Quote:
Originally Posted by Easy 6
Thin Red Line was such a total mess, philosophical meanderings about nothing... the perfect Sean Penn vehicle
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Thin Red Line was terrible, absolutely terrible. And I think it was made worse because it came out at about the same time as some really good war movie, maybe Private Ryan? Or Forrest Gump, to the extent that it had war scenes? Regardless, my wife and I had recently enjoyed some war movie and went to Thin Red Line with high expectations, and it was a slog to sit through it.
Even so, I was never tempted to walk out. In contrast to the one I walked out of, at least something was happening on the screen. People were walking and talking and stuff.
At home, I tend to be pretty impatient these days with on-demand movies. If they don't keep me engaged, I'll give up on them pretty quickly. I also get distracted easily at home, which makes the movie's job harder. So that's a different animal.
At the theater, I've never given up until this week. But I can think of a few movies where I was impatiently waiting for it to end so I could go do something interesting. Off the top of my head, I can think of ...
- Some Almodovar movie that I don't recall the title of - He was supposedly a big deal so we went to one of his movies. First off, it was in Spanish with subtitles, which doesn't help. But that wasn't the main problem. I don't know if Spanish people are just dumb, but it was a really stupid plot with overacting that seemed more appropriate for a children's TV show than an adult movie. It was kind of embarrassing at parts when the actors were mugging for the camera.
- Kill Bill - I didn't care for any of the characters. It was boring and bloody and the plot was nearly non-existent. I like almost all of Tarantino's stuff, but this one was a major swing and miss.
- War of the Roses - If I wanted two nonstop hours of people arguing, I'd visit my parents. Plus, it was an early date with my future wife, and the subject matter wasn't conducive to dating.
- The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover - I saw this decades ago and remember nothing about it other than being bored out of my skull.
- One of the later Star Wars movies. The first three movies were legendary. I think (not sure) that I watched the fourth and was unimpressed, and then the fifth one was excruciating to the point that I never watched another one. It could have been the fourth movie, but I think it was the fifth. I just remember a scene with Natalie Portman (or was it Keira Knightley?) and some dude talking about politics that seemed to last hours.
- Pretty much any Woody Allen movie made after about 1985. That guy jumped the shark bad.
I'm sure there are others, but these pop out in my mind as near-walkouts.
Every one of them was 500 times better than what I saw last week, though.