Top 5 Tuesday – Movies You Regret Seeing in the Theater

Everyone loves lists.  Top Tens, Billboard Top 200, Bottom Ten, Top 100, etc.  It is inherent and ingrained in our human nature to take the chaos around us and put it in some sort of orderly fashion.  Every Tuesday, Josh lists his Top 5 movies based on an actor, genre, director, theme, holiday, sandwich or general whimsy and posts it for your consumption and discussion.  If you want to submit your own list you can email Josh at J.A.Crabb22@gmail.com with the subject line, “RWT Top 5 Tuesday”, give a short 50-100 word description of the theme and your choices, you could end up seeing your list right here!

TOP 5 MOVIES YOU REGRET SEEING IN THEATERS

Now I know this will be a bit of a sensitive subject.  We have all seen movies we didn’t like.  We have all seen movies we walked out on (am I alone on that one?).  But do we actually regret not seeing them in the theaters?  Not so long ago you didn’t have the choice.  Now you can wait for it on DVD or VOD and it’s not that long of a wait.

However, I know that some of you have movies that you wish you could have walked out on but couldn’t, or movies you wish you could lobby for your money back.  So, without further ado, it is my great privilege to being you the Top 5 movies I (Josh) regret having seen at a local cinema.

5) God’s Not Dead – I’ve spent a lot of air and keystrokes talking about this movie.  I regret seeing this in the theater since I was wincing at some of the more painful parts of this movie and having to endure it in order to give thoughtful exposition.  It is one thing to see a bad movie, it is another thing to see a movie that makes you squirm because what you are seeing on the screen is supposed to be a filmmakers best attempt at showing the world what Christians are like.  That is horrible, and painful, and is not an experience I would like to relive.  Next time, in the comfort of my home.  Or not at all.

4) Glory Road – This movie wasn’t necessarily the reason I regret going to the theater to see it.  Glory Road was a pretty forgettable movie based on a really good story about the Western Kentucky basketball team that won the NCAA National Championship in 1967.  The significant thing about this team is that all five starters on the team were African-American players.  It’s not a bad movie when it comes to the story, however, like I said, it is really not memorable in any way and I don’t remember anything beyond the basic premise and plot and that they win the National Championship over a Adolph Rupp coached all-white Kentucky team.

What made this a regrettable movie going experience is that my wife and I saw this movie with newlywed friends of ours who spent the whole movie snuggling, kidding, and generally making the whole movie experience insufferable.  I love this couple dearly, but no friend should be subjected to watching and listening to their friends making out in a situation where you cannot get out of it.  The movie theater functioned more as a prison where I was subjected to two hours of basketball, making out, and sticky floors.  I couldn’t even eat my DOTS in peace!  Outrage!

So, kind readers, if subjected to this, fly you fool!  If you are a perpetrator of this, we cannot be friends.

3) Planet of the Apes (2001) – We all love Tim Burton for bringing Batman into popular culture, as well as giving us a kind-hearted, scissor-handed man; a wise-cracking, ghost Michael Keaton; and a Claymation holiday classic.  His vision has been imaginative, other-worldly, and beautiful, and some of his movies are forever remembered for their stylistic inventiveness and great execution of that style.

However, Tim Burton has forever lodged into popular culture the horrible re-boot of this Hollywood classic.   It is a great re-imaging of the movie from a visual standpoint (the makeup is amazing) but the movie’s narrative and vision takes horrible liberties with the original movie as well as having terrible performance from Mark Wahlberg…and everyone else.  You think comic book and superhero nerds would be unforgiving if he had tarnished Batman; imagine the ire of critics and the surprising number of Planet of the Apes fans.  And the ending?  Look up stupid in the dictionary, read it, then close the dictionary and pulverize your skull with it and this is less traumatic on your brain than the ending of this movie.

I saw this movie on vacation in Florida with my family in 2001 when it came out, and even at the tender age of 17 I knew how dumb this ending was and how it abused the original classic.  When I got around to watching all previous Planet of the Apes movies before Dawn of the Planet of the Apes came out, I skipped this movie out of mercy for myself and to preserve this movie experience as a warning for my present and future self.  That actually sounds like a better movie that Burton’s re-make.

2) Freddy vs. Jason – I saw this movie over the summer of 2003 on a date, not at my own request.  It is well-known that I don’t like scary movies, and I don’t like Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween.  However, it was neither the young lady in my company nor the fact that I don’t like scary movies that I regret seeing this movie.  No, it was a much more sinister reason.

And that reason is…the movie is boring and predictable.  This has informed my dislike of today’s horror films not because I dislike the gore and violence, but because a lot of them are really, really stupid.  This movie locks firmly into that category.  From the predictable deaths to the horrible story and terrible acting, the movie made me mad because it was just straight up terrible.  I will admit that this read more like an action movie at times, especially the Freddy and Jason fighting, but it is not good action.  Just no good, and a terrible date movie…still not sure why we saw this…

1) The Blair Witch Project – 

I couldn’t think of a good number one, something that might resonate with many, so I employed the cinema brain of Reel World Theology founder and all around movie Opinionator, Mikey “Fizz” Fissel.  His one and only suggestion, after blanching at the idea of regretting seeing a movie in the theaters, was The Blair Witch Project.  Immediately, lights and buzzers and other steampunk knick-knacks went off in my brain and I remembered he and I had discussed this movie previously and we both shared stories of being angry at this movie when it came out in 1999.  See previous illustration of stupid from Planet of the Apes and then multiply it by seven skull bashings.

I really don’t want to share why I didn’t like this movie, since this movie was so popular when it came out and opinions are mixed on if this movie was culturally significant or not.  However, I will always remember seeing this movie with my best friends whole family and when it ended, Bob, my best friend’s dad and one of the coolest dad’s ever, said, “That’s it?!” as loud as he could.  He hated this movie as much as Fizz did (he walked out in anger).  Needless to say, I would love to hear what ya’ll think of this movie, since I have heard very differing opinions on this movie.  Keep the conversation going and let us know about this movie or tell us a story about a movie you saw that you regret seeing in the theater.