Mailbag: The Movies We Walked Out Of

Aisha and Stephen answer a mailbag question! Send in your own questions at [email protected], and we may answer it in a future bonus episode. This usually would be a bonus episode just for Pop Culture Happy Hour+ supporters, but this being the season of giving, we're sharing this one with everyone! To hear more bonus content like this every month and to support NPR and public radio, sign up for Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:15Stephen Thompson?

  Hey, it's Stephen Thompson. Just a quick thing before we start. This is a special bonus episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour. Usually, these Mailbag episodes are just for our very special Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus supporters. But in the spirit of the season, we thought we'd give everyone a sneak peek into the fun we're having with these every month. If you're already a Plus supporter, thank you so much. It means a lot to us. But if you're not yet, we hope you'll consider joining. It's a great way to support NPR and public media. Go to plus.npr.org/happy to join now. OK, here's the episode.

• 0:56Aisha Harris?

  What's a movie we hated so much that we walked out on it? We've got another question from a listener in our Mailbag today. I'm Aisha Harris.

• 1:04Stephen Thompson?

  And I'm Stephen Thompson. We are here to talk about the things that make us give up on a movie in this bonus episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

• 1:13Aisha Harris?

  All right. Well, we are, of course, back with another episode just for you, our special Plus supporters. Thank you for being supporters. You've been sending in all your questions for us, Core Four, and today Stephen and I are going to tackle another one. Are you ready, Stephen?

• 1:28Stephen Thompson?

  Ayesha, I am so ready.

• 1:30Aisha Harris?

  Yes, this is a-- I think it's a fun question. Today's question is from Kelly E., and Kelly asked, have you ever walked out on a movie? And if so, what was it? OK, Stephen, I need to know. What was it?

• 1:45Stephen Thompson?

  So, Ayesha, I am a dead-ender.

• 1:48Aisha Harris?

  Ooh.

• 1:49Stephen Thompson?

  First of all, totally, like, putting this out there upfront, I've been doing Pop Culture Happy Hour for more than 15 years. And certainly--

• 2:00Stephen Thompson?

  Have never come close to walking out of a movie that I was seeing for work. If I'm seeing something for work, I'm a dead ender. Maybe like, once the credits start rolling, I'm like, I'm not staying to see if there's a closing scene. That is the extent of my of, it's not the extent of my spite, nothing can contain my spite. But it takes an emergency for me to even get up and go to the bathroom during a movie that I'm seeing for work. I really, I really don't like to miss anything. So the list of movies that I've walked out on, it's extremely short and it's kind of embarrassing. Because the only reason that I've ever walked out or seriously considered walking out

• 2:41Stephen Thompson?

  is more based on the traumatic nature of the content than the quality of the film. I would love to be able to say, I walked out of Cats, that movie stunk. But that, but I, but I stayed arms folded and didn't miss a thing. Even if I had been seeing it for pleasure, I wouldn't have walked out. There's one movie I almost walked out on and one movie I did walk out on, and they're both classics.

• 3:08Aisha Harris?

  Let's, let's hear it. I need to hear.

• 3:10Stephen Thompson?

  So the one I almost walked out on was Slumdog Millionaire.

• 3:14Aisha Harris?

  Oh, interesting.

• 3:16Stephen Thompson?

  Slumdog Millionaire, Oscar winner, Best Picture. Had been billed to the world, I was not seeing it for work. Had been billed to the world as a colorful, dynamic romp, full of magical dance routines and, and bright joy. And the first forty five minutes are children being tortured.

• 3:36Aisha Harris?

  Okay, yes, I vaguely remember that aspect of it.

• 3:39Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, not my favorite, not my favorite thing to sit through. I, I was like, did I walk into the wrong movie? What are people talking about? And eventually it kind of pivots to the game show and then it's fun and fine. But like, there is so much scene setting of children being exploited and tortured. And the person I was with at the theater and I were like, should we leave? This is excruciating. And I, you know, we stuck it out, stayed, ultimately was like, okay, I, I see what people are talking about. But boy, those first forty five minutes are pretty rough. The movie I did walk out on, and, and I will say, I was like eighteen or nineteen at the time. I was on a date. The movie I walked out on was A Clockwork Orange.

• 4:25Stephen Thompson?

  It was a campus screening of A Clockwork Orange at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in like 1990 or 91. Like Campus Film Society was showing it. I'm like, oh, I've heard good things about this A Clockwork Orange. Didn't know anything about it.

• 4:40Aisha Harris?

  You never had to read the book in school?

• 4:43Stephen Thompson?

  No.

• 4:43Aisha Harris?

  Oh, okay.

• 4:44Stephen Thompson?

  Ayesha, if I could get out of reading a book, I will find a way. And, and, and so I was like, well, you know, it, it, you know, there were posters of it up in people's dorm rooms. It was like a cool thing and I was like, kind of trying to catch up on stuff I'd missed. And what I, what I didn't know and didn't realize was of course, very early in that movie, there is a giant crime spree, which includes a brutal sexual assault.

• 5:07Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 5:08Stephen Thompson?

  And my date and I did not want to watch that and walked out on the movie. And, and you know, I feel like a, a very, very bad cinephile for admitting that, you know, because obviously not only is it a classic movie, but it's a classic movie that is endlessly referenced in other culture. It is, it's an embarrassing movie to say you walked out on and I wouldn't admit it if I weren't specifically tasked with the assignment of telling our Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus subscribers what movie I've walked out on. But that is and remains the only movie I've ever walked out on.

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• 7:19Aisha Harris?

  Wow. Okay, so Slumdog Millionaire, I have not seen since it came out. I do remember liking it, although the soundtrack slaps. Love the soundtrack.

• 7:28Stephen Thompson?

  The soundtrack totally slaps.

• 7:29Aisha Harris?

  Have listened to that many times. And A Clockwork Orange, I feel like you have a good reason for that because it is a difficult watch. I love that movie. I actually recently rewatched it again when I was in Amsterdam and a local theater was showing it. I was like, oh, I haven't seen this in forever. I want to go see it. And I think it still holds up. I think you should give it another chance, Stephen.

• 7:50Stephen Thompson?

  I'm not sitting here folding my arms like, that movie's bad.

• 7:53Aisha Harris?

  No, I know, but like, I don't know. It just feels very relevant. I mean, even then it did, but it's so good. And anyway, I am with you, Stephen, on the whole, I'm a dead-ender. I'm the same exact way about bathroom breaks. If it's the first time I'm seeing a movie, I will, no matter how bad my stomach might be kicking me, I will sit there. The one exception I had most recently was when I saw the Mission Impossible.

• 8:22Stephen Thompson?

  Who knows? I assume there are like 20 words and six colons.

• 8:28Aisha Harris?

  Basically, that movie's like so, so long, and I knew it was going to be long, and I had to go. And I was like, you know what? Nothing is happening in this movie, so I'm probably not going to miss anything by going for five seconds. The one time I've walked out was Avatar, The Way of Water. Yes.

• 8:44Stephen Thompson?

  Wow.

• 8:45Aisha Harris?

  Okay, so, so I hated the first Avatar.

• 8:48Stephen Thompson?

  You never learned the way of water.

• 8:49Aisha Harris?

  Uh, well, no, that, hold on there, I did, I had to. Uh, Avatar, The Way of Water. And I had, I didn't go to a press screening beforehand and, uh, it was Christmas Day, my partner and I were just like, uh, so why don't we just go to a movie, there's not much to do, like, let's just go to the movie. Oh, and they're showing it in 4DX near us. I was like, if I'm gonna see this movie, at least it'll be an experience. Go there, had our drinks, sitting in the seats, and did not realize, this is my first 4DX experience, did not think about the, the consequences of having a drink while sitting in seats that move. And it was like the most miserable experience, plus the movie was boring, and about an hour in, I was like, this is not fun.

• 9:31Aisha Harris?

  Let's go, I wanna spend my Christmas doing anything but this. So we left. And it was great. We got, we got some Indian food afterward, it was, it's lovely. Of course, I did wind up having to see it later because, um, as listeners may-

• 9:43Stephen Thompson?

  It's nominated for Best Picture and it's the Pop Culture Happy Hour law.

• 9:46Aisha Harris?

  Yes, yes, so our law here at Pop Culture Happy Hour is if it's nominated for Best Picture, we do have to watch it. And so I wound up watching it at home, I got a press screener of it later on. I, I mean, it had a lot to do with not actually liking the movie, but it also had to do with all these other factors. And I think that's like where I come down to, which is why the two that I came so close to, uh, walking out of, they really kind of proved my point of like, I will sit through pretty much anything, no matter what. And I will also do this at home too, like, once I start a movie at home, I also, for the most part, will not stop it. Mother, exclamation point.

• 10:20Stephen Thompson?

  Oh, man, I saw that in a theater.

• 10:22Aisha Harris?

  Yes. I saw that in 2017, this is of course the Darren Aronofsky movie, Aronofsky doing his like, take on Rosemary's Baby, with Jennifer Lawrence.

• 10:32Stephen Thompson?

  I couldn't quite spot the metaphor in that movie.

• 10:36Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, I will never forget though. My partner and I were visiting London at the time, staying in an Airbnb that was right across the street from this historic movie theater in Brixton. It's called the Ritzy Picture House. And I was like, anytime I'm traveling outside of the country, I try to go to a movie theater to just like get that experience. And so Mother was playing, I went into it, you know, hear it, having heard about it. I was, I think 45 minutes in, we both looked at each other and we're like, oh my God, what are we doing? But we stayed through the whole thing. Also, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, I almost walked out of. I hate that movie. I have such a hard time with late era Malick. Honestly, you could replace Tree of Life with also Night of Cups, Song to Song.

• 11:20Aisha Harris?

  Like, I almost walked out of all of them in a theater.

• 11:22Stephen Thompson?

  I mean, The Tree of Life is not speedable.

• 11:25Aisha Harris?

  Well, once we got to the dinosaurs, I was like, oh my God, what is happening? And again, it comes down to, both of those movies are kind of experimental. They're, well, in Terrence Malick's case, they're very slow. And in Mother's case, it's just like, for Mother, remember, it's just like chaos, chaos, chaos, violence, violence, violence, and just a lot of screaming and awful things happening. And that's not a pleasant experience for me. But at the same time, I kind of want to see what's going to happen, like where this is going to lead, and I am a completist. And so I will finish, I will finish those movies. And I don't know how you feel about this, Stephen, but like, I'm less, I'm absolutely less dogmatic about this when it comes to TV shows. Like, I will.

• 12:08Stephen Thompson?

  Oh, Aisha.

• 12:09Aisha Harris?

  It's different.

• 12:10Stephen Thompson?

  I will drop out of a TV show at the slightest provocation.

• 12:14Aisha Harris?

  Unless we're covering for work.

• 12:15Stephen Thompson?

  And never go back.

• 12:16Aisha Harris?

  That's the exception.

• 12:17Stephen Thompson?

  Again, unless we're covering it for work. But very often, a show that I will watch, you know, super diligently, right up to when we tape the episode, the frequency with which I have never gone back, is really, really high. I do think it's interesting, Aisha, that when we're talking about movies we walked out on, or came very close to walking out on, we're talking about films by some enormously acclaimed and accomplished filmmakers. I walked out on Kubrick and almost walked out on Danny Boyle.

• 12:46Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Stephen Thompson?

  You walked out on James Cameron and almost walked out on Darren Aronofsky and Terrence Malick. I just think, it's just interesting that it's like, like you sat there, arms folded, through the entirety of baby geniuses.

• 13:03Aisha Harris?

  Well, I, I think I just have a lower tolerance for like, directors who are quote unquote auteurs, who film bros especially love to salivate over, and who to me make things that are either completely inscrutable and/or are just really kind of boring and slow. And, and I, and I hate to like be that person, but like also these movies, especially Avatar, and from what I remember of Tree of Life, they are two plus hours long. So it's like you are asking-

• 13:32Stephen Thompson?

  Oh yeah, both Avatar and Tree of Life are very long.

• 13:35Aisha Harris?

  Right, so you're demanding a lot of my attention. And I see them because I feel like I have to, because they are the quote unquote auteurs. But I should have, I really should have known going into Mother, at least that like that was just not going to be my joke. Cause I have never been an Aronofsky person. Like Black Swan is fine. Uh, I, that is one I do think I need to revisit, but like, everything else he's done has just not been for me. And Terrence Malick post, I don't know, really post the, the eighties, I've just kind of struggled with. So I, I'm curious if, if other people have the same sort of, uh, measurement, or if they have standards. Cause you and I don't really have any like-

• 14:15Stephen Thompson?

  Standards.

• 14:15Aisha Harris?

  Rules about how we do it.

• 14:18Aisha Harris?

  Well, it's just like, it, it just feels like you, if you pay the money, or if like-

• 14:22Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, there's, there's an element of sunk costs.

• 14:24Aisha Harris?

  Absolutely sunk cost theory. Yeah.

• 14:26Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, with movies where it's like if I got up and like parked and like cleared the time in my schedule, I think the, the factors that would be the likeliest to cause me to walk out of a movie that thankfully have never happened, at least so far as of this taping, are things like if I got a text with a family emergency, if I suddenly had some sort of medical crisis.

• 14:47Aisha Harris?

  Right, right.

• 14:48Stephen Thompson?

  You know, if, if I somehow very foolishly, I, I have pretty strict rules about not going into movies, uh, having had drinks, and certainly anything I'm seeing for work, I'm going to go into with a clear head.

• 15:00Aisha Harris?

  Right.

• 15:00Stephen Thompson?

  But if I, yeah, if I'd had a few drinks and the seat was shaking, the way that it sounds like it was for Avatar, I could see situations where I felt I had to walk out.

• 15:10Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 15:10Stephen Thompson?

  But I think, I think I'm pretty big into the whole sunk cost thing.

• 15:13Aisha Harris?

  Sunk cost. And the last thing I'll say about this is, is for me- Can I judge something if I haven't seen the whole thing of it? And if I want to say that this movie is bad for whatever reason, then I feel like I have to have seen it all the way through and seen how it ends and how the director carried it through.

• 15:34Stephen Thompson?

  Well, if it's a bad movie, I want to be able to talk smack about it.

• 15:36Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 15:37Stephen Thompson?

  I don't want somebody to be like, the last 10 minutes of Cats are amazing. Like, if that's, you know? I don't want to, I don't want to miss a thing.

• 15:45Aisha Harris?

  Yeah. In the words of Aerosmith, you don't want, you don't want to miss a thing. Well, those are the movies we walked out on and almost walked out on. And if you have any more questions for us, you can bring us your best cultural debate or ask us something you've always wanted to know about the show. Write us at [email protected] and we may answer your question in a future bonus episode. Again, our email is [email protected]. That brings us to the end of our show. Stephen, thanks so much for being here.

• 16:17Stephen Thompson?

  Thank you.

• 16:18Aisha Harris?

  And thank you again for being a Plus supporter. It truly, absolutely does make a difference for us. This episode was produced by Chow Tu and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hallo Cummin provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris and we'll be back with another bonus episode next month.

• 16:43Speaker 00

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