Hear hear! That’s how I sat through Finding Forrester, Antitrust, and AI.
The only thing that stopped me walking out of Antitrust was that I was watching in on a 747 to Houston.
And even then, it was a close call. How dull can a film get?
That has got to be the single most walked-out-on movie that has ever heard of. I didn’t see it myself, but it got to the point that the local theater had a huge sign at the ticket booth that read NO REFUNDS ON “WING COMMANDER”.
That’s the kind of advertising that you just can’t buy.
Oh, and I almost forgot to actually respond to the topic at hand!
I typically never walk out of a movie in a theater, because I always cling to this desperate hope that it will eventually get better. Of course, it rarely does.
However, I do dinstinctly remember walking out of “Dumb and Dumber”. I know that most people seem to think that this movie was the apex of comedy, but I could literally feel my brain rotting inside my head while watching it.
The only times I’ve left the theater have been due to technical problems; pretty much anything will keep me in the seat, even when the most interesting part of the experience is the popcorn.
I walked out of Happy, Texas because the sound cut out; when I waited for several minutes and it wasn’t fixed I figured the theater was run by retarded chimpanzees and bailed.
(Hoyt’s Potomac Yards, for those of you in the DC area. Haven’t been back since.)
And Man in the Iron Mask I walked out of, because the film broke three times. This was a couple months before the Loew’s Tysons Corner 8 closed, and I guess the staff had gotten their notices already and were just going through the motions.
I saw Run, Lola Run because I was intrigued by the Groundhog Day-like premise (my favorite film, BTW), but I seriously considered leaving - that hideous, screeching punk soundtrack was DRIVING ME UP THE @#^ WALL!! (It was a German film; I thought they’d have good music.)
Saw Repo Man on video, and could not follow the plot because the “music” sounded like a bunch of cats being tortured.
Repulsion starring Catherine Deneuve. Her character is going insane, and at one point she presses the wall with her hand and it squashes like dough or putty. The movie had gotten more and more freaky, and that was the last straw.
The Hidden Fortress by Kurosawa. George Lucas got the idea for R2D2 and C3PO from two comical farmers in this movie. Bored.
King Lear starring Paul Scofield. It was shown in a large college classroom. For some reason, the organizers didn’t collect admission on the way in, and they said they would at the end of the film. About 15 minutes into the film, I got bored and skipped.
Fantasia sometime in the 80s. It was at a multiplex, and rock music from a movie showing in an adjoining room was audible. It just destroyed the experience for me. I got a refund and left.
I hardly ever make it out to the movies, so I rarely walk out on anything. I do frequently walk out of the room while my family is watching videos, though. Dr. T and the Women leaps to mind.
I did take extended cigarette breaks during Pet Semetary and Planet of the Apes.
Never walked out of one, but I had to shut the following down after watching them for maybe 10 minutes on video:
Cabin Boy
Judge Dredd
Space Mutiny
Starship
Unwatchable, all of them.
Somehow, I made it through The Thin Red Line, but I nearly nodded off several times. I fastforwarded quite a bit of Quills because it was becoming physically unpleasant for me to watch all the physical unpleasantries on the screen. And I barely stayed awake–though I really tried-- during Rushmore or Traffic.
I tried to walk out of “My Father, the Hero”, but my sisters physically restrained me.
When the movie broke halfway through, I thought I was saved. No such luck. They took 20 minutes to fix it…and my sisters made me stay for the rest.
The only movie I ever walked out on was Highlander: Endgame. I love Highlander (both the movies and the TV), but the ending of Endgame forced me to leave. I even tried (and failed) to get my money back.
Nightmare on Elm Street (I’m a big chicken, it was a double date and I got talked into it, but it was to scary. I played video games in the lobby while the others watched the movie.)
Mousetrap (A children’s movie I’d taken my son to see that had too much gratitious violence and stupidity.)
Sleepless in Seattle (We knew it was a romantic comedy and desperately needed to find something funny. The opening scene was at a gravesite which was precisely the reason we were out to see a movie to try to find a few moments escape from death. Much later we rented the movie and now own it. It’s a cute movie, we (I) was just so shocked at the opening scene and it’s parallel to our lives that I fled the theater and did not give the rest the family the option of staying.)
Man, I was all excited to talk about the MST3K they did on this film, until I looked it up and found out that this wasn’t the one with Alan Hale Jr. called Giant Spider Invasion. But it had William Shatner in it, how bad could it be? snicker…snort. BWHA HA HAHAHA!
I’ve never really walked out of a movie before. I figure if I’ve already paid for it and I can’t actually go anywhere else, I might as well just sit there and watch. At the very least, I can pick bellybutton lint and start smelling it as a way to pass the time.
But if I had the ability to go elsewhere during the hour and a half of Charlie’s Angels, I probably would have. I seriously think that movie sucked brain cells out of my head through invisible rays while I sat there stunned and drooling at the stupidity up on the screen.
I think it’s funny that some of my absolute favorite movies are the same ones that people have walked out on (like Natural Born Killers). Anyway, my wife made us leave Meet The Parents, so I never have seen the end of that one. I should have walked out on Eyes Wide Shut - I don’t think I need to say any more about that one… and another that no one mentioned - Gattaca… yikes.
I walked out of Showgirls, twice.
My Crap-O-Meter went into the red fairly early into the film. Either that, or that film is ridiculously long. Anyway, I walked out, had two Dremo Tibetan Bigfoots over at the Bardo Rodeo, and finally wandered back into the theater to see if I had lost my friends.
They were still there. I sat down again and said, “Bardo’s got Dremo back on tap.” Within a minute, we were out of there again. That film annoyed me so much I used it as an excuse to drink all the over-hopped beer I could get my hands on, and eventually passed out with my pants around my ankles on the toilet back at home. F%$# that movie.
(I am going to hijack this thread for an important annoucement.)
I did not make Davideo leave; he left on his own. I hated the movie and told him I would wait outside for him. After 10 minutes or so Davideo came out. Again, I told him I didn’t mind waiting and that he should see the end of the movie. He said no - he’d wait until the video came out and see it then.
So I didn’t make him leave - he left on his own.
Sheesh!
(The emergency hijack is over - we will return you to the thread. Thank you.)
I almost never walk out of a theatre, but video is a whole other animal.
Videos I have ejected, forcefully-
Meet The Parents
Celebrity
Small Time Crooks
Don’t get me wrong- I do “get” Woody Allen, and I love his older stuff. But lately he has become tired and strident and awful.
I thought American Beauty was great, but couldn’t explain it to anyone. I even bought Event Horizon, I loved the spooky shit and the actors were great- Lawrence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan.
I’ve never walked out of a movie…have you seen how much they cost nowadays? I guess I’m too embarassed to ask for a refund.
I must say though…Beverely Hills Ninja sorely tempted me.
My worst video experience was with a movie called ‘Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills.’ This had been recommended to us as a hilarious movie. And if you read the comments at IMDB, you can hear the same thing. For me and my girlfriend at the time, the result was a little different.
We found it excruciating. I found it crushingly unfunny. It was supposed to be some kind of black comedy sex romp or whatever but found it reletnlessly dull and inane. And it just goes on and on and on and on. I closed the imdb window so I don’t know how long the thing is, but it felt like about thirty years. She eventually fell asleep leaving me to endure the rest of it solo, WHICH I DID and I don’t know why.
Your mileage may vary - as I said, some friends of mine, after hearing me rant on it, said “What are you talking about? That movie was non-stop hilarity!” I felt otherwise. And yet I didn’t turn the damn thing off, even when I should have.
Two other nods go to “Reality Bites” and “The Hudsucker Proxy.” My wife rented these and the first one I didn’t get further than ten minutes into. The dialogue sounded like it was all cribbed off of t-shirts or wanted to be placed on t-shirts. The chracters were incredibly vacuous and self-absorbed and were supposed to be sympathetic. I went and played Diablo instead.
As for The Hudsucker Proxy, I love the Coen brothers and I think this is probably a good, funny movie that I’d like to see some day. But Jennifer Jason Leigh’s affected accent throughout the entire thign eventually became too much for me to bear, and I ejected myself back into the computer room, leaving my wife to fly solo on that one.
Leaving Las Vegas - Prozac should have come with the ticket.
The Matrix - sorry butt anything with Keanu’s probably going to suck.
Dogma - woof.
Broken Arrow - woof woof.
Interview with the Vampire - sucked more than blood.
The Waterboy - too autobiographical.
The Mummy or whatever Brendan Frasier was in - please.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show - sorry, I tried twice!
Barton Fink, Shine, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Lord of the Flies, The Blair Witch Project.
All were just dreadful. I only stayed as long as I did at Barton Fink so I could boo the screen and annoy everyone.