Day #21 of the 30 Day Film Challenge

[shadowkat]

Day #21 of 30 Day Film Challenge

The prompt is A Film that you dozed off in

Watch on YouTube

I not only dozed off - I fell asleep. It was at least on my television set - rented, not in the movie theater. I don't fall asleep in movie theaters.
And I didn't just fall asleep once. I rewound it, and did it again.

Comments

[cactuswatcher]

I thought you might change this prompt, but I'm glad you didn't.

The only time I fell asleep at a theater was the time I mentioned before when I was very young at the drive-in. It was past my bedtime and Dumbo which I wanted to see was long over.

These days the sound is so loud at indoor theaters, I'm surprised anyone can sleep. But I know they do, including our ATPo friend Ann1962, who seems to like to burn the midnight oil and who reported falling asleep at movies fairly frequently. In fact, it was the source of one of the great movie put downs of all time in my opinion. She accidently switched "sleep" for "stay awake" in a review of movie she'd just seen and I laughed for days. She said something like, "The movie was pretty good, except for the parts I didn't sleep through."

I don't so much go to sleep during movies I watch on TV as "zone out," stop paying any attention to the screen and do other things sitting with the movie playing in front of me. It must have done it hundreds of times over the years, and frequently something would happen on screen that would pull me back. Sometimes though, I'd look up and there was something else on entirely. Most times it wasn't worth mentioning. But I do particularly remember hearing about a movie with Marlon Brando that I wanted to watch, staying up late to watch it then zoning out and deciding to go to bed. Then maybe a few years later deciding I really wanted to try to watch it again, and basically zoning out that time so badly I couldn't tell you what happened when it was over even though the plot was pretty obvious. Here it is: Marlon (I coulda been a contender) Brando, Michael (Gort, Klatu barada niktu) Rennie and Jean (Save a Soul Mission) Simmons in Desiree, the story of Napoleon's one-time girlfriend and eventual Queen of Sweden. It might be a great Romance movie, but it was totally wasted on me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS3IZ670r0A

[shadowkat]

Yeah, I decided not too - I knew the answer to the prompt when I started the meme and was waiting eagerly for it.

Desiree: I never heard of that movie or the book, yet the trailer acts as if it is the most well-known acclaimed novel in the world.

I'd have fallen asleep during it too. It looks horrible. They probably wanted to capitalize on the screen chemistry Brando and Simmons had in Guys and Dolls. (Brando never appealed to me that much as an actor for some reason...)

Do you remember what movie it was that ann1962 was reviewing? I do remember that review though.

[cactuswatcher]

No, I don't remember what movie Ann saw. Probably just as well, since she really didn't intend to dis it. ;o)

There was a time when having seen him in On the Water Front, and as Mark Antony in a 1950s version of Julius Caesar Brando was one of my favorite actors. But he got a big head, and except for the Godfather he didn't show much good acting skills for a long time. By the time you were old enough to pick your own movies he was pretty far gone.

Actually, Guys and Dolls came after Desiree so someone must have thought they looked good together.

[shadowkat]

Interesting. Brando was an interesting actor. Very good in films like "Streetcar Named Desire", "Guys & Dolls", "On the Water Front", and "The Godfather", but he despised acting and everything associated with it. He just happened to be very good at it - and couldn't do anything else.

Hollywood kind of ate him alive. He was a sensitive soul - and fame is toxic. I saw the Brando documentary - and it's painful. He was addicted to food and used it to deal with pain. And could not lose weight as a result.

Also he was in the studio system - and didn't get to pick a lot of his own movies - like you said. So ended up getting a lot of roles he hated and basically walked through.

[cjlasky7]

As much as I admire Federico Fellini for masterpieces like 8-1/2, La Dolce Vita and La Strada, his Satyricon (1969), bored me senseless. A triumph of set design? Maybe. But a parade of human grotesqueries, mass gluttony and un-erotic orgies--with little to no plot behind it (or interesting characters to center it)--loses its ability to titillate pretty quickly.

https://youtu.be/8i9Z7r8dAFo

[shadowkat]

I give you credit for making it through any of his movies. Fellini tends to put me to sleep. He may be a master per a lot of cinemaphiles - but his appeal is frankly lost on me. Although I did stay awake during the musical adaptation of 8 1/2 - entitled 9, starring Daniel Day Lewis. Nine.

[petzipellepingo]

The first Iron Man . Never even tried to watch the other two after that.

[shadowkat]

Reminding me of my mother who fell asleep during The Last Jedi. I'd think it would be too noisy. Apparently not.

[tellshannon815]

The one I fell asleep in was Memento, although I think that was more about the fact that I hadn't been sleeping much at the time (crazy drama among my then-friends) - I have sometimes wondered if I should watch it again, although it was on last week and I didn't bother.

[shadowkat]

Memento is kind of a...brainf*$K. It's told in the perspective of a man with short term memory loss. So we get the narrative out of order - and the whole thing is kind of built upon that specific gimmick. The director is into gimmicks.

It's interesting because of that narrative structure, but the plot and characters and theme aren't memorable or even all that interesting - it's just the gimmick or puzzle of the narrative that is.

So, unless you are into narrative structure? I'd pass.

[tellshannon815]

Yeah, from the sound of that I think I will, I wonder if maybe that didn't help matters in me dozing off in the first place!

[shadowkat]

Yeah, unless you get interested in the puzzle, you'll lose interest. I love Guy Pierce, and he's great in it, but I don't remember much else. It's one of Christopher Nolan's first films - the guy who did Inception, Tenet and the Batman series. Nolan loves gimmicks.

[wendelah1]

I don't recall ever falling asleep in a theater. At home, I used to routinely fall asleep to "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers" on PBS. I don't think I made it through an entire episode.

[shadowkat]

I never did either. And I was a cultural anthropology minor who studied mythology.

[atpo_onm]

I also can't ever recall ever falling asleep in a theater, even though I usually go to the latest show possible and on weekday evenings to avoid crowds (this was long before the pandemic, just so there's no confusion).

Unfortunately, I have been having an increasing tendency to fall asleep in front of the TV, which has little to do with the programming and a lot to do with some kind of chronic fatigue syndrome that's been increasingly afflicting me over the past year-and-a-half.

Quite, quite annoying. Whether movies or TV, I don't watch anything that I don't have at least some interest in, and if something turns out to be duller than expected, I just tune to something else.

So, sorry... noting to pick for this prompt!