This thread will contain spoilers about books, movies, etc. The next post will be about The King of Comedy, fyi.
OK, now that the first post issue has been dealt with, I was watching The King of Comedy last night (thanks, TMC and Tivo!), starring Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis. The first half of this movie was quite blah… De Niro was giving a very rote one-note performance, Sandra Bernhard was driving me crazy with her overwrought loopiness (looks like she got her tips in “acting crazy” by catching Pacino in Scarface. But I digress), and the whole movie was a big ol’ pile of “meh”.
(Basic setup: Lewis is a Johnny Carson-type character, a stand-up comedian who has a late night talk show. De Niro and Bernhard (Bernhardt?) are typical Crazy Fans™ who stalk Lewis).
So I watch up to the point where De Niro goes to visit Jerry Lewis in Lewis’ mansion, gets kicked out, and I’m thinking… It’s not really worth watching another hour of this ‘cause I’ve seen it before – a De Niro slide into madness where he ends up taking a shot at Jerry Lewis at the end of the film. Been there, done that in Taxi Driver..
I’m literally seconds away from wiping it from my Tivo, my hand reaching for the control.
… then, it happened.
The next scene (that I remember) has De Niro and Bernhard in a car, Bobby holding a gun, and they’re following Lewis. Huh. Looks like they’re going to shoot him earlier than I thought…. But they don’t. They kidnap him. Wasn’t expecting that! Then there was about a ½ hour of complete funny bizarro-world where RDN and SB hold Lewis hostage, not caring that they will be caught (I would’ve bet that Lewis dies in the end), with RDN leading Lewis through a “ransom” call (complete with messed-up cue cards) where RDN forces the producers of Lewis’ show to allow him on to give a five-minute stand-up routine.
Which airs.
Lewis escapes (you get to see Bernhard in her undies), RDN is arrested, then made famous beyond his dreams as he appears on the covers of all the magazines (Time, People, the usual suspects).
So, just when I was about to turn it off, the movie actually became good.
What films, books, etc has this happened to you, where you were just about to drop it, mid-story, but then something happened that compelled you to continue?
Not what you are looking for perhaps…
I came into my living room where **Last of the Mohicans **was on. I had no desire to watch it and fully intended to turn off the TV and leave the house. The scene I came in on was set outdoors in a beautiful environment which caught my attention. I wound up sitting down and watching the rest of the movie and now it is one of my all time favorites.
The Good Son
I was totally bored by it until the scene with Mr. Highway - from then on I was totally gripped.
Macaulay Culkin’s evil child character makes an effigy of a man using clothes, sutuffing, etc. Then he takes it to a highway overpass and throws it onto the highway below, creating a scene of madness and frenzy culminating in a multi-car pileup. All the while MC cackles with malicious glee. :eek:
I was watching the original broadcast of the SNL episode in which Sinead O’Conner tore up the picture of the pope. I was a marginal Sinead fan at the time (I did like some of her songs, but still thought she was a self-absorbed, no-nothing bitch) and watched it.
She did an a capella version of Bob Marley’s song “War.” It was a completely boring, uninteresting, self-important preachy bit and I quickly lost interest. I wasn’t about to change the channel, but I wasn’t paying attention, and I looked away for most of it. I remember looking up just as she displayed the photo, and I was thinking "Why is she holding a picture of th—"riiiiiip! Hey, it certainly made it more interesting.
Funny, but I remember one other bit from that show - host Tim Robbins doing a skit where he was “the Nicest Pimp In the World.”
This happened with me, years ago when The Matrix was first on TV. I was in another room and heard loud noise, lots of sci-fi blather, shootin’ n’ 'splosions - finally got up, went in to turn the TV off, said to myself ‘whoa- is that Keanu Reeves?’ - sat down to watch the last half hour or so and to this day it is one of my very favorite movies that I should have listed in ‘movies you watch over and over’ thread.
I also LOVE Last of the Mohicans and King of Comedy, both of which I had watched bits and pieces of and ended up getting hooked.