Movie Walk Out!

[retsuko]

There's an interesting essay over on The Onion's A.V. Club page about whether you should be able to ask for a refund from a theater if you don't like the movie. I've never, ever walked out of a movie, although I have received refunds and free tickets from a theater when there were projector problems (in the case of one of the "The Mummy" films,

Comments

[dormouse_in_tea]

generally speaking i would not expect a refund. the sole exception i can come up with is if the rating and trailers were deeply flawed, "tricking" me into seeing a movie that triggered pshychological issues, AND the film had been out long enough that i could expect the theater to be aware of this, because that would make them complicit.

i have no examples, but think this most likely to happen with one of the modern "kids movies"

[retsuko]

I guess I can understand that. My beef with the ratings system comes from the disproportionate ratings for sex and violence; violence gets far too much of a free pass, in my opinion. (And American movies love to show the violence with none of the consequences.) But now that I type this, I'm hard-pressed to come up with an example, as well (the recent brouhaha over "Blue Valentine" comes to mind, but that's more in regards to sex, not violence.)

Edit to ask: what movie did you walk out of?

[dormouse_in_tea]

i walked out of THe Cell. Thought I could handle it. Thought wwong!

[retsuko]

Oh, yeah. Knowing what that movie is, I have never had any desire to see it. I couldn't have handled it on the big screen at all, and the small screen? Still probably not.

[retsuko]

Ha ha, yes, there have been movies like that ("Snakes on a Plane", I'm looking your way) and I knew it was my own damn fault for buying a ticket in the first place. It was stupidly entertaining, but that is two hours of my life wasted.

[retsuko]

True! Most rom-coms make me feel that way.

[wshaffer]

I see movies in the theater so rarely that if I've actually bothered to get to a movie theater, it's usually for something that I'm committed to seeing. (I did consider walking out of "The Ghost Writer" when I remembered during the opening credits that it was directed by Roman Polanski, but since I wasn't prepared to demand a refund from the theater on the grounds that I'd accidentally paid to see a movie by someone I had decided not to give more of my money to, I figured I was stuck for it and might as well stay to see the film

[retsuko]

So, was "The Ghost Writer" worth it? I saw "Rosemary's Baby" a while back and loved it, but my feelings about Roman Polanski are pretty much akin to yours, and I definitely won't be paying to see any of his films again.

For kids, especially, I think this is an important point. I've seen far too many adults making their children sit through a movie that's inappropriate. Having a baby now, I can understand the desperate urge to something that is not 100% kid-focused all the time, but there are a lot of "children's movies" that aren't actually kid-friendly, and I can definitely understand asking for a refund for those.

[wshaffer]

As something of a British politics junkie, I loved the whole secret-history/conspiracy theory look at the political career of a fictional British prime minister who was clearly meant to be Tony Blair. Even setting that aside, I thought it was a smart and cleverly plotted thriller, though I had some issues with the ending. Had it been directed by anyone else, I'd have no compunctions about urging everyone to see it.

[blencathra]

I would have walked out of Titanic if I had been able to. As it was I was trapped in the middle of a row in a crowded cinema & unable to move.

Titanic is still up there as the worst movie I've ever seen, but has been joined recently by Twilight. Though at least the latter was a borrowed DVD so I hadn't forked out any money.

But I have to say I wouldn't have dreamed of asking for my money back. I think it's my problem if I didn't like it. Obviously many, many people loved both those films! However, i would ask for my money back if there were technical problems.

[retsuko]

I want to high-five you right now; I hated Titanic, too, but I was in a horribly crowded theater and seemed to be the only one not enjoying myself! People were in tears around me, and I was glancing at my watch and rolling my eyes. And, yeah, Twilight. So boring. "Eclipse" was so dull that I couldn't even find things to snark at, and it was not improved by alcohol, either (we were watching it on DVD at home.) :p

[rhiannon76]

Heh, I saw a free showing of "Titanic" at Smith the year I worked as an RC, and I just remember people all around me were sniffling or even bawling for what seemed like an hour before the damn thing ended. My friend and I, on the other hand, were trying our hardest not to laugh too loudly at how ridiculously overwrought it all was.

In general, I feel that it's not the theater's fault if I don't like a movie that I paid to see, and I've never considered asking for a refund. I've also never walked out of anything, though I really wanted to walk out of "Dogville", which was the worst piece of rape-culture-dressed-up-as-high-art shit that I've ever seen. (I didn't, because I was with someone who wanted to see it; and I knew nothing about the film beforehand, hadn't even heard of it until my companion suggested it when we were trying to pick a movie to go watch.)

I have a perverse, schadenfreude-filled love of the Twilight films, but I have to go to them with hecubuscathead and we have to heckle the entire way through. (It helps if you've read cleolinda's

[sioneva]

I won't pay money for the Twilight films, but I do like watching them to heckle ;) Haven't seen Eclipse yet but I suppose I'll watch it when it comes out on cable.

Very much looking forward to the last one, because dude, that book was screwed up and even a sanitized version of it has to be bad!

[sioneva]

Unless there's a technical fault, my opinion with films is that you pays yer money, you takes yer chances, so to speak. If it's a crappy film, well, blame the studio (and yourself for probably ignoring all the critical reviews that said it was a crappy film).

I don't offer to pay them extra if I loved the movie, so why ask for a refund if it was crappy?