Saturday, March 13, 2010

Repossesed: I want my 2 hours back

I watch movies all the way through. I rarely, rarely give up on a movie. It can be really bad, I can know that it's cheesy, sappy or not fine drama, but I'll still watch it. Some might say this means I'm not discerning enough in my taste. But I disagree. I will watch the movie before I pass judgement on it. If I come across a movie on TV and it doesn't catch my interest, I'll turn the channel. But if I rented it or paid for a ticket, I'm gonna watch the dang thing. The only movie I've ever truly given up on was Event Horizon. I walked out of the theater when they strung up a man by his skin - because then it became torture porn (and that was way before movies like Saw existed and torture porn was even a term).

But I should have stopped watching one other movie. Repo: the Genetic Opera. The name alone should have given me pause. I was only interested because Anthony Stuart Head form Buffy fame was in it. And the trailer made it look like it could be real campy fun - a B-movie cult fave. So I rented it - of course I didn't see it in the theater because it didn't come out in the theater here. And a good 10 minutes in, I said "What the hell is this and why am I still watching it?" I tried to give it a go because of the guy in it and I thought it would get better - it did not get better! But I stuck it through to the end and announced out loud to my empty living room, "I can't believe I just watched that piece of crap all the way through." But I didn't stop watching, because that's what I do.

And now I see commercials for Repo Men. Featuring who? The lovely Jude Law and Forest Whitaker. And hmm... sounds like it has a very, very similar plot to Repo: the Genetic Opera. Organs are sold by a huge corporation. When people can't pay the debt, the organs are repossessed. Sounds the same. Maybe Repo Men is banking on the fact that no one saw Genetic Opera. And morbid though it may be, this story could be well done. . Of course Genetic Opera had other bizarre plot lines which added to it's demise (let's not forget it was a rock opera - perhaps I should have known better by that fact alone). So now here is Repo Men, and I'm wondering if this one will actually work. It has higher caliber actors, no offense Giles, but Jude and Forrest are better and it has an intriguing story. Is it a theater movie? Hardly anything is for me these days. Why? Because I have a huge television cable package and I wait for movies to come out on premium channels. I only go to the theater for the films that really matter to me. I think Repo Men has a shot and I'll be fine watching the whole thing through - when it hits HBO that is.

3 comments:

Lindle said...

Girl, it's okay to quit a movie. You don't OWE it anything. Someone has already profited on its production, and if you can tell you need to be put out of your misery from watching it, do the brave thing....walk away...walk away...or mute the dialogue and just WATCH Jude Law.

Mil said...

rock operas are tough to pull off in general. I guess Giles singing would have pulled me in, too. Thanks for teaching me the term torture porn.

CrystieEwen said...

Event Horizon - I was reading this and said, I only walked out of one movie too - wait, we went to that movie together!