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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Un-Watchable

Here's the concept: what movies would you go back in time to stop yourself from watching?  It has to be a theater release because something you see on cable or rent or Netflix is still a pretty passive experience.  When you go out to a movie there's traveling, usually a $40 bag of popcorn and a block of time set aside for the experience.  And it can't be something terrible that at least you have fun with now.  This is a movie so bad you actually regret the entire experience.  There are two for me that come instantly to mind.

The first is Spider-man 3.  Yeah, I regret spending money of the second one but number 3?  I left that theater in a sort of shock.  I was actually turned off from movies for a while.  Something rekindled my interest (looking at 2007 releases it was probably The Lookout) and I like to think I made a full recovery but... I admit, I may have developed a Pavlovian mistrust of Tobey Maguire.  If given the chance I would erase this from my personal history.

The second is What the Bleep Do We Know.  It claims to be a science documentary but is actually groundless propaganda from a cult that believes their leaders are reincarnations of priests from Atlantis.  Yeah, it's that bat-shit stupid.  Like many new age cranks (*cough Deepak Chopra cough*) it's formed around the amazing science of quantum physics.  And like many new age cranks they fail to grasp the actual concepts they build their belief system on.  I left the theater feeling more than cheated.  I felt insulted.  With Spider-man 3 I assume that it was made to entertain.  Sure, the target audience is probably coma patients and glue-huffing hobos but it works for them, I assume.  What the Bleep Do We Know was a glossy ball of misinformation that was either made by actively scheming con-men or utter morons.  Either way I was subjected to their "vision" for 109 minutes and I would love to have that time back to do something more productive.  Like pass into a coma or huff glue.  The worst part?  I saw it on a recommendation.  Some recommendations make you question someone's taste level.  And some make you flat out question their sanity.


And now I open I open it up to you.  What would you go back in time to stop yourself from going to a theater to see?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

"Cop Out." Thought that maybe the critics were wrong, and had some hope that Kevin Smith had made a decent movie. Lord, was I wrong. Not only was it unfunny, but it was downright boring. I don't like alternating between annoyed and uninterested when watching a comedy.