I was watching the movie Barton Fink and I kept thinking, why is this so good, this is the most BORING movie I’ve ever seen. Then about half way through, the lady is killed and BOOM the whole movie takes off and it is VERY GOOD, from that point on and I do indeed like and recommend the movie.
But it does have a VERY slow start.
So what movies have you seen that you would recommend that are boring to start off with but are worth it 'cause the endings (or ending part) are just that good.
Napoleon Dynamite.
I’m laffing a little because when I watched Barton Fink, I thought, “Wow, this is good,” until the lady got killed and the camera went down the drain. I’ve always felt the movie went right down the drain then too.
Man on Fire.
It starts off really slow and I didn’t like it, but I was stuck doing CQ so I sat and watched it. It’s now one of my favorite movies.
When was it supposed to have gotten great?
The Prestige is long but well worth it for the end.
City of God also asks for a lot of patience, but rewards at the end.
I don’t know that I could pinpoint an exact moment or even a scene. All I know is that the first time I watched it, for the first half hour I was thinking “What the hell is this?” and by the end I was practically cheering.
Ang Lee’s The Hulk.
If you try to watch it from the beginning you’ll fall asleep in 30 minutes.
Skip the first 30 minutes and it’s quite entertaining (not great, but entertaining).
I watched The Prestige a couple days ago. It was good (better than the similar but more predictable The Illusionist.)
But I’ve got a question (I don’t know how to do a spoiler box, so I’ll just put it in white):
How and when did the Christian Bale character get cloned?
He wasn’t cloned. They were identical twin brothers–but they kept that hidden from everyone else. One or the other of them was always in disguise, so that no one knew there were two of them.
I absolutely hated it the first time I saw it. Now, I will watch it whenever it’s on and it’s one of my favorite movies. I have never had this experience before. Ever.
Thank you (and you too Mr. Tangent), but heck, that lowers my enjoyment of the film.
[spoiler] I can sort of accept Tesla producing a machine for duplicating living beings (and other things) and then deciding to not publicize his invention, but I can’t buy two women being unable to distinguish between “identical twins” that they’re sleeping with. One of the women is so perceptive, she can tell when her husband is saying "I love you in insincere fashion.
And a little boy can tell two birdies apart at 20 feet, in the smashed bird trick, but a daughter doesn’t know her own father from his brother?
And a finger amputation with a chisel produces an identical wound to a surgical amputation following a gunshot wound? Or the wife never gets to see the fingers?
Meh. Mutter.
[/spoiler]
But that’s it - that was her way to tell them apart, whenever she was kissing the right guy, it was her husband - and when she sensed that he was lying, it was her brother. She only didn’t realize it was two people.
I loved that movie. Totally unexpected. And Bowie as Tesla was great!
Touch of Evil and Chinatown are classics in this category.
Every Tarkovsky movie I’ve seen seems to be this way. You spend almost the entire time wondering what the heck is going on, nothing seems to be happening, and it’s all a little bit boring but then - smack, right near or at the end, the entire thing suddenly makes sense.
In some cases it’s almost ‘after’ the movie proper : Andrei Rublev - not until the final sequence showing the icons, The Sacrifice - not until the last scene is over and a few words come on the screen.
Stalag 17
The first time I saw it, I thought A Christmas Story started slow (I also disliked Jean Shepard intensely at the time). I decided it did pick up a bit after the tongue stuck on the flagpole scene, though.
When I went to see it again, I discovered that scene was in the first ten minutes of the film.
My version of this is Tommy Boy. I saw it in college and just couldn’t see why my friends laughed so much, now I’ll watch it every time it’s on TV (which is often).