Does anyone else insist on watching movies in their entirety or not at all?
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Movies Front to Back
If I rewatch a movie, it has to be from the beginning. Now Phil can't get this and if he flips by a movie he likes, or even one he has never seen even, he will watch ten minutes of it from the middle or even the end. I have to leave the room then so he mostly does it after I go to bed.
Does anyone else insist on watching movies in their entirety or not at all?
I mean beside Woody Allen and me?
Does anyone else insist on watching movies in their entirety or not at all?
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22 comments:
I'm with you, Patti. I watch movies from start to finish. But I have plenty friends who use that Fast Forward button on their remote all the time.
The only movies I can do that with are all-time favorites that I've seen a million times already. But I also generally have to finish everything I start watching (this drives Maria crazy), unless it's really really terrible.
It's start to finish for me too, Patti, or nothing. For this reason I'm waiting for an opportune time to watch OKLAHOMA! and SOUTH PACIFIC, two musicals I picked up not long ago. I can't watch Disc 1 after breakfast and Disc 2 before dinner.
If I insisted on watching movies from the beginning I'd never get through any. If it is the 'first' time I watch a movie I do indeed want to start at the beginning. After that I don't care.
I have a handful of favorites that I can pick up at any point: Men In Black and the Bourne movies. Otherwise, I have to watch the whole thing.
I am thinking that since Phil seems to remember every scene in a movie he saw 30 years ago, this allows him to dip in. Whereas I can barely remember scenes in ones I saw a few years ago and thus must start with the credits.
If I go to the movies to see something for the first time, then yes. I've told you our experience as kids when my mother would take us into movies in the middle (the example that stands out: we walked into WEST SIDE STORY after the rumble!) and just leave when it came around to that part again.
But if we're at home and it's a favorite we've seen many times I don't mind watching. Besides, some movies the last half hour is all I like!
Now Jackie is like Phil. She will be scrolling around the channels and will turn on a (for instance) Hallmark or Lifetime movie she's never seen and watch the last 10-15 minutes! This is almost incomprehensible to me (like Diane Kelley reading the ends of books first) but she's always done it.
Jeff M.
She loves INDEPENDENCE DAY. I'm perfectly happy watching it from the time Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith get ready to take the alien ship up. I'm not a huge fan of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE to be honest but I like the end.
On the other hand, I'm happy to watch the beginning of THE WIZARD OF OZ and turn it off when they leave Munchkinland.
Jeff M.
I'm with you. But as I never flip around on TV just randomly looking for something to watch, I never encounter movies in the middle. If I am going to watch a movie, it's been a decision made that I intend to watch it. Same with TV. The thing isn't even on unless I am turning it on to watch something specific, and that is 90% of the time a sporting event. I can't remember the last random movie or TV show we watched.
Like Charles, once I've seen a movie I like, I can come in anywhere and start watching. Just did that yesterday with The Fugitive.
I've done exactly what Phil does many, many times. This is only on TV obviously. But I do prefer to see the whole movie from the beginning.
I get very upset if I'm late to a movie in the theater and I miss the beginniing. These days it rarely happens what with umpteen commercials and 52 previews prior to a movie screening. But in the past my brother and I used to stay in the after and wait for the second screening if we missed the beginning. I also remember we did this when my sister took us to see Funny Girl what seems like eons ago.
I get to the theater needlessly early--you're right it takes 15 minutes now to get going. But I am afraid of having to sit too close, of missing the start, of it being sold out. Oh, I am full of neurotic fears when it comes to movies.
A movie is only a movie to me when I see the whole thing--for the first or the 21st time. I am not neurotic in many things but with movies and being late, yes.
I agree with you on that - I'd rather be half an hour early than two minutes late. I can still remember once getting to the theater late after a show had started and that was over 30 years ago. (It was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Elizabeth Ashley.)
I'd rather sit in a movie and listen to the crappy music and watch the mostly awful "First Look" at upcoming television shows I'll never watch than get there late.
Jeff M.
New to me movies, always from the beginning. Things I've seen often, I can drop in anywhere if there's a part I like still upcoming, Like Jurassic Park. My exception is war movies, which I always try to watch from the start.
New movies only.
For movies already seen, and on the small screen, it sometimes gives a new perspective by dropping randomly into the middle of one.
Cut-up method. The mind quickly creates sense of even random scenes, like watching soap operas or telenovelas.
I used to, just n case there's a tag-on scene at the end or an outtake. But I'm old. Now I just want to get to the parking lot.
If I've seen it before, I can drop in anywhere. I prefer to see new ones from the start.
Jeff--Linda also watches Lifetime and Hallmark movies. I'm embarrassed FOR her. Were there ever worse, sappier movies ever, anywhere? I say no.
I have no problem watching snippets here and there--and I tend to channel-surf too, so I might land on a movie at any point. Now watching in the theater is another matter--I like to get there early, even though it means sitting through endless coming attraction trailers.
Deb
There are so many damn ads and trailers before movies these days that on a couple occasions I've had to pause a moment to remember what the hell it was I was there to see in the first place.
That happens to me all the time---I can't remember what the movie is until it comes on and sometimes if it doesn't have opening credits, even then.
I wish I liked Hallmark and Lifetime Movies. Then I wouldn't have to watch so much baseball in the summer.
I'm the same. I abhor watching parts of movies.
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