Be Excellent To Each Other

So. The other night I was up late on my own after Casa Chris went to sleep for the night. I flicked through the channels in search of entertainment and lo and, indeed, behold, the second tomb raider film was on ITV2. So, as I'd watched the original and quite liked it in a post-ironic-with-shades-of-phwoar way, I decided I'd give it a go.

After 30 minutes I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was one of the worst films I've ever seen* - a ludicrous plot, even within its own frame of reference; shoddy, cheap looking sets and effects; terrible dialogue; crap action sequences; very few lingering boob shots etc etc etc.

But! I didn't switch it off. No. I kept watching until the bitter, stupid, shitty, crappy end, which arrived after the stupid, shitty, crappy middle and beginning.

I'm struggling to work out exactly why I did this - perhaps it was because after 30 minutes of watching it thinking "this is a bit shit... no this is quite shit... no this is really rather shit", my sub-conscious decided that if I now gave up and switched off I would somehow have wasted the 30 minutes I'd spent watching it, and so forced me to watch the rest.

And this isn't the first time I've done this, either.

Does anyone else do this, or is it just me?

*Yes, I should have realised this after 2 minutes and yes, I should probably have expected this before even watching it. But shush.

I do this all the time, unfortunately.
I don't, AFAIK, ever do the same dreadful movie twice, except when Carys was very young (about 5'ish) and had the habit of repeatedly watching the same dreadful movies ad nauseum. I think I saw The Land Before Time about 500 times

I only watch the first few minutes of Tomb Raider 2 because it is filmed at Santorini.

Anyway, I feel compelled to always watch Street Fighter: The Movie to the end.

But "WHY?" is the question that is shrieked by my tortured, tired soul. "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY?". It's not like I didn't have other, more interesting things that I could have been doing. Staring blankly at the wall, for one. But instead there's a horrible compulsion to keep watching the shitty film. And I mean shitty shitty, not "so bad it's good" shitty.



This begs an explanation, chap!

I think a function of doing tedious stuff is part of our makeup. It also helps with raising children - you do a LOT of excruciatingly tedious stuff with kids which is infrequently broken by very brief moments of magic.

Also, the function of looking at rubbish and thinking it's rubbish and understanding it's rubbish isn't, technically, a complete waste of time, is it?

I pretty much always watch films to the end. The only DVD I can ever remember my wife and I turning off in digust was Crash. (The racism one, not the sexy car crash one.) Twenty minutes in and we were being so overloaded with worthy that neither of us could face another second.

I'm sure there are movies on TV we've started to watch and given up on. Before wife, though, I can remember giving up on Citizen Kane, Raging Bull and Apocalypse Now. (I've since watched Citizen Kane again and love it. Not retried Apocalypse Now or Raging Bull, though I've got them both on DVD ready.) I also fast-forwarded through the last twenty minutes or so of 2001. Pile of shite.

I have never walked out of the cinema, though I came very close during Hannibal. I was on my own for that, so could have done, but just wanted to see how it would end. I never thought Ridley Scott could make such a dull movie.

Oh, quite - but I'm sure I don't need to start doing this in my spare, child-free time too. That's madness. I have maybe three hours to myself in any given day, maximum. And that's if I stay up til midnight.



Only if you're not sure of what's rubbish and what isn't beforehand, in which case you're learning, which is always a good thing. Otherwise you're doing nothing *but* wasting time.


EDIT- Owen - the only film I've never watched to the end is AI.

Brrrr.

Yeah but this is a thread about shit films and The Land Before Time is an excellent film.

However:
The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure
The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving
The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists
The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island
The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock
The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire
The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze
The Land Before Time IX: Journey to Big Water
The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration
The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses
The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers
The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends

Do qualify though. As they exist purely to rape the corpse of a wonderful film.

I watched Ghost Rider all the way through in the hope that it had to get better but it didnt. What made it worse is that it was a crappy video cam copy too.

I did this with both Hostel movies. I really don't get torture porn stuff at all, but felt compelled to sit all the way through these.

I also watched AI all the way through on telly the other night, despite the one time I saw it at the cinema being quite enough. It truly is the most relentlessly depressing film I've ever seen.

You are directly responsible for human trafficking and people being forced into the sex industry, I am led to believe.

Not everyone on the Isle of Man does that, you know. Racist.

Not everyone, just most...so anyone else wanna join Myp in my "chamber of secrets" when he arrives?

I thought that was Jersey where they had them?

No, its an Island "thing"...probably a result of all the years of inbreeding.

And the low tax. Low tax causes kiddy fiddling. Trufax. Just look at Switzerland.

I thought it was the complete opposite, I thought high tax caused kiddy fiddling. Just look at Gary Glitter.

In which case we'd have the highest rates of kiddy fiddlerage in Europe.

You'd know Mr high rate tax payer.

I watched it* once, which even tho not the worse film Ive seen, once was enough.


*admittedly another knocked off copy...wheres that link to the levels of hell cos I wanna find out where Im heading

I'm from an Island and I'm not inbred! That third ear is nowt more than decoration, and a handy erogenous zone for the forehead.

that made me chuckle...Flis (my sis) spotted something on our youngest chest last night that appeared to be a 3rd nipple...upon closer inspection it was just that, a spot.

I watched Be Kind Rewind all the way through. I have never felt so much animosity toward a film for wasting my time, ever.

I watched a Michael Douglas film on BBC 1 last night that was a bit shit. So shit I can't be arsed to find out what it was called.

FTFY.

If you say 'The Sentinal', I'll kill you. Eva Longoria in that film is the best thing ever.

She's utterly, utterly shit. In every way. You complete loon.

You have ginormo-gob Sackhoff, and I'll have lovely Longoria. Then we'll both be happy. You'll probably be eaten, but I'll be happy.

I will also have Gillian Anderson, Nigella Lawson and Lucy Porter. I will be well fed and entertained.

You'll probably stab yourself on Longoria's hip bones.

"Don't say a word'?

I saw that at the cinema and thought it was OKish.

I've sat through a fair few crappy films that have been on telly. After a few minutes it's like a compulsion to see it through to the end.

The two that spring to mind are called something like 'Krull the Konquerer' (with the guy from hercules - Kevin Sorbo?) and ' Deadly Pursuit' with Sidney Poitier. They were both really shit but for some reason I kept watching them even though it was really late at night and I'd have been better off going to sleep.

10,000 BC. I've never walked out on a film at the cinema, and still haven't, but I was sorely bloody tempted.

Me neither. The closest I came was with 'the happening' a few months ago. Many people left, loudly stating the film was 'fucking shit', to the mirth of everyone else that stayed. It was a terrible film.

I'd only watch bad stuff to the end so I could said I'd seen the whole thing when I slagged it off later.

The only film I can think of giving up on halfway through was 'The Public Eye' with Joe Pesci.

I 'walked out' of the room when my parents rented 'Up n' Under' out of sheer boredom, as I think the entire reason they'd done so in the first place was to see Samantha Janus's tits. Having seen that, there was no point in carrying on, really.

You are mad. Deadly Pursuit is brilliant even before you get to the fact that it features Kirstie Alley at her cutest.

This was also the only reason I rented and watched this film. Respect to your parents; especially your mum.

God, yes. I actually quite light M. Night Shawaddywaddy's other movies, but fuck me, that film is shite. Even having Zooey Deschanel in it can't save it. I spent the entire film wondering when the utterly appaling acting of the entire cast was going to be revealed to be a major plot point, since I couldn't believe it could ever be so bad unintentionally.

I didn't actually walk out though. In fact, in my whole life, there's only ever been four other films that I have nearly walked out of: The Grudge, not because it was awful (I thought it was OK), but because we had 5 girls behind us who literally screamed at everything. Camera angle change? Loud scream. Someone starts saying something? Loud scream.

The other three were Solaris (snore), Batman & Robin ("yur nud zendin me to duh cooluh") and Death Becomes Her, because that was fucking shit.

I see Escape From LA is about to start on Sci-Fi....

What cretin gave the 'Hilarious' quote for the cover of the box?

"The thought that some daft twat might actually pay money to see this film is fucking hilarious" -- Barry Norman.

You! Outside! Now!

I went to the theatre to see that... tragically, it was the last movie they ever showed before it closed down. And I think I was possibly the only paying customer too...

'Wimbledon'.

Only redeeming feature is Ms Dunst.

And not much of one.

Having seen it at the cinema when it came out, i watched it on TV the other week as well...

I liked it. It was crap but simple, about as good a romcom you could have about bloody tennis anyway.

How about Matchpoint by Woody Allen? That's pretty good, and builds to a fairly surprising ending.