Movies should take all forms, from bullet-filled action epics to quiet costume dramas.
But sometimes, filmmakers go too far testing the patience of their audience.
There are some flicks you can't possibly get through without drooping eyelids.
So, to save precious hours of your life, here are some movies that are literally too boring
to watch.
Last Days
A film loosely based on the last days of Kurt Cobain's tragic life?
Sounds like a winner!
Too bad director Gus Van Sant decided to have Michael Pitt, playing a Cobain-like musician
named "Blake," just wander around and mumble incoherently from time to time.
In the most thrilling moment from 2005's Last Days, the camera moves from a drugged-up Blake
to a TV screen on the other side of the living room, where the video for Boyz II Men's "On
Bended Knee" is playing.
It stays there for almost the entire video.
The camera then moves back to the strung-out singer.
That's the most action-packed scene in the entire film.
When it comes to mumbling musicians, there's only one for us anyhow.
"Someone has been in my room and taking my beers away from my room."
"I don't think so, darling."
"Ughhhhh..."
Meet Joe Black
You wouldn't think a movie about death taking human form would be a snooze, but this one
is.
In 1998's Meet Joe Black, Anthony Hopkins plays Bill Parrish, a billionaire mogul about
to celebrate his 65th birthday.
His daughter, played by Claire Forlani, is considering marrying a guy on the board of
his company, but Hopkins gives a big speech about how she must wait for passionate love.
Later, Forlani meets Brad Pitt in a coffee shop and, though her heart's all aflutter,
she doesn't even get his name.
Then, this happens:
So, Pitt's dead, and Death takes over his body.
Now, looking like Pitt, Death tells Hopkins that his whole love speech made him want to
experience an earthly life.
Then the movie groans on for another two hours and 55 minutes, mainly comprised of meaningful
stares and soft-spoken dialogue, as Death woos Forlani and bores the audience, well,
to death.
The Brown Bunny
The 2003 Cannes Film Festival cut of Vincent Gallo's road movie Brown Bunny was universally
derided as humorless, narcissistic, and boring.
Roger Ebert had a special hate for it, calling it, "The worst film in the history of the
festival."
The legendary critic sums it up like this: "Imagine 90 tedious minutes of a man driving
across America in a van…
Imagine a film so unendurably boring that at one point, when he gets out of his van
to change his shirt, there is applause."
So, needless to say, it got a "Thumbs Down."
Gallo didn't take kindly to this, and called Ebert "a fat pig with the physique of a slave
trader."
Ebert responded, aping Winston Churchill, "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will
be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny."
Gallo later released an edited cut, shaving off a quarter of the film's runtime — a
version that earned a "Thumbs Up" from Ebert, who called it "quietly, sadly, effective."
But the Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus for the drama today tells another story: "More
dull than hypnotic, The Brown Bunny is a pretentious and self-indulgent bore."
Dream of Light
There's "watching paint dry," then there's "watching a painting dry," which is a large
part of what 1992's Spanish documentary Dream of Light is all about.
To be fair, you also see painter Antonio López García carefully set up his canvas to allow
him the best possible view of a nearby tree, which is his subject.
Aside from the actual act of painting, he also chats with friends and has to deal with
the weather.
It's all very charming, if you're into this sort of thing, but does it really need to
be almost a half-hour longer than Star Wars?
It's the perfect pick for falling asleep on a rainy Sunday afternoon, following a Bob
Ross marathon on PBS.
Manakamana
In Nepal, a Hindu temple called Manakamana sits more than 4,000 feet above sea level.
Travelers of all ages and races come to the site, from selfie-ready tourists to animal-sacrificing
pilgrims.
Little is known of the temple in the Western world, but there's a documentary that sure
sounds like it's about this incredible place.
Except the 2014 film Manakamana doesn't show us the temple, explain its history, or talk
up its religious importance.
Instead, it sits a camera in the cable car that takes you to the temple, and shows the
people riding in the car in uninterrupted nine minute cuts.
Sometimes the riders are completely silent.
One segment is just goats.
Critics loved it, but agreed it may help you drift off if you're not in the right mood,
with one Vulture writer summing up the sentiment, saying, "it’s the closest [he's] seen a
film come to an act of genuine hypnosis."
But when even your film's subjects seem to fall asleep, you're probably not really exciting
anyone.
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