I hardly ever bail on movies, but I did on Moulin Rouge a few years ago - a frantic, noisy mess of a movie that wasn’t even funny when it tried to be, IMHO.
Yes, got the title wrong, as well as the streaming service, which is Peacock, not Netflix.
Patton Oswalt is the dad in the title. The son is the writer/director/co-star who asserts this is a “true” story.
Oswalt is blocked online from his estranged son. He fakes being a young woman to befriend his son online. Things get really, really weird.
At times in the beginning it’s funny. Such as some scenes with Rachel Dratch as Oswalt’s weird girlfriend. (I know casting against type.) But there is a dark side. Getting progressively darker and weirder. And it ends up in a suitable mess.
Since their online interactions are done via text messaging, those get shown on the screen. But these are shown in closeup so easily seen. A rarity. Furthermore, there’s a neat method they use to cut down on so much scree-text that works well.
Amy Landecker is the ex/mom. Claudia Sulewski plays the real life version of the fake online woman. Does a top notch job.
Did I mention that there’s some really weird stuff in this?
Give it 4 catfish.
With you on that. After they started singing the same line from Elton John’s Your Song for the 27th time I’d had enough. I mean, I love Elton, but that was just too much.
I wonder about people who pay to see a movie in a theater and then say they walked out. We’ve never done that in a theater, though we’ve seen some movies that deserved it. We paid for it, so we’ll stay until the bitter end.
Back when we were getting tapes or discs from Blockbuster, we were careful in making our choices, but I do recall we bailed out of an “art” movie called “Prospero’s Books.” Siskel and Ebert raved out it, but we found it unwatchable.
Streaming, however, has been a game changer. We will usually give a movie about 30 minutes and if it hasn’t grabbed us by then, off it goes. Streaming has made walking out a whole lot easier.
Walked out of Knocked Up. Rude, unfunny people, just wasn’t worth my time or effort to sit there and watch some baby being born. When he started yelling at her gynecologist/obstetrician on the phone because she was in the unique, never-before-seen position of being hours away from childbirth, I was like ‘why am I watching these children?’, and left.
I’ve never done it, but I was under the impression that many theaters would (at least at some time in the past) refund your money if you walked out before a certain time had elapsed.
I don’t know if there is a strict length of time, but I do think most theaters refund you. I haven’t walked out on a movie theater film in my life, though. My friends and I saw Wild, Wild, West with Will Smith back in the theater and it was so bad, we kind of talked in the theater about leaving, but we just stayed and groaned to the end.
What an oddly bad movie.
I worked for a theater chain back in the ‘80s, so I saw a lot of free movies. Even without paying, I always stayed to the end - with one exception. The Keep (1983).
I remember virtually nothing except that after nearly an hour, I still had no idea what this movie was about, and was way too bored to care.
Oh, that was intense.
On edit: Decades ago we walked out on Rollerball – supremely boring, but it was a double feature (which were rare even then), and the other movie is the one we came to see. So it wasn’t a big deal.
Huh. I liked that movie. Nazis getting killed by a supernatural force and soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.
I was going to watch Cleopatra today, until I noticed that it was FOUR AND A HALF FREAKIN’ HOURS!!
I decided to take a hard pass on that.
Given there are so many sources available that will tell you everything about a movie you would want to know before you plunk down your money (like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, just for starters), I can’t see how anyone could go see a movie and then be so offended or bored that they would walk out and expect their money back. It’s not the theater’s fault that you didn’t research what you were going to see. Why should you get a refund?
However, if you have expressed your displeasure within a reasonable amount of time after the start of the movie, not halfway through, a free pass to a future movie might be a reasonable policy, just for Public Relations purposes.
Yeah, I have walked out on a few movies in my time (most recently Thor: Love and Thunder, not that I really hated it or anything, and in fact will probably pick it up again when it comes to streaming, but just couldn’t stay interested enough at that moment to make continuing to sit in the theater worthwhile). But I have never asked for a refund on my ticket.
I might ask for a refund if the projector went kaput halfway through or some other technical issue, just as I might ask for a dish in a restaurant to be replaced or comped if it was seriously screwed up and inedible. But at a restaurant or at the movies, you’re not entitled to your money back just because you got what you ordered and it turns out you don’t actually like it as much as you thought you would.
A textbook example of the “sunk cost fallacy”.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy describes our tendency to follow through on an endeavor if we have already invested time, effort, or money into it, whether or not the current costs outweigh the benefits.
Weird trivia:
Edgar Rice Burroughs DID write a Tarzan novel in which he fights in WWII, only he fights the Japanese – Tarzan and the Foreign Legion
Tarzan did fight German soldiers – in WWI – in Tarzan the Untamed
I’m not a big Foo Fighters fan but Studio 666 wasn’t bad at all. It was funnier and (a lot) gorier than I expected. There’s some nice hard rock riffing by the band in the studio and a pretty hilarious cameo by Lionel Richie.
I was so excited to see that (Studio 666), but now that Taylor Hawkins is actually dead, my excitement has waned.
Re: Going to see a movie without knowing much about it ahead of time.
I believe this happens quite a lot. Example, many times I’ve been behind a group of teens who stand around talking in line and wait until they get to the ticket counter before even thinking about what movie to see. Then they waste people’s time while they discuss the options. I don’t see how this also doesn’t apply to others of all ages and numbers, just with less obvious time wasting.
Circling back to the original topic, Movies You’ve Seen Recently…
We watched the Indian epic “RRR” (or “Rise, Roar, Revolt”) on Netflix. This film has been a world-wide sensation. It’s a “Tollywood” movie, not “Bollywood.” There are differences, mostly involving the dialects used, but the style is much the same. There’s drama, action, adventure, romance, a little comedy here are there, and some very elaborate and enjoyable musical numbers with singing and dancing. The acting is first-rate, with two outstanding lead performances.
If you can accept all that in one 3-hour movie, don’t mind reading subtitles, and can suspend all belief during some eye-popping action sequences, you will find “RRR” a most enjoyable and thrilling ride. And you’ll really come to hate the British (apologies to Dopers in the UK.)
We watched it in two parts because of the length. There are several places at the halfway mark to make an easy intermission, if you so desire.)
“RRR.” An epic in every sense. We dug it.