One of the most interesting people I know is Tyler Cowen. He reads and incredible amount of books and sees a lot of movies. The Post has an interesting article about Cowen and in the article Cowen explains one of his rules: 

"How do you decide when to walk away from a movie?"

This is one of Cowen’s favorite rules, as it relates to consumption of information. "People should be more willing to walk out of movies," he tells anyone who will listen. "Most movies — they grab you or they don’t, and if they don’t, just leave. Just go. You have already lost money. Why lose the time?"

If a movie doesn’t hook Cowen, he reads a book outside while his wife remains in her seat. Most recent movie they both left: "Greenberg," starring Ben Stiller.

With books, Cowen is even more brutal. If a book is bad, he often throws it away, so it doesn’t waste anyone’s time. "What if the next book they were going to read is ‘Moby-Dick’?" But if a book is good, he might give it away — to libraries, friends or, if he’s on a plane, total strangers (he leaves them in the seat-back pocket for the next passenger to discover). "He drives the flight attendants crazy," his wife says.