What film did you watch last night?

I'll always try to give a film plenty of time, it's rare that I give up and quit. But now and again I know early on something isn't for me or is just a load of garbage.

But really, you can't give a rating unless you've watched it all :p
 
Raymond Lin said:
I am not forcing you to watch movies you are not enjoying to the end.

But if you don't finish it, you forfeit the right to give it judgement, or at least, you opinion holds no water.

I mean would you trust any film critic who doesn't finish the movie? Would you trust a food critic when he only ate the starter and not the main? Can you judge a country because you only been to the airport?

Finish the movie, then I will then entertain your opinion on a movie, any movie.

Don't finish it, you shouldn't and can't judge it's entirety.

The MOST you can say is you turned it off and it wasn't for you. Your verdict shouldn't be on the entire film, your verdict can only be for what you have seen, as opposed to what you haven't seen.

I think that's more than fair.

If you had judge movies on the 15min mark:-

The Green Room - the band hasn't even been on stage yet.
The Rock - Nic Cage is still back at home with his wife.
The Revenant - the bear scene hasn't happened yet.
Antman - He hasn't even got his suit.
The Groundhog Day - the loop hasn't even begun, it's still the first day.
Taken - his daughter hasn't been taken yet.
Ironman - the weapon demo in the desert hasn't even happened yet.
Home Alone - Kevin's family hasn't even left the house for holiday.
Ferris Buellers Day Off - His friends are still in class.
Die Hard - Nothing has begun, not even seen a gun yet.
Back to the Future - You haven't even seen Doc Brown yet. The car park scene hasn't happened.
Splash - Darryl Hannah hasn't appeared on screen yet.
Mulholland Drive - Naomi's character hasn't even shown up.
Jerry Maguire - He hasn't quit.
Gone Girl - Rosamund Pike's character is still on screen, she hasn't "gone" yet.

See what I mean? If you had stopped these films at the 15min mark, you would have missed the entire point of the movie. Taken? Taken what?! He hasn't even said "I have a special set of skills", all you have seen thus far his him having lunch with his ex-wife and daughter.

So yes, feel free to stop movies after 15mins if you don't enjoy it but that cannot be the true reflection of the whole movie and you should not call judgement on it either.
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It's beyond obvious that I will not have seen the story play out, as I didn't finish it.

However I'm giving my verdict on the tone, on the quality, on the intelligence of the movie - and I saw enough in the first 15 mins to know that it was a very cliched, lowest-common-denominator targeted, lazy film.

I am happy to pass judgement on this film based on what I saw. I was good enough to let the reader know I'd bailed on the movie after 10-15 mins (exact time unknown).

It's up the reader to decide if that's a fair basis for making a judgement or not.

I for my part will continue to pass judgement on awful movies despite not watching them to the end. It's up to you to decide if you care what I think or not.

No, I'm not a professional critic - I'm not getting paid to watch awful films to the final credits, so I'm damned well not going to! Yet I have complete confidence - complete confidence - in my ability to spot a terrible film from the first 1/4 hour.

I do not believe this is some mystical power that I alone posses - I believe the vast majority of us will have made a judgement call to switch something over/off after a similar timeframe.

And I believe most (if not all) of us would then have said to someone we know, "Suchandsuch is an awful film - I walked out/turned it off". Does that equate to professional criticism? No, of course not. But is this thread reserved exclusively for Mark Kermode and chums? Nope.

e: Just to add to that - if we only review films that we liked enough to watch to the end, then we are skewing the review scores. We will only have people giving ratings for films they liked; films that were so awful they got turned off/walked out on - nobody will be able to review them!

How is this good for anyone? To skew the results so you only get positive scores, or only hear from people masochistic enough to watch something they hate all the way to the end? Some of us have better things to do!
 
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Have to say FoxEye, it does annoy most people. My missus does this. Sits there on her phone for the entire film barely glancing up every 10 minutes and then declares a film as rubbish. Tells everyone not to watch it. God it was awful. Fine, you didn't want to watch it, you didn't watch it and it didn't grip you. Thats all fine but you then can't have an opinion that holds any weight. Just say "I didn't watch the whole thing because I couldn't get into it and stopped watching it".
 
But that's not what happened tho?

I gave it my full, undivided attention for 10-15 mins. In that time it proved to be an awful movie - imho of course, everything is opinion-based, so that goes without saying.

Why should I a) continue to watch the whole thing or b) not tell people I decided it was awful, with a disclaimer that I didn't finish it?

Nobody has convinced me my opinion is invalid.

The reason I "couldn't get into it" is because it was dire, lol.
 
Well this kicked off a bit more since I last looked lol

My point wasn't exactly what others have been saying. I can understand deciding a movie is not for you after 10-15 minutes - although I would question the fact that you are watching Mission Impossible 4 so assume you liked 1, 2 and 3 and 4 just seemed so different to you?

My point which everyone seems to have skimmed was aside from the lack of anything meaningful to say about the movie you declared anyone who does like it as someone having brain damage?? That's certainly a high horse to be on. Especially when MI4 is sitting at 7.4 on IMDB and RT of 93% of critics so a lot of people liked it but they all have brain damage according to you?
 
My reviews

Die hard - what a terrible husband and wife drama. Crap

Taken - sad single divorce bloke who gets no love from ex wife and daughter

Home alone - did they title this wrong? He isn’t alone?

Titanic - what’s this crap, I thought it sinks? It’s still in Portsmouth FFS.
 
FoxEye said:
It's beyond obvious that I will not have seen the story play out, as I didn't finish it.

However I'm giving my verdict on the tone, on the quality, on the intelligence of the movie - and I saw enough in the first 15 mins to know that it was a very cliched, lowest-common-denominator targeted, lazy film.

I am happy to pass judgement on this film based on what I saw. I was good enough to let the reader know I'd bailed on the movie after 10-15 mins (exact time unknown).

It's up the reader to decide if that's a fair basis for making a judgement or not.

I for my part will continue to pass judgement on awful movies despite not watching them to the end. It's up to you to decide if you care what I think or not.

No, I'm not a professional critic - I'm not getting paid to watch awful films to the final credits, so I'm damned well not going to! Yet I have complete confidence - complete confidence - in my ability to spot a terrible film from the first 1/4 hour.

I do not believe this is some mystical power that I alone posses - I believe the vast majority of us will have made a judgement call to switch something over/off after a similar timeframe.

And I believe most (if not all) of us would then have said to someone we know, "Suchandsuch is an awful film - I walked out/turned it off". Does that equate to professional criticism? No, of course not. But is this thread reserved exclusively for Mark Kermode and chums? Nope.

e: Just to add to that - if we only review films that we liked enough to watch to the end, then we are skewing the review scores. We will only have people giving ratings for films they liked; films that were so awful they got turned off/walked out on - nobody will be able to review them!

How is this good for anyone? To skew the results so you only get positive scores, or only hear from people masochistic enough to watch something they hate all the way to the end? Some of us have better things to do!
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I read the first 15 words and not the rest and give a review of this is a crap post.

Do you get it?
 
Richeh said:
Well this kicked off a bit more since I last looked lol

My point wasn't exactly what others have been saying. I can understand deciding a movie is not for you after 10-15 minutes - although I would question the fact that you are watching Mission Impossible 4 so assume you liked 1, 2 and 3 and 4 just seemed so different to you?

My point which everyone seems to have skimmed was aside from the lack of anything meaningful to say about the movie you declared anyone who does like it as someone having brain damage?? That's certainly a high horse to be on. Especially when MI4 is sitting at 7.4 on IMDB and RT of 93% of critics so a lot of people liked it but they all have brain damage according to you?
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I think I might have seen 1 but forgotten it entirely. Don't think I've seen either 2 or 3.

I wasn't watching 4 because I was a fan of the series - I just wanted to see if it was any good or not. I often "take a punt" on something that's on TV, even if I know nothing about it beforehand.

I'm neither looking at it from the perspective of a fan, nor a detractor. I would have preferred it to be an amazing film that thoroughly entertained me; why wouldn't I? I get no particular thrill from decrying a movie as crap. But I know what to me is a crap movie, and I'm not shy about making my opinions known.

I don't literally think you need to be brain-damaged to enjoy it - but it probably helps ;)

Alas, ^^ my sense of humour like my taste in films isn't universally appreciated ;)
 
Raymond Lin said:
I read the first 15 words and not the rest and give a review of this is a crap post.

Do you get it?
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I understand perfectly. You're trying to move the goalposts.

If the first 15 words of my post had been "lollololol YOLO ima gun shoot me a blarg blargh kablahhh aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh fishcakes!"

Would you have continued to read my post, expecting that by the end I'd produced something to rival the great literary works? I mean, I will concede that there is a minute chance I could have written an epic oddessy that started in such a manner, but the reality is, were that my opening paragraph, you would be forgiven for not holding up much hope for the rest of it.
 
FoxEye said:
I understand perfectly. You're trying to move the goalposts.

If the first 15 words of my post had been "lollololol YOLO ima gun shoot me a blarg blargh kablahhh aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh fishcakes!"

Would you have continued to read my post, expecting that by the end I'd produced something to rival the great literary works? I mean, I will concede that there is a minute chance I could have written an epic oddessy that started in such a manner, but the reality is, were that my opening paragraph, you would be forgiven for not holding up much hope for the rest of it.
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Why don't you apply your logic of "continued to read my post" to continue to finish a movie?

Here is the crux of it.

If you don’t finish a movie, all you can say is that what you have seen so far does not interest you to carry on.

You forfeit the right to make judgement of the entirety of the movie along with it. Yes, this is how it works.

Want to comment on the whole movie? Want the whole movie.

How hard is that to understand?
 
Raymond Lin said:
Why don't you apply your logic of "continued to read my post" to continue to finish a movie?

Here is the crux of it.

If you don’t finish a movie, all you can say is that what you have seen so far does not interest you to carry on.

You forfeit the right to make judgement of the entirety of the movie along with it. Yes, this is how it works.

Want to comment on the whole movie? Want the whole movie.

How hard is that to understand?
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I think I can say that not only did what I see not interest me, but that what I saw was just plain bad.

I cannot comment on the events in the film that I did not see. But I can fairly safely assume that what I did not see followed the same basic pattern as that which I did see. Or rather that the quality of later acts would be comparable to the quality of the first act.

How many films go from having a really bad first act to being really good? We're not talking about just finishing the story here. We're not even talking about films that start slowly.

We're talking about films that are just dire/ insulting/ comically bad (take your pick) and then proceed to be something genuinely worth watching.

Riddle me that.
 
Quite timely: I bought the Mission Impossible 4K UHD blu-ray boxset and watched Ghost Protocol on Friday night.

I don't rate MI:2, but the others are all decent movies.

If I had to put them in order from best to worst I would probably say:

MI:3
MI:5 Rogue Nation,
Mission Impossible (1),
MI:4 Ghost Protocol
MI:2

I've read the discussion and would be intrigued to know what FoxEye's top 10 movies of all time are, so we could gauge what his tastes are like...

Ghost Protocol is a silly action movie, but it's also not a bad movie.
 
Yeah, even though I was the one who originally challenged the comment lets just leave it there, is getting pointless now.

Back on topic I watched the Batman v Superman Ultimate 4k cut last night. 6/10.

It will get a couple of points just because it has Batman and Superman and of course Wonder Woman but a lot of film I found myself wanting to skip through. I didn't hate Jesse Eisenbergs Luthor portrayal initially until he goes too far with the erratic speak, gods this, gods that. Think the film was about 3 hours long but there was about 1 hour to an hour and a half of entertaining content. Certainly made me appreciate the Superman portrayal in Justice League more even though that film is far from perfect.

In 4k some scenes looked fantastic but some just had far too much grain that it really detracted.
 
Destination said:
At the time and indeed on review took that to mean they were launching guided bombs, but now I think about it....
Yup, that is ******* retarded too.
Off for a few ‘parsecs’ to think about stuff.

Truely none of them hold up, four is much loved because we were kids and it was fresh, five was better, but none of them are overly good.
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i hate to be THAT nerd, but on the tie bomber they are more like photon torpedoes that are fired towards the ground - they were never free falling bombs. They weren't that stupid even in 1980.
 
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