NFA Finance

I sat here thinking about it, and honestly, I couldn’t give you a title.

I don’t watch a ton of movies. I’ve never really been a TV guy. Lately, I’ve started watching a little more—a few things here and there—but I’m still probably not the guy you want on your movie trivia team.

And if I start watching something and it gets too weird for me, or I’m just not enjoying it, I turn it off.

That’s it. That’s my answer.

It’s the same way I feel about a bad book. If I’m reading something and it isn’t holding my attention, I’m not going to force myself through the rest of it just so I can say I finished. What am I getting out of that?

With a movie, I’m sitting down to enjoy myself. If I’m twenty or thirty minutes into it and thinking, “What the fuck am I watching?” I’m probably reaching for the remote.

Maybe somebody else loves it. Maybe it’s their favorite movie. That’s fine. They can watch it again. I’m going to find something else to do.

To tell you the truth, I’m not a huge sci-fi guy, either. A lot of that stuff feels weird to me, so I usually don’t watch it. I couldn’t tell you much about those movies because I haven’t spent much time with them. It’s just not what I’m drawn to.

And I don’t need to have an opinion on every movie or understand why everybody else likes it. Sometimes all I know is that it isn’t doing anything for me.

I think we make that harder than it needs to be. You start something, you’ve already put some time into it, and now you feel like you ought to finish. Even when it’s supposed to be entertainment.

But I don’t get those minutes back. If I already spent half an hour watching something I don’t like, spending another hour on it isn’t going to make me feel better about the first half hour.

There are things in life you have to see through. Work. Responsibilities. Commitments you’ve made to people. A movie on the TV doesn’t belong in that category for me.

So I don’t have some wild story about the weirdest movie I ever watched. Chances are, I didn’t stick around long enough to find out how weird it got.

I just turned it off.

—Nicholas Francis