• I Lost It At the Movies

    Date: 2012.08.08 | Category: Movies | Tags:

    Warning: This post is intended as a public service. It is, however, gross, and quite possibly TMI. Read at your own risk.

    The influential film critic Pauline Kael once published a compilation titled I Lost It At the Movies. I remember coming across this book at the Grand Rapids Public Library when I was a teenager, and checking it out, both because I was interested in film criticism (this was before you could access every review on the planet via the Web) and because the title sounded… well, so adult. (One of Tom Cruise’s first movies was called “Losin’ It,” and thing he was “losin’” was — spoiler alert — his virginity!) In any case, Kael was definitely not talking about losing her lunch.

    I don’t see as many films as I used to — once you’ve taken a vow never to see another superhero movie, it limits your choices — but I try to catch the rare art house hits that make it to the multiplex of my sleepy little suburb. I had heard about “Beasts of the Southern Wild” back when it played the Sundance festival and won the Grand Jury Prize. It went on to scoop up several other prestigious awards, including the Camera d’Or at Cannes, and has been talked about as a possible Best Picture nominee. So I was excited when I saw that it would be opening at a theater near me.

    Longtime readers of this blog may recall that I was plagued by motion sickness during the flying scenes in “Avatar.” I have had similar experiences on occasion while watching films shot with handheld cameras, including “Rachel Getting Married” and “Catfish.” However, it’s not been prevalent enough to make me check beforehand if the movie I’m going to see is shot in that shaky-cam style. Some films that have caused nausea in others, such as “Hunger Games” and the “Bourne” movies, haven’t bothered me all that much.

    But as soon as “Beasts of the Southern Wild” started, I had a sinking feeling. The camera was moving around so much that I might have guessed that it was being held by someone trying to film and shoo away mosquitoes at the same time (the movie is set in the Louisiana bayou country). The shaky-cam was so intense that it made “The Blair Witch Project” look like “My Dinner with Andre” by comparison. I should have gotten up five minutes in and left the theater. However, I figured, well, maybe it’ll even out a bit as the movie progresses (as “Hunger Games” did).

    It did not get better. If anything, it got worse. I started feeling clammy and warm. I tried to look away from the screen. It didn’t help. Something told me that I had to leave the theater immediately. I rushed out — luckily, there was a handicapped bathroom, the kind built for just one person, right next door. I ran in and started throwing up violently.

    One of the many phobias that I have suffered from during my life is emetophobia, a.k.a. a fear of vomiting. It comes and goes, but there have been times when I’ve made sure to carry a plastic bag in my purse in case of nausea. I have never had to use it for the intended purpose (it often comes in handy at the grocery store or for packing up restaurant leftovers, though). In fact, until yesterday, the last time I actually threw up was about 15 years ago, during a bout of food poisoning. So I am not someone who is constantly getting sick all over the place. It takes a lot to make me toss my cookies. “Beasts of the Southern Wild” did me in.

    While Googling around after coming home from the movie — incidentally, I felt sick for hours after leaving the theater — I came across a site called movie-hurl.com, which warns people of movies that might make them nauseous. It also provides a helpful explanation of why it happens in the first place, referring to it as “simulation-sickness, in which you can see motion but you can’t feel any because you are actually sitting perfectly still.” Considering that “Beasts” has an 83% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I’m guessing few critics suffer from this malady. (I did find one, Austin Kennedy, who wrote that “it seemed like his camera operator had Parkinson’s. It is so incredibly shaky that I found myself having to look away much of the time.”) From now on, before seeing a film, I guess I’ll have to consult movie-hurl.com as well as Rotten Tomatoes. Because no matter how bad a movie is, it shouldn’t make you literally puke.