Ranking the Movies and other Productions Ruined by Me Sleeping Through Them

By Lucas Hauser | Editor-in-Chief

Read the Sway Version

I’ll be the first to admit it to you-- I have a poor track record when it comes to staying awake during movies. It is hard to explain why, but I’m sure there’s a long scientific word that describes perfectly my predicament, which is that, starting at about 8 or 9 pm (pathetic, I know), my ability to watch a movie entirely is greatly in jeopardy. There seems to be no correlation between movie quality and my body’s capability to remain awake. Is that reassuring to me? I’m not sure, but at least I guess I’m not implicitly offending people with my randomly distributed failures to simply sit and watch a movie.

I’ve decided to take stock of all the movies and other things that I’ve fallen asleep watching and try to figure out what I’ve been missing. These are not my proudest moments, but I think it is for my own good that I take this chance to know what I have to catch up on. So here is the definitive ranking of movies and other productions that I barely or partially watched, which were ruined by me sleeping through them. The rankings reflect a combination of my evaluation of the quality (wild guess) and my level of shame for falling asleep.

7. John Wick

I defiantly stand by my unconscious decision to fall asleep watching this movie. If you disagree, that’s fine, but you’re wrong. Not a good movie. Did I really need to be awake for another corny, dimly-lit action scene where the main character beats up a large number of villains and wins again? No. Also, a 90-minute action sequence of a movie loses its luster and novelty REALLY QUICKLY to the point that it becomes boring and annoying. Honestly, I’m kind of glad I wasn’t awake. Although it did require some explaining to my friends at the party where I was watching it.

6. Transformers (2?) and Ant Man (On a Bus)

Not much needs to be said here. On a bus for a long high school marching band trip of some sorts, the movies began to play. Unfortunately, I probably was lucid for a combined 30 minutes between the two films. Ant Man was surely better than whichever Transformers movie I watched, but I have no intention figuring out what was lost in translation because 1) the movies were not very good and 2) they were also entirely predictable, making it very easy to play catch-up.

5. The Rise of Skywalker

Let’s clear one thing up-- I generally am a fan of Star Wars movies. I don’t have much explanation other than that the finale episode never drew me in. Why did they bring back Palpatine? That doesn’t make any sense? Also, this movie tried way too hard to include everything, and was really long. And that moment when Kylo Ren kisses Rey? Not a fan. I only slept through a few minutes, but honestly I really needed the shuteye so no regrets here.

4. 2018 National Concert Band Festival in Indianapolis

In March of 2018, my high school band had the opportunity to perform at the National Concert Band Festival in Indianapolis, which was an involved multi-day trip where, among other things, attended master classes from like professional musicians, took a tour of Lucas Oil Stadium (in which I asked how to water a turf field), got underfed at an Italian restaurant, performed at Butler University, and watched hours of concerts from the best high school bands around the country. With a crazy busy schedule, we were waking up in the wee hours of the morning and going until late at night. One afternoon, we spent several hours watching other bands perform, and they were really good. But I was also really tired, and frankly, pretty music and comfortable concert hall seats DID NOT HELP. Luckily many other students also took advantage of naptime, often waking during moments of applause or sudden crescendos. I definitely wish I had paid greater attention, but I think I can’t be too hard on myself, considering the conditions.

3. Boy Scout Fingerprinting Class

Okay, I don’t think there are any good excuses for this one. That doesn’t stop me from making them! Here me out on this. I was a boy scout for exactly one (1) year, as a fifth grader. To make up for years of lost time, I went to some merit badge class at our local high school to knock some of them out in anticipation of moving on to middle school scouts (didn’t happen). It’s been a while, but I remember going to many classes over a long Saturday that began early and ended in the late afternoon. The last class for me, a fingerprinting merit badge class, went rather poorly.

Being late in the day, in a warm classroom that was dimly lit, taught by an instructor using an overhead projector (this was 2012, remember), I understandably fell asleep for the early part of the class. Confused and useless for the rest of the class, I went home disappointed because I found the exercises very frustrating (not knowing what to do!) and missed out on learning something that was probably pretty cool.

2. High School Theater Production of Macbeth

After years of playing the pseudo-literary snob character in high school English class, this lousy performance (by me) is a stark reminder that my appreciation of great literature and acting performances is still limited by my ability to remain conscious. In my defense, Macbeth is not Shakespeare’s best play, and it was dry at times, but I really have no justification for this one. There’s simply no good excuse. And I’m pretty sure that the performance at my high school theater was really, really good. I really am disappointed I didn’t get to witness the latter third of it.

1. Midnight Run

This one is perhaps the least excusable and probably the worst showing on my part. Apparently this movie is a fantastic thriller starring Robert De Niro. Some sort of race across the country, or something to do with the police, or I’m not sure. All I know is that this is supposedly a classic movie from 1988, and I don’t think I understood more than the first five minutes. Truly sorry. If I watch it again, it can only be better the second time around!