I have many many movies in my library of things to watch. But I find that however much I might want to see one, and look forward to it, when it comes to it I can manage only perhaps fifteen minutes before getting bored and losing interest. Then I might watch another fifteen minutes a few days later - it takes weeks sometimes to get through one. Sometimes I never do.
Makes no difference if it's a new film or an old classic, nor whether I've seen it before or anything.
Anyway, are you able to watch a whole movie in one go, and if so, how long before you lose the will to live and give up? A three hour movie? Four? They do exist...
Maybe it's just me that needs it to be in small chunks.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Wed 10 Feb 21 at 19:22
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I think perhaps it's anticipation, try just quickly picking a film at random one you've never heard of.
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Same as Crankcase, I'll very rarely watch a film in one go anymore. I've got a hard drive full of stuff I've given up on after fifteen minutes.
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I can't really watch anything on TV for more than about an hour without falling asleep. My wife despairs of me and is constantly asking me to sit down and watch something with her, but it's pointless really, I have the attention span of a goldfish.
Odd though, because I'm not a good night sleeper and never have been. If I stay in bed for more than 6 hours I'm wide awake and have to get up, but if I sit in front of a screen, I spark right out.
I'm a potterer if that's a word, always finding some trivial task to attend to, but never for very long, before I'm distracted by something else equally unimportant.
I didn't own a TV from the age of 18 when I left my parental home, until my second wife moved in with me when I was 34. Just never occurred to me to want one really, and it was only at her insistence that we got one. Used to have the radio on a lot though, but you can potter while that's on !
So, to answer the original question, I've seen bits of lots of films, but not, as the saying goes, necessarily in the right order.
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Its weird, possibly the longest slowest film I know, The Shawshank Redemption, manages to keep my attention the whole way through. Every time.
One of the Earlier Star Treck films II or III - cant remember, at the Odeon Leicester Square, I lasted 7 minutes and slept for the rest.
Another anomaly, Good films I will watch more than once IE pictures and then TV, except one of the very best - "The Usual Suspects", I feel i can never watch it again.
And I am quite rare - Never seen a Star Wars Film. Not one, ever.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 10 Feb 21 at 19:35
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If it's a good film, I have no trouble at all in watching it all in one go. After all, if they were made for the cinema, that's how they're meant to be watched. For similar reasons, I have never binge-watched a series on TV.
My particular idiosyncrasy is that I can often get 20 minutes or so into a movie before I realise that I've seen it before. I see that as an advantage though, because it should mean that I'll be able to enjoy good films for the rest of my life.
As a side issue, I've just finished a 30 day free trial of Prime Video and found out, a bit late in the day, why it is so long since I've seen a Fellini film on broadcast TV. Several of them are on there and I managed to watch 3 of them in my last two days. One of them was Fellini 81/2, which made a really strong impression on me when I first saw it in the cinema in the late sixties. It has not lost its power for me. I was astonished to find, however, that a nonsense phrase "asa nisi masa", which I've always been able to bring to mind at will, was only used quite fleetingly in the film. Claudine Cardinale glides her way through it all though, just as I remembered.
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>> And I am quite rare - Never seen a Star Wars Film. Not one, ever.
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You're not that rare, neither have I.
Though I must be the only guy on the planet who has never seen The Godfather, even though I got the full set on DVD last year and recorded the first one last month when it was on Beeb 2. I'll have to get round to it, if I could sit through West Ham v Man U last night I could sit through anything. Like watching grass grow without the excitement.
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Wed 10 Feb 21 at 20:32
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For me, films are the same as books.
I really struggle with fiction and drama, with one or two exceptions. Books - non-fiction is fine, fiction I just don't bother with. Yes, I know that I am missing an awful lot.
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Daughter still reminds me how I slept through second half of the Grinch , with her and friends on the row in front when she was about 8.
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I have slept through the second half of every children's film known to man.
With the possible exception of Ice Age and Lilo & Stitch.
Seen all the Star Wars, once each. Never seen a Toy Story, only ever watched one Godfather and I think Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver are both rubbish, at least going by the first 15 minutes which is all I managed.
I don't often manage a whole film. IF it's a good one AND I haven't seen it before, maybe 2 a year.
Everything else I have a habit of skipping through the bits I don't like reducing most films to about 15 minutes long.
I do like re-reading books though. Sometimes many, many times.
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Seen most but not all the Star Wars. The original more than once. The Lad never tires of reminding me I fell asleep in one, mid noughties I guess as he was 10/11. My revenge is to remind him that he watched most of Bugs Life on my knee in the aisle because he was scared of the Grasshoppers.
Seen at least two Toy Stories and every Harry Potter.
Mrs B and I started a cinema habit around 2010 when the kids were old enough to mind themselves. Remember Frost Nixon, The Reader and Milk. Not got the enthusiasm now, turning the Cinema Bar into a Starbucks lost my custom.
Colleagues tell me the Errol Flynn cinema in Northampton is a treat but TBF I can't be bothered.
Rediscovered TV drama though. Tonight we watched the first Endeavour, the Morse prequel. Very good story but a bit long for Mrs B.
Oh and like NoFM I can read the same books over and over. I'm told I skim (you cannot possibly read that fast!) and maybe that's part of it - catching the bits I missed.
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My main problem is with internet forums; I find I can't
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>>Tonight we watched the first Endeavour, the Morse prequel. Very good story but a bit long for Mrs B.
Soldier on, it does get better.
During lockdown I also watched Lewis from start to finish which I really enjoyed. First time around I used to enjoy Morse very much, but I can't seem to get back into it these days.
I also did Foyles War which I really enjoyed.
I do find it much easier to watch a standalone episode of something than I do a film. So often films seem to take themselves so seriously. I'm more of a classic western man where the 'bad' guy loses, myself.
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Been watching quite random stuff on Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services - some I've watched and enjoyed, lots have been given the 10 minute test. Some great SF stuff - I got a "reward" from Sky - "Invisible Man" - a film I might have gone to the Cinema to see, but it just didn't engage. Recorded and watched some of Talking Pictures films - mainly 60s movies I'd never seen.All my DVDs are packed waiting to move house.
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>>All my DVDs are packed waiting to move house.
I don't think I own any discs, CD or DVD any more. I guess there's probably some in boxes somewhere but I have no way to play them. Well, I guess I can go sit in the car, but let's assume not.
And I don't miss them. From the early days of CDs jumping in the car player on every bump to DVDs failing for light scuffing, not to mention the pain in storing any quantity of them, I have hated optical discs.
More to the point, which "Invisible Man" was it? The latest one with Elisabeth Moss? I thought it was awful. I watched the first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes and that was about all it was worth.
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>> More to the point, which "Invisible Man" was it?
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Makes no odds, you'll never see anything in it.
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>> Who said that?
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Behind you.
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>> And I am quite rare - Never seen a Star Wars Film. Not one, ever.
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I may be rarer than that. I've hardly ever watched a film full stop. It seems a fairly pointless exercise to me. Factual stuff yes. Manufactured nonsense, no.
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I was 22yo when the first Star Wars film was released. At the time a good friend was studying/reading medicine at Newcastle Uni so we often visited for the weekend. Saturday afternoon was spent in a pub called The Cooperage, down by the quayside. We staggered out after a very thirsty session, medical students eh, and after climbing away from the river, joined a cinema queue.
With a spinning head the special effects were spectacular. Excellent weekend for several reasons.
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I've never watched a Star Wars film either. I'm not a film fan really but I do like to watch the original Jungle Book from time to time, and George of the Jungle had it's moments.
I did go to the movie house a couple of years back a few times, 1918 and a Le Mans film (which I think we discussed here) - I did enjoy them both but not the experience. Overpriced popcorn amongst other things...
I'm finding sitting for longer periods more easy since I gave up smoking, there was a time when I couldn't have lasted a whole film without one!
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>> I'm finding sitting for longer periods more easy since I gave up smoking, there was
>> a time when I couldn't have lasted a whole film without one!
There was a time when you didnt have to, remember the days of the projector beams flickering through the fug of fag smoke.
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I don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep watching a film..either at home or in the cinema. Cinema is one of the things I really miss. Train to Leeds. Bit of a walk around, film at the Everyman, couple of pubs afterwards, train home & meet friends. Pretty much a perfect wet winter Sunday afternoon for me.
Try to watch two films a week on TV. Recents, both seen previously on the big screen, were Wind River and Three Billboards.
I do fall asleep during theatre productions.
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Someone I worked with in the 70s - her partner was in the English National Opera chorus and she got us tickets to see the Magic Flute.
I hope I didn't snore too loudly!!
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My ex-wife was into going to operas and the ballet. Opera is ok, they make enough noise to keep you awake but ballet is a real challenge...
;-)
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Film attention span - sooty123
