Movies you couldn't make it all the way through.....................

[horseshoe crab]

Am I the only one who finds 2001 slightly chilling? It's triumphant and it's most crucial point is to tell a plot with very little words, but for seemingly no reason at all I get a dark vibe along with the awe.

No, I understand. I don't think it's mentioned enough how ominous a film it is. Also, the two finding-the-monolith scenes, with that wailing Ligeti music, are quite scary.

[Killer Bees]

I forced myself to sit through Rosemary's Baby to the end.  I will never again have such willpower as long as I live.

Movies  I could only watch in small batches until the end:

Dude, Where's My Car
Beerfest (didn't even make it to the end of this one)
40 Year Old Virgin
Starship Troopers 2
Ultraviolet
Aeon Flux

I'll post more as I think of them.

[Killer Bees]

I thought Will Ferrell was funny-ish in SNL.  The only movie I actively like him in is Stranger Than Fiction and it's not a comedy at all.  As for his other comedies, it looks like he's just going through the motions most fo the time and by and large they're not overly funny.

[akiratubo]

it looks like he's just going through the motions most fo the time

I get that impression, too.  It's almost like he doesn't really enjoy doing comedies.

[frank]

I'm with Burgomaster, RapscallionJones, damnote, ... and usually watch every movie to the end. But then, I'm quite picky in what I watch and frankly it's not that much. So, I guess I wouldn't have conquered movies like Borat and the like.

But all that is just for cinema and DVD/VCR. Another story is movies on TV. I cannot possibly count the times when I actually forgot to switch back to a movie after the commercial break, because I simply forgot that something was on...

Otherwise interesting examples here. The controversies about 2001 are quite understandable, I guess. I had a very large questionmark floating above my head most of the movie and ended up with that familiar WTF-feeling afterwards. In fact, it's still the same at every viewing. To me, that is quite refreshing from time to time, it was similar while and after Donnie Darko. I absolutely do not understand a loathing of High Fidelity, I think it was great, but then people are different...

[Jack]

Also---as it turns out guess who is gonna be in a remake of Land Of The Lost?--(a B-grade television show) Will Ferrell--as Park Ranger Rick Marshall!

Oh man, that is just...words fail me.  If anybody ever wonders why I loathe and detest Hollywood, it's stuff like this. 

You could make a fairly interesting movie about two kids and a park ranger who wind up in a strange land populated by dinosaurs and mysterious beings called sleestacks.  The creative possibilities are quite promising.  But no, that was never even considered.  We get another idiotic comedy with Will Farrel.

[Joe]

the jar and inexchange.

[HappyGilmore]

So you have seen his newest movie Semi-Pro?

Also---as it turns out guess who is gonna be in a remake of Land Of The Lost?--(a B-grade television show) Will Ferrell--as Park Ranger Rick Marshall!

Haven't seen Semi-Pro, but it comes out in February.  Looking forward to it, too.  I'd be interested in the Land of the Lost movie though.  Oddly enough, in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he played Federal Wildlife marshal, named Marshall Willenholly, named after Will and Holly Marshall from Lotl.  I'm only really familar with the Nickelodeon remake from the early '90s though.

[respectmeordye3]

Also---as it turns out guess who is gonna be in a remake of Land Of The Lost?--(a B-grade television show) Will Ferrell--as Park Ranger Rick Marshall!

Oh man, that is just...words fail me.  If anybody ever wonders why I loathe and detest Hollywood, it's stuff like this. 

You could make a fairly interesting movie about two kids and a park ranger who wind up in a strange land populated by dinosaurs and mysterious beings called sleestacks.  The creative possibilities are quite promising.  But no, that was never even considered.  We get another idiotic comedy with Will Farrel.

Lotta folks think it will go the "Bewitched" route(also starring Will Ferrell) and be a parody type of remake of the original idea as opposed to an actual "true" remake--such as The Fugitive.....

[peter johnson]

Re.  2001 again --
No, I got everything about the film first time I saw it at age 9 and no I had not read the book first. 
I had read Rendezvous With Rama, though, so recognized Clarke's themes.
To be fair, I do think my understanding of films was a lot clearer when I was younger -- for instance, I didn't get Mulholldand Drive.  I get PARTS of Mulholland Drive, but it doesn't spring into my brain fully-formed the way 2001 did.
I also saw Le Sangre de Poete as a young teenager, and got everything right away -- up to a point where the group I was with had had enough & wanted to leave -- To this day, I only understand the film completely up to the point I stopped watching it at age 15 -- after that 'tis all a blur --
A point I want to make is that you do NOT need everything "spelled out" in a film for it to make sense.  You are allowed to make logical inferences based on the evidence in front of you.
I reread my observations & your objections & I still think that everything I say is right there in the film for everyone to see, and I do NOT think that "only 15%" of viewers would agree with me.  The fact that the books bear out what I saw in Kubrick's direction is gravy.
Also, I think it's very clear from HAL's own statements that his AI has evolved & that the mission is paramount.  Also, he seems not to have been given any sort of Asimovian directive concerning his interactions with people, eg. Don't kill them.  Ergo, remove threat to mission.
Well, if people find the film obtuse, that's their business.  I still think if they just let it wash over them, the clarity of what's what will pop up of its own accord.  Really, if "only 15%" of viewers would agree with my interpretations, I certainly haven't heard of any others -- Have you?  Can you give any examples?
peter johnson/denny pod bay door

[Mortal Envelope]

As a 30something, I loved Napolean Dynamite - so much of it reminded me of the goofiness that was growing up in the 80s.  Loved 2001 as well although it is a bit slow; just a different type of movie.  I liked some scens in Borat but overall didn't exactly fall in love with it.

Movies I couldn't make it through:

Top Gun
Dirty Dancing
Beaches

and a bunch more I'm not remembering at the moment.

and after about 20 years and many many attempts, I've just recently made it all the way through Shocker lol.

[AndyC]

Just had a recent example of this. Bought Shrek the Third on pay-per-view. My wife and I shut it off by mutual agreement after holding out as long as possible, waiting for it to get good.

We loved the first two Shrek movies. The third seemed to ditch a lot of the clever fairy tale parody of the first two and became a movie about the characters each doing their familiar schtick. The Arthur story seemed kind of sloppily thrown in, and the addition of babies mirrors many a hit TV series that ran out of good ideas (not to mention upping the ante for gags based on bodily functions). We found it unwatchable.

[raj]

I couldn't make it through Air America or Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead (1990).  I even tried watching the latter twice, though both times it was at the end of a long evening of movie watching and many beverages of an adult nature had been consumed.  And I sat through Prospero's Book, thinking it couldn't be as bad as it was.

[HappyGilmore]

Also---as it turns out guess who is gonna be in a remake of Land Of The Lost?--(a B-grade television show) Will Ferrell--as Park Ranger Rick Marshall!

Oh man, that is just...words fail me.  If anybody ever wonders why I loathe and detest Hollywood, it's stuff like this. 

You could make a fairly interesting movie about two kids and a park ranger who wind up in a strange land populated by dinosaurs and mysterious beings called sleestacks.  The creative possibilities are quite promising.  But no, that was never even considered.  We get another idiotic comedy with Will Farrel.

Lotta folks think it will go the "Bewitched" route(also starring Will Ferrell) and be a parody type of remake of the original idea as opposed to an actual "true" remake--such as The Fugitive.....

Don't forget Starsky and Hutch and The Brady Bunch Movie, both of which, more so with Brady's, the parody route. 

[CheezeFlixz]

I think I could count the number of movies I've just turned off and never tried to watch again (barring TV aired movies). As a rule I watch all of every movie I get or go see. Maybe not the first time but at least the second or third time.
Very little annoys me more in the wide, wide world of film then going to a review site (IMDB and Amazon are the worst) that a reviewer post a review of a movie that claim they couldn't make it through or turned it off after a few minutes. Ok you didn't like it, fine! Don't post a review of a film you've only seen 15 minutes of before you turned it off. (Just ran across about 4 of those on Amazon, so it was on my mind.)