comment #1

George Prager says ...

Dwight MacDonald walked out on THE SOUND OF MUSIC and lived to write about in ESQUIRE.

comment #2

Josh Massey says ...

I don't think walking out of a movie is a problem. The problem comes when the critic still reviews it afterward.

comment #3

Rod32303 says ...

I agree with Josh. Walk out if you must (and sometimes I know you gotta - shit, I have) but don't review it...because you didn't stay to the bitter end...sometimes folk walk out at the halfway point,and some films can turn on a dime.

Kael was a goddess as far as I am concerned. She LOVED movies, and when you read her reviews (her TOMB of a book, "At The Movies" is a must for cinephiles), you know how much she loved them.

I get the same feeling from Wells most of the time.

comment #4

Walter Sobchak says ...

Only movies I ever walked out on.... "To Be or Not to Be" with Mel Brooks... (I was young and thought it would be like "Blazing Saddles"... it wasn't... besides, "Sudden Impact" was next door)... and "Spaceballs".... Yes, geeky fan-boys, I said "Spaceballs"... that movie was an unfunny pile of shit, even if it was a parody of "like, the greatest movie EVER!"

Mel Brooks lost it in a hurry.

comment #5

Fassler says ...

The last movie I WANTED to walk out of was Miami: Vice. I wanted to leave the theater so badly but couldn't because I was there with friends. If not I would've headed for the exit.

Aside from that, the last film I truly did walk out of was PIRATES 3, not so much because it was bad, but because it was so unbelievably boring. I also managed to leave before Keira Knightley became the pirate queen, so I think I got the good end of the deal.

comment #6

corey3rd says ...

walking out of a movie used to be a drastic step because that was the only thing playing. now you walk out of the theater and there's 19 other choices.

Critics walking out of a film isn't nearly as bad as certain major critics that fall asleep during films and then give rave reviews to the movies. Guess the film made better sense when heard through your THXSnore.

comment #7

Mark says ...

i wanted so bad to walk out on Fat Girl 2/3rds in, decided against it, and regretted it ever since. if any were around, i would have thrown tomatoes at the screen showing end credits, and i have a pretty good arm.

comment #8

dangovich says ...

Wind From the East/Le Vent d'Est (1970). Jean Luc Godard.

That movie was absolute torture. I wanted so much to leave. But it was my French Cinema class and the professor would have noticed.

comment #9

Larry says ...

Janet Maslin couldn't take the orignal Dawn Of The Dead and walked out after 15 minutes. She still reviewed it, but at least admitted she was reviewing it from the lobby.

Later, though, fellow New York Times critic Vincent Canby sat through the film and said Maslin was right. I've hated the Times ever since.

comment #10

erniesouchak says ...

Mailer is a highly erratic artists -- sometimes great, sometimes wretched. I've given up on a number of his books well ahead of their conclusions.

comment #11

Mr.ROACH says ...

The article caused me to grab the paperback of Maidstone off my shelf. I've never seen the film, however the book contains the full script, a combined account of the filming, production stills, and Mailer's "A Course in Filmmaking". Haven't read this since '71, but I will today.

comment #12

Doug Pratt says ...

The Kael story about Raise the Titanic may be apocryphal. I heard it with the exact same words, except that the movie was Fellini Casanova.

comment #13

christian says ...

she did walk out of the monkees HEAD -- and missed one of the best counterculture films of the 60's.

comment #14

berg says ...

IN the last 10 days I have noticed these walk-outs: At a screeing of SEVENTH SEAL, about the midway point 5 or 6 people walked out of an aud of a least 145 ... the other night I was watching Superbad a second time, and a soccer mom grabbed her daughter and left the theater - during the scene in the last reel of the film where Evan and Becca are getting it on ... she waited until that moment?

comment #15

bmcintire says ...

I can't even remember the name of the sole movie I have walked out on. Some horrible 90's South American feature (shot horribly on video) about a group a pedophiles and their boys. The opening scenes were pretty much these men "shopping for chicken" in some dilapidated hotel. Completely disgusting (and critically praised) and I think my date and I lasted all of twelve minutes. For the life of me I couldn't find it on Amazon or imdb, which is probably all for the better.

comment #16

lazespud says ...

The only movie I've walked out on was World Trade Center. I was with a friend and we sat through about 45 minuutes of that earnest piece of shite. Neither one of us made a comment during the time, didn't stir, didn't let on that either one of us thought it sucked. But at one point my buddy looked a me and I blurted out "you want to get the f out of here?" and then we left. I just don't understand how that movie could have gotten any better to deserve the positive reveiws that the movie seemed to garner...

comment #17

ArchiveGuy says ...

The only film I walked out of was Michael Snow's "Rameau's Nephew". Given that it was 4-hours and I left during the intermission (and it was, and remains, the worst movie I ever saw in my entire life), my conscience was completely clear.