walking out on a movie... (1 Viewer)

[Michael Hall]

I don't think I've ever walked out of a movie, but I have definitely struggled through quite a few. One was "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain", which was the most god-awful piece of shite I think I've ever seen in film history. I stayed during that one as I was told to kill two hours until my father came to pick me up (this was when I was young and drivers licenseless).

The other was "Boxing Helena", which I saw around the time that "Twin Peaks" was on TV. I thought, "hey, Sherilyn Fenn is in it, and DL's daughter directed it, how bad can it be?" Needless to say, two hours or so later and I had a rather definitive answer to that very question.

I have walked out on DVDs many times. My line has always been "And on that note, I take my exit." The ones I can remember doing this for off the top of my head were "Wing Commander" (10 minutes into it) and "Little Nicky" (5 minutes into it).

And on a completely unrelated tangent, the one film it took the most for me to struggle through was "Requiem for a Dream." Beautiful film, well-acted, directed, and written, but damn it was an emotional heartbreaker.

 

[Charles J P]

"The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain" is one of my favorite films. I cant even explain why. I just like it.

 

[ChuckSolo]

I posted in the wrong forum...sorry.

 

[ChuckSolo]

I loved 2001. I guess I am a bit old fashioned. If you have watched the excellent play, "The Phantom of the Opera", the score is totally written in songs that are appropriate to the time frame that Lloyd Webber set it to. "2001: A Space Odyssey" uses classical music, not as the center of the film (it's not a musical)but as a quite appropriate background score. A musical, should have "original" music or "period" music appropriate for the era. Look at the music that was written for the 2 remakes of "A Star is Born." The music for the first remake was typical of the 1950's and mostly original. The music for the second remake was typical of the music of the '80s. That is what I am trying to say. If you are gonna make a musical, be fresh. The music used in "Moulin Rouge" didn't make the movie unique or even avante garde. It just made it weird, IMHO.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

What did you think of That Thing You Do, which presented the title song as being a hit 30 years before it was written. Spinal Tap has the same concerns.

 

[ChuckSolo]

I actually thought that "That Thing You Do" was a good movie, not great, but good. The title song was so typical of the "Mersey Beat" style music of that period, that it definately worked. I have only seen "Spinal Tap" once, and since I am not a real fan of comedies, I can't even remember a single song from that film.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I don't care much for Moulin Rouge!, but I'm surprised at what people don't know about this film.

There's a suspension of disbelief required here, but the basis for why you hear "modern" songs in MR is because you're supposed to accept the fantasy that those songs were written during those times. It makes the magic of Ewan's character all the more profound as he sings "Your Song" when he serenades Satine.

Like I said, I don't care for MR, but you have to understand purpose. That doesn't mean you have to accept it though.

 

[Robert Wurth]

I've seen a number of movies at home that, had I been in a theater, I likely would have walked out on.

The closest I've come is the film Dungeons and Dragons. I went to see that with a couple of friends and they were the reason I stayed. I didn't want to make them feel awkward when I got up and left.

Funny thing is, when the film was over, they were also thinking of walking and stuck around for the same reason as I did.

Oh well. You can't win 'em all.

-- Robert

 

[TommyT]

Well, it ain't that hard after you've seen enough movies to have a generalized opinion about how films have evolved thru the history of filmmaking. Sincerely tho, it doesn't take much to form an opinion about a film even 15-20 mins in. That's the way I felt about Open Range. I could tell that the pace was never going to pick up & that the story wasn't going to get any more interesting. Plus, with the oversaturation of bad films that are PRE-DESTINED to fail (stuff by Adam Sandler's repertoire, SNL sketch films, J Lo & Ben projects, etc) it's not hard to pass judgement on films that are so obviously & deliberately formulaic.

 

[Brent Bridgeman]

I love music though. You can look at my collection and see that I have very eclectic taste.

Sorry, Peter, I got to ABBA and had to stop.

 

[TheLongshot]

the inclusion of modern music in a period piece like "Moulin Rouge" just made the film laughable. They could have written new songs in the style of the era for the film, like they do for most legitimate theater plays, and made it more believable.

For goodness sakes, it is a MUSICAL! There isn't that much believable about most musicals, why should this be any different?

Also, if I remember correctly, Baz used modern songs to go back to the days of early musicals, where they used "Standards" rather than write new songs. Course, now are association with those songs are with those musicals, but probably wasn't true in the day. Personally, I think it was a smart move on Baz's part, since most film musicals that used original music in recent years have been disasterous.

As for what I think of the film, good, but not all that. The performances, for the most part, were pretty good, the song choices were a mixed bag (Jim Broadbent singing "Like A Virgin" still makes me cringe.), and I wasn't a big fan of the frenzied editing. It was a daring film that mostly works, but not completely.

Jason

 

[ChuckSolo]

For goodness sakes, it is a MUSICAL! There isn't that much believable about most musicals, why should this be any different?

Well, the point is........that since it is a musical, they should have used original music in it or music more appropriate to the period. It made me think that the producers were too lazy or cheap to come up with appropriate music. Incidently, I watched the whole thing, begrudgingly of course, while my wife had this really, really, ****eatin' grin on her face the whole time. The disaster for me in this movie was some of the songs they used I really like! Taken in that context though, like the use of "Your Song" for instance made my stomach churn.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

But it isn't supposed to be an accurate portayal of the period, so why should it use music appropriate to the period?

 

[TheLongshot]

Well, the point is........that since it is a musical, they should have used original music in it or music more appropriate to the period.

You must have missed what I said earlier. A lot of early musicals didn't have original music. They used music popular at the time. It is only later that they actually wrote songs specifically for the musicals.

As for "more appropriate", would you say that "Oliver!" had music appropriate for the period? Gee, that won an Oscar as well...

Jason