Pearl Harbor

I tend to remain in my seat for the duration of movies, no matter how wretched they may be. Perhaps it’s due to some eternal optimism that a last-gasp twist might suddenly make sense of the clunky dialogue and swiss-cheese plotting of the previous 80-odd minutes, or perhaps it’s because the prospect of fumbling my way out of a packed cinema in pitch blackness, knocking over popcorn and standing in pools of half-defrosted Slush Puppies fills me with abject horror. Either way, I’m staying put.



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The one exception to this informal rule was for the Brobdingnagian orgy of explosions and khaki that was Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor. At the time of release the film was savaged by critics for its Hallmark-greeting-card characterisation and endless historical inaccuracies, but it wasn’t for either of those reasons that I made an early exit; it was because the film was three sodding hours long and by hour two and a half I really, really needed the loo. The war was still raging on after I had sorted myself out, but there was no way in hell I was going back in there – if there’s one thing worse than trying to escape a darkened cinema, it’s trying to get back into one. GM

The Baby of Macon

I’ve always felt that as a film critic is also a sort-of reporter, it’s a point of principle to stay to the end of a film, however awful it is. (If it’s unwatchable, I tend to shut my eyes, block my ears or just quietly fall asleep, depending on how exactly my delicate sensibilities are being offended.) I loathe gruesome and/or ordeal horror – I mean, what’s the point? – but for the real crimes against cinema you need to go to the pretentious, the vacuous and the unnecessarily cruel. Putting aside the two hours of the self-involved smirkfest that was Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom, I can think of no better candidate than an obscure Peter Greenaway film I saw in 1993 called The Baby of Macon.

Greenaway’s days as an outrage-provoker are well behind him of course, and I like a lot of his 80s films: The Cook, The Thief His Wife & Her Lover; The Draughtsman’s Contract; Belly of an Architect. But I took an instant, visceral dislike to Macon: a play within a film kind of thing, featuring a restaging of a medieval morality play (which was Greenaway’s own invention) about a woman who fakes a virgin birth and is sentenced to being repeatedly raped by the local militia. It starred Julia Ormond and Ralph Fiennes, both very early in their careers. Greenaway’s big twist is that the actual actors (in the modern production of the morality play) decided they didn’t like the woman playing the virgin-birth-faker, and rape her for real, and her agonised screams are taken by everyone else for uncannily brilliant acting. Over 20 years later, I still don’t see any excuse. AP

This Is 40

Facebook Twitter Pinterest This Is 40 … truly sickening. Photograph: Allstar/Universal Pictures/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

Despite being sensitive enough to experience nausea over the slightest of paper cuts, when it comes to on-screen bloodshed, I pride myself on being a stalwart sicko. I’ll endure the grisliest on-screen violence while enjoying a hearty meal, appetite untouched. This smug survival sentiment also affects my attitude towards illness, having only taken a half-day off work sick in my entire working life. It was when I worked at a male lifestyle magazine and after I’d just returned from a visit to Zambia where I had picked up some sort of gastro-intestinal disease. Out of pathetic martyrdom, I told most people it was “suspected cholera” and pretended that it was really not that bad, more annoying if anything, as I routinely emptied out every orifice, while weeping, into the nearest bathroom.

After I finally shuffled home for a half-day on the couch, I was supposed to watch Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up semi-sequel This Is 40 for junket interviews the day after. I had to cancel and instead watched a screener at home. But despite still feeling like I could conceivably die at any moment, I dragged myself to a fancy London hotel to speak to the cast. A terrifying wait for my name to be called then followed, as I questioned which end of my body would betray me first and I pretended to Paul Rudd that I was feeling great while potentially giving him “suspected cholera”. You can feel the sweat pouring down my sickly face in this horrendous video. BL

The Skin I Live In

It takes a lot to make me look away from the screen. For some reason Paranormal Activity has a bizarre hold over my psyche, and once while hungover I watched most of the third instalment from under my hoodie. I’ve struggled to get through every Lars Von Trier film I’ve seen, equally put off by the psychological manipulation (Dancer in the Dark) and the contrived outrage (Antichrist). But the only film I’ve ever walked out on was Almodóvar’s revenge drama starring Antonio Banderas, as a very unlucky Frankenstein-esque plastic surgeon. I’d gone out for a drink before, and felt great going into the screening.

But about an hour into the film I started to feel ill. I began sinking into my seat as the worst headache I’ve ever had set in. Just as the film’s big twist was revealed I thought I was going to puke all over the multiplex. It was at that point I made my exit, stamping on the feet of everyone in our row, before stumbling down the stairs into the cinema foyer. I bumped into some tables and chairs, grabbing my head like someone from Scanners, and then eventually collapsed, coming to in the local emergency room. After a trip in an ambulance and a series of tests the doctors were none the wiser as to why I’d had a “funny turn”. I know, though – it had nothing to do with dehydration, nor the fact I’d not really eaten anything other than a bag of Skittles in the 24 hours leading up to it. No, it was all Almodóvar’s fault. LB

What films made you head for the exit? Let us know in the comments below