I couldn't get to the end of...

[Jim_Campbell]

Books:

I was going to say that slogging through all six volumes of The Faerie Queen for my degree meant that I could get to the end of anything, and then I remembered that I went to my tutor in my second year and literally begged to be set a different essay so that I didn't have to read the whole of Joyce's Ulysses. I can't honestly think of another work of prose fiction I've abandoned without finishing, although some have been a bitter struggle to the end!

Film:

American Beauty; American Pie. At the point where I realized that I gave not the slightest shit that they had just [spoiler]killed Trinity[/spoiler], I very nearly got up and walked out of Matrix: Revolutions, and kind of wish I had.

TV Series:

Oh, God... Southland; V; BSG*; Stargate: Universe; all the CSIs; 24 when I realized that I just couldn't be bothered to watch the last two episodes of Day 4 that I'd recorded...

Cheers

Jim


*I gave BSG up 2/3 of the way through Series 1, was persuaded to give it another go for, I think, Series 3 and stuck with it to the end, only to conclude that I was right the first time.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about just about every Coen Brother's film. I've started all of the following and given up on them (thans to Rog for the list!)

Blood Simple
Raising Arizona
Barton Fink
The Hudsucker Proxy
The Big Lebowski
O Brother, Where Art Thou
No Country for Old Men
Burn After Reading

In fact, the only one I have sat through was Fargo. And I didn't like it.

I've tried The Big Lebowski half a dozen times. No luck.

[locustsofdeath!]

recently turned off the zombie chronicles after three quarters of an hour, after deciding a quid was too much to pay for someone's home movies.

SBT, is that the "film" by Mark and John Polonia?

[Jim_Campbell]

I've tried The Big Lebowski half a dozen times. No luck.

I'm generally kindly disposed towards the Coens, having seen and liked Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink and O Brother Where Art Thou, and liked all of them for different reasons.

The Big Lebowksi, however, bored the living shit out of me and I remain utterly mystified as to why so many people whose taste I generally respect speak highly of it. Clearly, I'm missing something, but whatever it is, I just can't find it. In this category, see also: Quentin Tarantino, whose best film is True Romance, by virtue of his not having directed it and Tony Scott de-too-clever-by-half-ing the narrative. Others' mileage, clearly, may vary.

Cheers!

Jim

[johnnystress]

Movies:

Apocalypse Now, Once Upon a Time in America, Once upon a Time in the West, Pat Garret and Billy The Kid

because they're always on so late I fall fast asleep. I WILL see them in their entirety someday


Comics:
Maus...just lost interest
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:The Black Dossier....must try again

TV:

I've given up watching series' ..always end up missing episodes

[SmallBlueThing]

SBT, is that the "film" by Mark and John Polonia?

No, someone called Brad Sykes. Shot on someone's low-rent video camera, edited with no thought to ambient sounds (putting the camera in a wind tunnel and then inter-cutting to the same scene shot out of the wind, then not redubbing), some people pretending to be actors and zombies from a joke shop.

SBT

[locustsofdeath!]

Aha! Check out the imdb page - Mark and John Polonia were the editors, and one of them played in the segment with a redneck soldier returning from the grave (?) ...I saw this is a movie theater. The Polonias (John has passed away) are from buttcracksville PA and have made many, many terrible shot on video movies. Almost everyone in the area (NE Pennsylvania) has starred into one of their "films". I was going to shoot one of them as a favor to one of their "stars", a guy named Bob Dennis, but then John died and the project was scrapped - probably for the better of film viewers everywhere. Anyway, small world, ha ha.

[Professor Bear]

All Superman stuff (apart from Superman 2). Dullest hero ever? Seriously, where's the drama in an all powerful immortal do-gooder?

I'm a big Superman fan, but considering the most recent exposure to the character is either the appalling Smallville (a show I compulsively watch because no matter how bad you think it is it keeps getting worse) and the bizarre gay metaphor of Superman Returns, I understand where you're coming from. Inventive writing and an appreciation for the strengths of the character can make Superman interesting, but he's published by DC Comics so...

The first movie is awesome, mind.  Not so much recent adaptations - the Superman currently appearing Young Justice is almost hilariously bad, for instance.  There's a scene where he meets his teenage clone (Connor Kent/Superboy) and the dialogue is one hair away from "how can you be here?  I gave her some money and she said she'd take care of it."

Comics:
Good call on Maus, JS - I made it through the first book but found it dull and uninteresting.
Ultimate X-Men.  I remember giving up on this because until that point I would've read pretty much anything, including Scott Turow novels, but there was some plot about Iceman and Rogue getting it on and I thought "I can't be bothered with this."  I wanted to read stuff where Sentinels stomp through Manhattan shooting whoever they want, Wolverine has fisticuffs with a T-Rex and Magneto makes George Bush lick his boots clean on the White House lawn - pack it with incident and set pieces and make old characters interesting, you know?  Instead the book became an exercise in fapping off fanboys with new couplings among the principal cast and making Mr Sinister a gothy bloke who hears voices.  It also stopped and started to squeeze in these bizarre cliffhangers or soundbite-heavy splash pages near the start of chapters, which really only works if you're watching CSI pre-credits scenes.  It got really grating in comic form, however, like someone trying really hard to be Mark Millar (who was long gone from the book at this stage).
Earth X - which just felt like it would never end.  Or begin.  A slowwwwwwww, wordy and pointless bit of fanboy-masturbation that makes no sense unless you're really, really well-versed in Marvel lore to the point you can recognise ROM without visual aids.  I can now, I couldn't when I read Earth X and gave up around some bit where the Red Skull was a little kid or something.
Some Teen Titans TPB shit.  There was a relaunch written by Sean McKeever who did the fun Iron Giant rip-off Sentinel and some Mary Jane books, but around the time Miss Martian wakes up from being mind controlled to find herself in a public toilet giving middle-aged truckers blowjobs I decided this was not the book for me.

[davethomson]

Miss Martian wakes up from being mind controlled to find herself in a public toilet giving middle-aged truckers blowjobs I decided this was not the book for me.

This book sounds like something for me, however! Hur-Hur

[radiator]

I've always avoided Maus - it just looks worthy in the extreme and not the sort of thing I read comics for.

[johnnystress]

I've avoided all Joe Sacco's stuff for the same reason

[locustsofdeath!]

SOmeone start an 'I've Always Avoided...' thread and I have a big list for that  .

[mygrimmbrother]

Apocalypse Now.

Me too! Never managed to watch it all the way through - a boring and meandering mess of a film.

NOOO! It's one of the finest war films ever made! Up there with The Thin Red Line and Downfall. But then one man's onions is another's broccoli I suppose

[Professor Bear]

Miss Martian wakes up from being mind controlled to find herself in a public toilet giving middle-aged truckers blowjobs I decided this was not the book for me.

This book sounds like something for me, however! Hur-Hur

What makes it awesome is that Miss Martian (a centuries-old shape-shifter) makes herself look like a child for the act in question.

I've always avoided Maus - it just looks worthy in the extreme and not the sort of thing I read comics for.

I made it through A Fax From Sarajevo, Persopolis, Palestine - but Maus just couldn't hold my attention.  It's very stodgy, the characters are unmemorable and at times I couldn't tell them apart... honestly, when death camps and Nazi invasions are coming across as dull, it's maybe time to just move on to something else.

[Richmond Clements]

Once Upon a Time in America, Once upon a Time in the West, Pat Garret and Billy The Kid

Sort yourself out, Stress!

As for me:
Maus has been sitting unfinished by the bed for a couple of years...
On the Road.
A lot of Tom Clancy books.
Blue Mars.And considering I had endured the two books before this one, I really should have struggled to the end, but life is too short.

Like everyone else, I gave up on Heroes in Season 2- and was surprised to see that it had made it to season four!