What do you when you read/watch a bad book/movie?

[JunkMonkey]

When it comes to movies I have tried to have a 20 minutes rule, where I after 20 minutes decide, if I want to finish it or not, if it has a bad start.

Most people do and Hollywood knows this. This is why all the 'How to Write a Script That Will Sell' type books tell you you have to have an event on page 15 (as a rule of thumb one page of script equals one minute of screen time) which, though inevitable, is surprising and suddenly changes the dynamic of the film and sets the characters off on a new course of action. Set the on-screen display on your DVD or Blu Ray and watch. More often than not Something Significant That Changes the Story happens around the 15 minute mark.

It depends on the movie...some bad movies are huge fun to watch, and I've acquired a real taste for them over the years. The best ones are the ones where you suspect the filmmaker was sincerely attempting to create art, but failed on almost every level. It helps if they are completely off the wall. The works of Ed Wood spring to mind. They are often hilarious.

With you there, brother (or sister)! Mr Wood is a hero. But he's not the only one. Check out the works of Coleman Francis, Ted V. Mikels, Larry Buchanan. A current favourite of mine is the British 'director' Richard Driscoll whose works have often been compared to Ed Wood's. They have the same talent-free enthusiastic terribleness that makes them compulsive viewing.


Heller's Something Awful was dreadful, but the wrong sort of dreadful, I gave up on it too.

[ebusinesstutor]

I dump movies and books quickly if I can't get into them. I look at is an an opportunity cost - if I continue reading/watching a bad choice during my entertainment time, I lose the opportunity to read/watch something truly amazing.

Or in another words - to proceed down the right path, you must first stop walking down the wrong path.

Great analogy for life.

[Chrishunt]

I think that this is not a good movie to watch .

[JunkMonkey]

I dump movies and books quickly if I can't get into them. I look at is an an opportunity cost - if I continue reading/watching a bad choice during my entertainment time, I lose the opportunity to read/watch something truly amazing.

You also loose a great way of learning about how good films are made. I learned more about film language and editing from watching bad films than I did good. Good films get you hooked up in the story and emotionally engaged with the situations and characters. With bad films you can disengage and look at the thing objectively. Why isn't this working? How could this have been made to work? I learned more about cheating time in the editing and the importance of insert shots from watching Ed Wood's Jail Bait than I did from watching any number of 'great' films. Ed Wood never did get the idea of insert shots and used to have to get his actors to do things like this:


A not very good actor getting into an uncomfortable
position to show the audience something.

To let us see that a hollowed out Bible is empty. Any half way literate director would have cut in an insert close up shot of the Bible as he pulled it out of the drawer and thus also given himself the opportunity to cut back to a different take of the Master which might have improved things no end. (Assuming there was another take of the Master.)

[oceanworld]

Good question, when it comes to a book I'll try and finish it, but for a movie, if I am watching it in the movie theater I'll stay and finish it, but if it is on DVD I I'll stop it after sometime passes.