I think…

nothing makes me angrier than masses of people walking out of a movie I’m trying to watch.

Now, I’ve seen people walk out of movies before… Napoleon Dynamite, most recently… but that was a group of kids too young to enjoy it, and I was actually thankful they left before they all got bored and started talking. I remember in particular several people exiting Very Bad Things just after the hooker took a towel-hook in the back of the head and the movie turned awry. I even recall seeing many people, understandably sickened, leave Born on the Fourth of July.

So I’ll amend that to nothing makes me angrier than masses of people walking out an hour into a pretty damned good movie without any obvious reason… Couples. Families. No murmurs. No nothing… just an exodus. Like… one couple got up and suddenly other people went, Thank God, now we can go, too.

Did you people just pick something at random and walk in? Surprised by the subtitles? Well, why wait an hour… did you think you might suddenly learn to speak Chinese? Offended somebody finally got stabbed in a sword fight? Again, you’ve been watching sword fights for an hour… how slow are you? Or, perhaps someone spiked the cola products at the concession stand and suddenly everyone “had to go…”

Oh, and nothing like a visually stunning 2000 years-ago China scene being punctuated by a ringing cell phone. Geez, people, been going to movies long?

Do I have to even say that we just saw Hero and, despite the many annoyances, loved it. Very glad it didn’t come out on the heals of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon two years ago, with the visual style being so similar. If anything, this was even more beautifully shot.

But, word of warning… if you didn’t like Crouching Tiger… don’t go see this. Quentin Tarantino’s name being attached means nothing. He had no influence on this film, writing or directing. Only an appreciation for it and desire to share it with the free world.