma & Louise.

Mind you, I pirated a copy of Chain Reaction and actually bought a copy of Bulletproof Monk (admittedly from the bargain bin, thought they did forget to unlock the security device and I spent more time trying to get the case open than I did watching it). And I was surprised to find I didn't mind Richard Gere's Shall We Dance? - despite being an almost scene-for-scene copy, it actually stands up quite well against the Japanese original (which is a personal favourite).

mazola: I walked out of a workmate's funeral once, because the minister giving the service obviously knew nothing about him and hadn't listened to the life-story his family had related. But I went to the burial and wake where everybody ragged on the minister for the next hour until we all got drunk and fell over.
posted by Pinback at 5:40 AM on July 7, 2007

I never walk out, Never! I actually sat through a free showing of Legend with Tom fuckin Cruise as a fairy and I did not walk out. I once sat through a showing where the movie theater mixed up the reels of Fantastic Planet, a surreal animated feature from Cechoslovakia, -- I was confused as heck but I did not walk out

However, DVDs at home are a whole 'nother story: my husband and I routinely give up on movies. Babel, for example, got about 20 minutes of our attention before getting rejected.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:37 AM on July 7, 2007

DON'T GO IN THE BATHROOM!!!
That's actually excellent advice for people in Quentin Tarantino movies. In Pulp Fiction, John Travolta's being in the bathroom is crucial to two major scenes, he's in the bathroom when he talks himself out of sleeping with Uma Thurman before she ODs, and the kid that ambushes Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson is hiding in the bathroom. In True Romance,Christian Slater talks to a vision of Elvis in the bathroom. And so on.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:45 AM on July 7, 2007

FWIW Salo has actually just been re-released by Criterion, and I understand the print looks much better. And, if it makes you feel any better, I believe they're actually eating chocolate.
posted by stinkycheese at 9:57 AM on July 7, 2007

I just remembered that I have, indeed, walked out of several movies because of my daughter. The first couple of years she was taken to see movies, she would say "I need to go home now," and that was it. I remember we walked out of Lion King, Pocahantas and Anastasia-- the last one we left 5 minutes from the end.

Without Gwen, however, I still stand by my original statement. I was raised on crap movies and during the summers as a child was sent off to sit through such double features as Ring of Bright Water + Krakatoa, East of Java which gave me the moral fortitude as an adult to sit through movies like the spectacularly tedious Russian Ark.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:58 AM on July 7, 2007

Many of you make me cry.
posted by Dantien at 1:47 PM on July 7, 2007

*Puts chopping block and onions away*

Sorry about that Dantien.
posted by quin at 2:06 PM on July 7, 2007

I just recently saw Looking for Mr Goodbar for the first time and was blown away by it. Can't imagine walking out. I can think of only one time I left the theater during a movie: Terms of Endearment.
posted by olecranon at 2:30 PM on July 7, 2007

I was 17 and the girl I was with at the time was more interested in the movie than in making out. I remember looking back up at the screen and there were jump ropes flying across the gym and slapping some guy on his naked butt. So I got up, said goodbye to my now ex-date, and walked out on Nightmare On Elm Street Part Two. Never saw her again. Anyone who found that movie entertaining was not worth another second of my life.

I walked across the hallway, and while avoiding the watchful eyes of the doorman, I ended up in The Rocky Horror Picture Show that night and had a great time.

...why am I getting this strange feeling of de ja vu?
posted by ZachsMind at 2:48 PM on July 7, 2007

I've walked out of two movies: Gremlins (I was 6 or so) and some horror movie remake which came out in 1991, I don't remember the name. In both cases, they were too scary, so it wasn't really a criticism of the film.

When I saw The Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover, the theatre staff announced ahead of time that they'd give refunds for the first half hour and mentioned that more people walked out of it than any other movie they'd ever shown. It was almost like they'd challenged us: I had to stay! And actually I really enjoyed it, though I've never felt moved to watch it again.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:24 PM on July 7, 2007

ZachsMind: you made the right choice. That girl missed a chance.

I got my first kiss -> makeout sesh -> true love thanks to The Postman.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:39 PM on July 7, 2007

That reminds me of Sex, Lies, and Videotape. I had been cautioned by someone who knew my taste in films that this one was like a whoopie cushion that someone plopped down on a random chair having neglected to first fill it with air. She almost dared me to not watch it all, and if memory serves I didn't find it all that terrible - although I would be hard pressed to watch it again. The plot seemed made with rice pilaf and no spice or meat. Two hours after sushi and I'm usually hungry again.
posted by ZachsMind at 3:18 AM on July 8, 2007

from link: "'Empire Records': Sometimes, good songs can sell a rotten film. Case in point: The Gin Blossoms' 'Til I Hear It From You' was featured in 'Empire Records.' I heard the song on the radio and figured, 'Wow, gotta catch the flick...'"

Gah, what an utter fool. I've walked out on that derivative, piece-of-shit song more than all of the movies I've walked out on.
posted by koeselitz at 4:46 AM on July 8, 2007

potsmokinghippieoverlord: "When I saw "Pulp Fiction" I sat near a "talker" -- one of those shout-to-the-screen people, who aren't being clever or trying to entertain the assemblage, but who somehow haven't grasped the notion that THE FUCKING ACTORS CAN'T HEAR YOU, LADY!!!"

When I saw the less-than-awesome Steven Soderberg re-imagining of Solaris a few years back, the one starring George Clooney, we were sitting right in front of an elderly couple. The woman wouldn't shut up with stupid questions-- "wait, are they back on earth now? It seems like this is just a dream. Is this a dream? Where did that woman come from? I thought she was dead already! What's going on?" ... which you'll realize, if you've seen the movie, is utterly obnoxious.

Her husband, however, had only one comment the entire movie. At one of the climactic moments, when George Clooney realizes that his wife keeps coming back in copy because the planet is replicating his thoughts, and he's about to jettison one of the copies, she stands there pleading for her life; for some odd reason, the elderly woman behind us was silent during this scene. George Clooney's copy-wife is begging him not to kill her; she pleads, not knowing of course that she's a copy; he shuts the space-door-thingy with a "sshhht!" and all is dead silent.

At just that moment, the old guy behind us muttered:

"Bitch."

It was sincerely all I could do not to die laughing.
posted by koeselitz at 4:56 AM on July 8, 2007 [2 favorites]

Personally, I've never walked out of a movie in the theater. I've stopped many a DVD, though.

I don't walk out, I heckle.

It's much more fun to heckle a film that is going badly

I will almost always stick it out to the very end of a film, even if just to heckle.

WHY? Why impose your standards on the rest of the audience? Does it ever occur to you that there are other PAYING CUSTOMERS who might want to watch the movie without your inane blather? Just leave if you find it so intolerable to be there.

But gosh, the layers of subtext [in The Matrix Trilogy], the immense history of philosophy, the genuine postmodern uniqueness (if you can call it that), all of this was commendable.

If by "immense history of philosophy" you mean "having read the first chapter- and no further- in a few philosophy texts", by "genuine postmodern uniqueness" you mean "inability to craft an internally-consistent storyline", and by "commendable" you mean "a $300 million con job", then yes, I agree with you.

It’s like introducing a time machine and having this flange dohickey that for no reason at all generates more energy than it takes in. Why not just stick to the time machine? You tell me it’s a time machine - ok. For purposes of this story time machines work. That’s all you need.

Is this referring to the flux capacitor in Back to the Future? Because that was a brilliant example of what you're talking about. How does the time machine work? Flux capacitor! What's a flux capacitor? Who the fuck cares? 1.21 Gigawatts!
posted by mkultra at 10:25 AM on July 9, 2007

“Is this referring to the flux capacitor in Back to the Future?”

I wasn’t referring to that, but yeah. Although it did come into play in the later films. I think it’s just a bad habit. And people keep perpetuating it because they seem to expect it from sci-fi.
Star Trek is exactly a double edged sword on this. They confront something with this meaningless tech jargon speak (the inverse tachion beam say) but then explain it away with the same technical speak (reverse the polarity), so it evens out. Except for taking time out of the story.
Which, as I understand it, is often the point in television.
Every once in a while they do the: “Can you fix it?” “I’ll try” *short pause while working on something* “Nope. We’ll have to... (do something circuitous rather than just teleport out)” short cutting sort of thing which moves the story along.
But yeah, 1.21 Gigawatts - who cares? You need a shitload of power - got it. Specificity in science fiction can enhance the story, but often it’s unneeded. Just put there to be more sci-fi.

I’m reminded of Boogie Nights where the director says he wants to make a porno film so absorbing that after people jerk off they’re so hooked into the film they keep sitting there.
That scene illustrates exactly why those people aren’t artists, because they mistake the fetishization of a niche experiance and gratification of that need for art. Porno isn’t storytelling.
Even if you made a tremendously good film - say the Godfather - if it had full sex scenes in it that were designed for people to jerk off to - it’d be a failure as a film.

Some sci-fi does that. You have this technofetishism going on that favors intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) gratification over storytelling.
Which, I think, is some of the criticism of the Matrix. It’s debatable how brilliant the ideas are. But even given that they are - they still get in the way of the story rather than being the story.
I remember a story about Clint Eastwood, where they were shooting a film and one of the scenes had a car breaking down and smoking because of the radiator and they wanted this tremendous amount of smoke to come from the car. After 3 or 4 takes they couldn’t get it to smoke right and they were spending time trying to figure out how to make it just so and looking at bringing in some other FX or whatnot and Eastwood said “the hell with it, the film isn’t about a smoking car.”
posted by Smedleyman at 2:38 PM on July 9, 2007

Never walked out on a movie, but my favorite walkout moment was while watching Natural Born Killers, some guy stood up and started yelling "You're all fucking sick!" and so on until they threw him out. Several other people had walked out (which I've seen in other, similarly violent/over-the-top movies), but that was the first and last time I've seen that reaction.
posted by wildcrdj at 6:40 PM on August 1, 2007