I’ll see just about any movie, as long as it is completely free of Tom Cruise. He gives me the flaming Heebee Geebees!..Timmy
Very little stops me from seeing a movie except for Scientologists.
Although actually it’s not that things stop me from going to movies but things make me go to the movies and very, very few things do.
Oh, c’mon, Battlefield Earth ruled!
I’m the same way…I almost never go to the theaters, but I watch on cable like they’re going out of style.
I’ll watch anything (3 or 4 viewings per movie) except Westerns and Musicals.
Genre, for one. I don’t like horror and I can’t freakin stand gross-out humor.
Any sequel number higher than 3/III in the title, and even then I’m not quite so forgiving.
I’ve learned that I detest John Woo’s “style”. Perhaps he was innovative, I don’t know, I’ve only seen his Hollywood films. Broken Arrow was the first of his I saw and it was fun, utterly stupid and ridiculous, but fun. Face/Off might have been bearable if it was cut by about an hour. Mission Impossible was the most boring film I’ve ever seen, and it was supposed to be an action film. <yawn> Perhaps his early Hong Kong was stuff was good, but I’m not sure I can take all the slo-mo, both guns a-blazin’, flying thru the air “action”, so I’ll probably never find out.
when a movie is marketed by using another movie “this years big fat greek pulp fiction!”
French titles (I was wrong about moulin rouge btw)
any hint of pretentiousness
any hint of formula (exception: disney/pixar animations)
the term “romantic comedy”
use of the letter “X” in the title. (eg. “LXG” since when does extraordinary start with X?) exception -Xmen. It just seems like the letter X has become synonymous with exciting movies lately. Like in the marketing meetings they’re really racking their brains to work it in somewhere.
Maybe if they’d called it “Gili X” or something…
Talking Babies.
Talking cockroaches.
lack of interest. movies are boring. Last movie I saw in a theater? Titanic. ’ Nuff Said.
Any kind of kooky lady, “free spirit” schlock. You know the type- “He was working in the fast lane. But then she came along and taught him how to live.” Blah blah blah Sweet Novembercakes. (Kind of like Dharma and Greg, in movie form. Over, and over, and over. Though the whole Family Guy parody- “Dharma, get off that table!” “Why don’t you come up?”- almost makes up for it).
John Woo’s Hong Kong films are so much better than his Hollywood ones you wonder if the same person makes them. I’d at least recommend tracking down The Killer in the “Foreign” section of the video store, and perhaps Hard Boiled.
And re: Gigli–Roger Ebert was hardly the only critic to announce that Jennifer Lopez plays a lesbian.
If I see the preview for a movie too many times, that usually keeps me from seeing the movie. I must have seen the preview for ‘Phenomenon’ 10 times the year it came out. I was sick of the movie, and I never saw it.
Some comedian or someone made a joke about this once, but it’s funny because it’s true. Any movie with the song “I Feel Good” by James Brown is almost guaranteed to stink.
A significant number of negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes will cause me to rethink my decision to watch a movie. I don’t mean 34 good / 42 bad or anything like that. More 5 good / 84 bad. The reverse also holds true for a movie I wasn’t originally interested in.
I try not to let an actor’s political or religious beliefs affect my movie choices, but they do occasionally turn me off of them to the point I don’t even want to look at them in a movie.
I don’t like gross-out comedy, films that try to be pretentious or soft porn romance.
My wife, mostly. I wanted to go see “28 days,” but she loathes horror movies and wouldn’t let me…
Barry
Romantic comedies. Why do my fellow women like these?
Movies with kids. I like kids a lot in real life, but kids in movies invariably bug the shit out of me.
And I’m with well he’s back, movies with rape scenes are pretty much out.
On the other hand, things that attract me to movies:
- swords
- Johnny Depp
Very few movies would not be improved by the presence of at least one of these things.
My IQ and self-respect. 
It’s not so much the movies themselves as the theaters that keep me home. I’ve been spoiled by stadium seating at out of town venues. Except for our newest theater, our local ones are dives. And though the new one has the stadium seating, it’s done at a small scale.
Though it may have better seating, it lacks in other amenities. I mean, come on, what kind of place that deals in the masses has only one, unisex bathroom in the lobby that can only handle one person at a time? And they have an espresso bar? Didn’t they realize that coffee is a diuretic?
I also don’t like the movie going public anymore, people talking, etc. I usually go to matinees, where not only are the crowds smaller, but admission is usually cheaper.
Having said all that, the last and only movie I have seen locally all year was at our oldest, still open theater, which I worked at as an usher and projectionist 20 years ago. I still have nightmares about that place. It’s the divest of dives but I’m a fan of Rowan Akinson, so I saw Johnny English there.
Otherwise, I wait until I get out of town to see movies. I watch mainly comedies anymore. I don’t want to see graphic violence, war, lawyers or cops, I want to laugh. On cable, I will watch more dramatic fare but I seek entertainment on the rare occasion I go to the theater.
Slasher films just don’t make it.
I figure the ads will show you the biggest gags in a comedy, so if the ad’s jokes are tired, the rest of the movie will be worse than that.
I also don’t care for romantic comedies and the words “Feel good movie of the year” signify a heaping load of glurge to me.
Movies which involve 2 hours of feelings, relationships, and meaningful dialogue (are these what they call “Chick Flicks?”) aren’t worth the bother either–why pay $10 for that when I could stay home and watch Oprah for free?
If the movie has anything to do with Woody Allen.