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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

asleep at the reel

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12:19 / 29.01.02

I have never walked out of a film before the end. probably due to my legendary meanness.

have fallen asleep in the cinema many times, tho, even watching films I could have sworn I was enjoying.

have sat thro rubbish in the theatre too but there I sit, clapping at the end, rather than rise and run while the going was good, early on, trusting my instincts.

is this only meanness, or cowardice, or politeness, fear of embarrassment, a dull variant on masochism? or just because the big, safe, dark, warm and womblike environment is lulling me in its bosom?

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:19 / 29.01.02

First up - could we move this to the Films & TV section? I mean, given that it could beef up the place. Serious content and all.

I've done the same thing. At university, I didn't walk out of plays either because they were painfully bad but had friends in them or because the performance space was so small that my exit would've been very noticeable. Same thing in some movie houses, I guess; I don't like making a scene in front of strangers, and I'm always aware that there's a certain amount of "hey! that person's leaving! Fool!" that goes on if someone walks out halfway through something.

But by christ, I was tempted to do it during Bad Boy Bubby.

What do you think - is the fact that other people might have negative opinions a consideration for other people?

12:19 / 29.01.02

I've only left a movie once (Fear) but it was the late showing and everyone was very drunk, I have to see all a movie if I start watching it, which meant many sleepless nights when I was younger watching French movies on Channel 4 (can anyone tell me the name of the movie with the lady that gets paid to read to people, and the one on a farm with a cow, I dont think it was French)

I've only fallen asleep once and that was at North by Northwest a few months ago...

I don't like to leave, its seems rude somehow (what if the director is sitting at the back of the theatre..)

Plus i cant really embaressed shuffling past people, sorry..sorry...excuse me...sorry

12:19 / 29.01.02

i know someone who stood up and bellowed abuse when people sniggered/phwoared at a rape scene.

i've fallen asleep during dune, 1984 and blood simple, i think.

my sister was at the london film festival a few years back at the 'surprise' premiere, right in the middle of the row. inevitably, bullets over broadway came on, and she trampled people underfoot in her haste to leave.

i like to stick it out, though, if i can. even if i hate a film, i want to know exactly why and how much.

Y SO ALT?
(prev. Tamara Willett Hurt)

12:19 / 29.01.02

Bad Boy Bubby is a classic...

If I'd have been on my own when I saw Dancer In The Dark, I would have left pretty early on, I think. An almost unfeasibly bad film.

I fell asleep during a couple of films I went to see while at University, but that probably had a lot more to do with not getting enough sleep in the nights and days beforehand... The two were The Wings Of The Dove (which I preferred on a second viewing, on TV, but which was still something of a disappointment), and Live Flesh (just kinda... blah).

I've never walked out of the theatre, but only for the reasons Rothkoid mentions... The number of dreadful, dreadful plays I've seen because of the involvement of friends or, er, objects of affection... *shudder*

And I've only walked out of one gig, and that was Sigur Ros.

12:19 / 29.01.02

Rothkoid and I once walked out of a Jim White gig in Dingwalls after we realised that he sounded like Mark Knopfler. But I think it was free anyway - not sure whether I could walk out of something I'd paid to see.

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:19 / 29.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Flyboy:
Bad Boy Bubby is a classic...Possibly so - I should see it again. But at 4AM as the fourth film in a four-film marathon, it certainly ain't the best thing since sliced bread. I think I may've stayed til the end, but there was definitely snoozing, and contemplation of cinema decor. That cat...

quote:[QB}And I've only walked out of one gig, and that was Sigur Ros.[/QB]Hmm. I've walked out of a couple, when they were shit: Godspeed You Black Emperor and Mogwai both had me leaving early, last year, as did JIm White, as he was so fucking Dire-Straits-With-A-Cowboy-Hat live.

It's odd. I felt more inclined to walk out of a gig if it's shit as I think it's a bit of an affront to see a live performance that's poor. Film can be shithouse, but it's completed. It's done, finished. But a live gig involves some level of interaction on a personal level, maybe, and that's why I feel more cheated when they suck...

pinstripe fictionsuit

12:19 / 29.01.02

I think boredom tempted me to walk out of 'Primal Fear' (I think it was called 'Primal Fear', the Richard Gere thing about the kid with alleged MPD?), but saw it again on tv and it was not so excruciating. Years ago, when a friend of mine was over from the US, we wasted our last afternoon watching 'Things to do in Denver When You're Dead' at the cinema. Afterward, neither of us could work out why it actually hadn't even occurred to us to leave.

I mention this periodically, but when I went to see 'Crash' at the cinema, literally half the audience walked out when there was a little bit of m/m sex. I remind you, these were people who were there to see a film about people who get off on car crashes, falling by the wayside over two men kissing. I was gobsmacked.

I doze off constantly in films. At the cinema, I put my head down during 'Trainspotting', though didn't really sleep, and had to struggle valiantly to stay awake in 'The Man Who Wasn't There'. The list of videos/films on tv I have fallen asleep in is long and illustrious: 'Blade Runner', the first three times I tried to watch it. 'Apocalypse Now'. 'Shadow of the Vampire'. I too fell asleep during 'Blood Simple'. And there have no doubt been many, many more.

13:56 / 29.01.02

I never walk out of a film, no matter how shit it is. Bad movies build character.

14:15 / 29.01.02

I've never walked out of a film, because I'm too tight to do so once I've paid.

Having said that, I did leave Spiderman (the Nicholas Hammond one) early because some big lads were giving me and my mates the evils and we thought we were going to get beaten up.

I have fallen asleep exactly three times, I believe, at the cinema. Kindergarten Cop, Carry on Columbus, and What Lies Beneath.

14:25 / 29.01.02

I distinctly only remember falling asleep in a theater during one movie, My Own Private Idaho, you know, the one where River Phoenix is a narcoleptic? It was too suggestible for me.

The only movie that I deliberately stopped watching was Apocalypse Now, I just couldn't take it.

15:49 / 29.01.02

Walked out of Rattle and Hum when I was in high school, but that was mainly because my ride was walking out as well...

Didn't walk out of Batman and Robin for some reason - thought about doing so every second of the film. If I hadn't been watching Waking Life with a new girlfriend, that would have been a goner.

I gave Sigur Ros one more song to do something I liked, and it turned out to be their last of the night. Lucky for them and me.

18:30 / 29.01.02

I've never, ever walked out of a film screening or fallen asleep.

Just something i don't do - it's so judgemental. Just because a film's been shit thus far doesn't mean it isn't going to get better, or at least give you something to laugh at/bitch about.

It seems pretty melodramatic to actually storm out just cos you don't like it much..

I did pass out due to low blood sugar whilst watching The Searchers in film class. I woke up a few minutes before the end, but I really want to see it again under healthier circumstances..

20:54 / 29.01.02

mate, I am the king of falling asleep during screenings of films, at University. Naye, an absolute lord at it.

Either three seats to get a good horizontal position, or left hand on chin and face, with elbow on desk. They are the best two positions for a good old kip.

Fuck, I still mananged a 2.1, with a 14,000 word dissertation on Snuff, Video nasties and Postmodern Horror. So I didn't miss much.

Walked out of Empire Strikes Back (revamp) because a friends mother was terminally ill, worsening at that very moment and they needed me to take them to see her.

Other than that I attempt to avoid films at the cinema or rental that I can't stand.

12:44 / 30.01.02

I've only walked out on two movies -- MacBain (Christopher Walken piece o' crap) and Annaconda ...

Fell asleep during Final Fantasy ... and snored!

12:44 / 30.01.02

I rarely see things at the cinema that i think i will dislike, call me old fashioned.

I have never seen so many soporific films as i did during my uni yearswhen housemates would rent any old straight to video shite that crossed their paths...i fell asleep through many and was cajolled into reviewing others for the campus TV station... the horror the horror

12:44 / 30.01.02

I would have walked out on Batman and Robin, but my ride was enjoying it. Should've just gone and played video games in the lobby.

12:44 / 30.01.02

I rarely walk out on movies--mostly because I hardly go to the movies at all. As for movies I wish I walked out on, the 1st one that springs to mind is "Moulin Rouge" It was like chewing on tin foil, all the while thinking "don't worry, It'll be over soon".

I've done the same thing. At university, I didn't walk out of plays either because they were painfully bad but had friends in them or because the performance space was so small that my exit would've been very noticeable.

Yeah, I hear ya. The only time I walked out of a theater was during the intermission of a produciton of "Hurlyburly". Feh, bunch of whiny-ass, Jim Rhome wanna-be's....

12:44 / 30.01.02

I walked out on 'Stranger than Paradise' - is that what it's called, the Jim Jarmusch film? I had never gotten so angry at a film - it just seemed like one long super-pretentious advertisement for what a cool hipster Jarmusch was. I am sure this wasn't a remotely rational reaction, something about it and where i was at that day just didn't agree.

The strangest thing is it was a screening for a uni course called 'Alternative Film and Video' where I had sat through some of the most torturous films ever produced (i.e., Wavelength - a 45 minute film in which the camera moves very slowly from one end of an empty room to the other, and Laura Mulvey's 'Riddle of the Sphynx' (?), produced to demonstrate her contention that enjoying films is patriarchal). But only that one annoyed me enough to walk out - and later I couldn't explain at all why, and just insisted it was incredibly offensive when people asked why I'd left. 'Offensive how?' 'It's just, splutter, fucking I don't know, it was the most pretentious fucking splutter uh movie i ever fucking saw.'

pinstripe fictionsuit

12:44 / 30.01.02

Oh, so films we're made to watch at college count? Ethnographic film class was my nap time, almost everytime. Not necessarily because the films were boring, though they no doubt occasionally were...just because it was warm and dark and the late afternoon, and the films were invariably too loud and bright. Myself, I favour arms crossed on the desk and used as a headrest for school-time naps.

Oh, I did leave 'Contact' due to illness. And that thing with (shudder) whatshisface from 'Home Improvement' (not my choice, in case you wondered), because it was one of those film for a quid days, and I was off to the one *I* wanted to see.

Stoatie. Stoatie? STOATIE.

12:44 / 30.01.02

I've never (so far as I remember) walked out of a film... as sfd says, if it's shit, I wanna know exactly why so I can back up my argument if called upon to do so...
I HAVE (far too often) fallen asleep in movies... often ones I was enjoying but was too tired/stoned/pissed to cope with, but have usually gone back to watch them again later. Yeah, RoR is kind of right... a film is a film, and is a complete... thing. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end (though not necessarily recognisable as such, and not necessarily in that order). For the same reason, I hate watching films on TV if I've missed even the first couple of minutes. (I also like cinemas where you can still at least HEAR what's going on in the film if you have to go for a piss).

Y SO ALT?
(prev. Tamara Willett Hurt)

12:44 / 30.01.02

quote:Originally posted by Cholister:
I did leave... that thing with (shudder) whatshisface from 'Home Improvement' (not my choice, in case you wondered).

Surely you can't possibly mean Galaxy Quest? Reassure me you mean something like that awful one where Tim Allen turns into Santa or something...

pinstripe fictionsuit

12:44 / 30.01.02

Jungle2Jungle. That is what it was called.

I *didn't* enjoy 'Galaxy Quest' though...

12:44 / 30.01.02

Oh i went to see some situationist films with a few barbe folks some months back, which was kind f an endurance test, but againsituationist films tend to be jokes made at the expence of the audience - not something you watch if you are expecting a narrative element in your film

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:44 / 30.01.02

For whatever evils Jungle2Jungle visited upon you, remember this: it's never going to be as bad as Krippendorf's Tribe.

The one film that I wish I'd walked out on (but couldn't as it was an airline film) was The Thirteenth Floor. I kept falling asleep, and waking up and being mightily offended that it was still going. Bastard thing.

15:02 / 30.01.02

I've never actually walked out on a film at the theatre, on the theory that perhaps there's something in the last five minutes that somehow redeems the rest of the mess. Same reason I tend to keep plowing through a really terrible book.

I am finding that, the older I get, the more likely I am to turn off a video if it's shite, and I did almost walk out of A.I., so perhaps the day is coming when I will gleefully storm out of the theatre rather than waste my time with yet another piece of dreck.

19:45 / 30.01.02

Nope never walked out of a film but I don't have a serious film going habit and most stuff has been recommeded by mates or reviewers I trust.
But myself and a friend did heckle at the Disney Hercules, lots of kids there too :-). It was quite fun to critique its relationship to the classic story as it went on. Hell had to get my moneys worth somewhere

uncle retrospective

20:37 / 30.01.02

Humm...
Micheal Mann does it for me almost every time.
Last of the Moheianes (I have no idea how to spell it ) put me asleep and I went to the bog during Heat for something more intresting to do.
LotR on second viewing gave me the urge to leave or bite out my wrists from boredom.
But I stayed or my flatmate would have beaten me to death.

21:12 / 30.01.02

Bear, the film you're thinking of is de Ville's La Lectrice (The Reader), I think.

glad I'm not the only one susceptible to a snooze in the stalls. last time was during Amelie. I know, I know, it's a chef d'oeuvre. I'm deeply ashamed.

02:04 / 31.01.02

The advent of the multi-plex has made walking in & out of movies quite common... if it sucks I'm out... I or we'll just trot on over to see what ever else is playing.

Sometimes we'll arrive about 20 minutes early & just check out a movie for 20 minutes before going to seat ourselves (my date & I) at the movie we originally planned to see.

Less likely to do so at a play or dance performance...

I've certainly fallen asleep when I'm at a film I'm not enjoying as much as whoever I'm with... Did that with 6th sence... then the audience would scream & I would wake up all "huh?"

hanabius yamamura

10:04 / 31.01.02

have never walked out on anything i've started watching ... purely in the everlasting hope that no matter how bad it is , it might get better before the end ... that and the fact that it's always nice to know what happens at the end

10:30 / 31.01.02

ZoCher thats the movie ! nice one!....I must admit I probably started watching it due to the fact there was nudity rather than say the acting but then I really liked it...

11:09 / 31.01.02

nothin' wrong with that, B. I only started going to ArtHouse films and watching European cinema as a lad because there were more naughty bits and, in the process, became the urbane and sophisticated chap I am today, entirely as a by-product.

I must have managed not to fall asleep in a sufficient number of "educational" films, I guess.

Japanese films are particularly likely to bring on the zzzzzzzzzz's, I find, hana_bi.

hanabius yamamura

11:09 / 31.01.02

japanese films...snooze worthy... not so , ZoCher..
can i direct your attention to the fabulous battle royale , audition and manga classic perfect blue ..
granted they have their fair share of sedative-like cinema ..eg a friend of mine once fell asleep during kurosawa's dreams whilst sprawled over the rows in front and behind in a large star shape AND he snored ..mind you , the other two people in the audience didnt mind as we were with him.

16:17 / 31.01.02

I'm pretty sure I would have walked out of the Chinese new wave film 'Life On a String' if I didn't have to write essays about it.

It's shot pretty much in the same style as 'Apocalypse Now', and is about the same length, only it's about a blind, geriatric banjo player who sits on the top of a mountain and wanders down occasionally to end wars with his 'beautiful' music (described by a reviewer as 'a cross between Cat Stevens and Beethoven'). He actively tries to break his banjo strings because - for some reason that's never adequately explained - once he's broken 1000 of them, his banjo will open and let him get a ticket which he can take to a doctor who will cure his blindness. And that's without mentioning the noodle stall owner who keeps appearing like a ghost at inappropriate moments and laughing like a maniac, the endless shots of a team of slaves carrying a boat through a desert and a whole sub plot in which a blind boy is beaten to death for inadvertently making a girl jump off a cliff after relating to her a parable about fertility and rotting fruit..

Check it out, it's absolutely torturous..

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