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Confusing Movies

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KyCatFan1

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May 6, 2002
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As I sit here watching Total Recall (1990 version), I remember how confusing this movie was to me back when I was 16. I had no trouble back then getting into R rated movies at the theater by the way. I think it took me probably 15-20 years and tons of reruns of it before it finally clicked.

The whole Hauser/Quaid battle for the body had me lost.

I am Quaid.


You blew my cover, I am Hauser.


You blabbed Quaid, you blabbed about Mars.


If I am not me then who am I? Beats me I just work here.


Howdy, stranger! This is Hauser. If things have gone wrong, I'm talking to myself and you have a wet towel around your head. Now, whatever your name is, get ready for the big surprise. You are not you, you're me.



I'm not Hauser anymore, I'm Quaid.


You are Quaid and you are on an ego trip. Swallow the red pill.


Probably should have taken the blue pill.


That's my body and I want it back.


When you wake up you will be Hauser.


You just had to be Quaid.


I really don't know which one this is.


What if it was all a dream? Kiss me quick before you wake up.


And there you have quite possibly the most confusing film I can ever recall watching. Feel free to add any movie that you just never really understood.
 
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WildcatfaninOhio

WildcatfaninOhio

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May 22, 2002
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Inception - I watched it and I have no idea wtf happened or what it's about. Totally lost me with the whole dream within a dream crap.

Call me crazy, but I prefer my movies to lay out a story and guide me through it from beginning to end. I don't want to have to watch it 9 times to finally get the point.
 
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DaBossIsBack

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WildcatfaninOhio said:
Inception - I watched it and I have no idea wtf happened or what it's about. Totally lost me with the whole dream within a dream crap.

Call me crazy, but I prefer my movies to lay out a story and guide me through it from beginning to end. I don't want to have to watch it 9 times to finally get the point.
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Inception is full of holes. Nolan is a great film maker but he's not as smart as he thinks he is. Kind of like me.

Pretty much every David Lynch film.
Inherent Vice and The Master are both hard to follow. They are both allegories.
2001 is kind of hard to follow. Robert Downey Sr has some hard to follow work.
 
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KingOfBBN

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buckethead1978 said:
The Prestige
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What did you find confusing about The Prestige?

I agree on Inception. It took like two or three viewings to fully understand it.

Some off the top of my head...

The Tree of Life (worst film ever made)
The Fountain
No Country
Memento..This was confusing but I had to watch it for a film class in college and dissected it so much that it made my brain hurt.
 
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Free_Salato_Blue

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HeismanWildcat85 said:
What did you find confusing about The Prestige?

I agree on Inception. It took like two or three viewings to fully understand it.

Some off the top of my head...

The Tree of Life (worst film ever made)
The Fountain
No Country
Memento..This was confusing but I had to watch it for a film class in college and dissected it so much that it made my brain hurt.
Click to expand...

It's been a while since I've seen it.

But putting those light bulbs out in that field and lighting them up with no wires just blew my mind. j/k
Wasn't he using a machine made by Tesla that made clones for his act?
Wasn't like mind blowing but was a intriguing concept.

Really anything dealing with time travel can be confusing. Like if you touch you double from the future will you implode like Time Cop or will nothing happen.
Could be a whole 12 Monkey's crisis.

Oh anyone seen Silent Hill that's out there.
 
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DaBossIsBack

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Tree of life worst film ever made? Probably the best film this decade. Maybe this century. Won the palm d'or and is widely considered to be Malick's best work. It's an ambitious work of art by a brilliant film maker.
 
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Free_Salato_Blue

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The Japanese anime have some far out plot lines.

Ghost in a Shell was the first I saw. It has the whole does AI have a soul and humanity plot.
FYI Scareltt Johansson is cast in a future film of it.
 
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Free_Salato_Blue

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DaBossIsBack said:
Watch the Tarkovsky version when you can. Soderbergh did a great job with it though.
Click to expand...

I'll have to see it then. The Clooney one was so dreadfully slow and mind numbing only other movie I ever wanted to leave the theater besides this was Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead with Nicholas Cage.
 
K

KingOfBBN

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DaBossIsBack said:
Tree of life worst film ever made? Probably the best film this decade. Maybe this century. Won the palm d'or and is widely considered to be Malick's best work. It's an ambitious work of art by a brilliant film maker.
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What?! It's a coffee table book made into a pretentious film with little to no plot. The film was reminiscent of something a pretentious art student would make. His other film To The Wonder was equally as awful.
 
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DaBossIsBack

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To the wonder was terrible. Films have to have plots? That's new to me. Considering this is what I do for a living. Yeah it seems that way because it is an art house film. This doesn't surprise me. When things don't fit in your box you dismiss them as wrong, stupid, abnormal, etc.
 
L

-LEK-

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DaBossIsBack said:
Mulholland Drive is in my opinion Lynch's best film and his most complex and confusing.
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Yea, that's a big no. It's the one where he got super lazy and easiest to figure out. I get liking obscure things, and don't understand why some of the movies people are saying are complicated, but it's like you picked the first lynch movie you saw and chose that to choose a lynch movie. It's like saying your favorite Hemingway story is old man and the sea. It's either pretentious or dumb.
 
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DaBossIsBack

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-LEK- said:
Yea, that's a big no. It's the one where he got super lazy and easiest to figure out. I get liking obscure things, and don't understand why some of the movies people are saying are complicated, but it's like you picked the first lynch movie you saw and chose that to choose a lynch movie. It's like saying your favorite Hemingway story is old man and the sea. It's either pretentious or dumb.
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Eraserhead was my first Lynch film. Then Blue Velvet (my favorite). Then Lost Highway. Then Mulholland. You're in the minority on Mulholland just so you know. But that's your opinion. I'm not going to attack you for it.
 
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DaBossIsBack

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-LEK- said:
Yea, that's a big no. It's the one where he got super lazy and easiest to figure out. I get liking obscure things, and don't understand why some of the movies people are saying are complicated, but it's like you picked the first lynch movie you saw and chose that to choose a lynch movie. It's like saying your favorite Hemingway story is old man and the sea. It's either pretentious or dumb.
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Liking Hemingway is in itself pretentious and dumb.
 
K

KingOfBBN

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DaBossIsBack said:
To the wonder was terrible. Films have to have plots? That's new to me. Considering this is what I do for a living. Yeah it seems that way because it is an art house film. This doesn't surprise me. When things don't fit in your box you dismiss them as wrong, stupid, abnormal, etc.
Click to expand...

I have enjoyed many films that were considered "pretentious" but Tree of Life was total vacuous trash. Since you say that you work in the industry (curious) you should know that films are telling the audience a story. What story do you want to tell? I'd say mindless images and flashes (Dinosaurs? Really?) while Sean Penn staggers around aimlessly and a soft whisper as the narration isn't much of a story. It's more in line with TM's admiration for himself. I believe a lot of people claim to like this film because they think it's a reflection of how "brilliant" and "enlightened" they are.

Days of Heaven= yeah
Tree of Life- no
 
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KingOfBBN

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On a related note, DaBoss, how many times have you made this statement? "Akira Kurosawa is brilliant. Have you seen Rashomon and Seven Samura?"
 
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DaBossIsBack

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Telling the audience the story you want to tell the way you want to tell it. Just because you can't fit in a 3 act structure with plot points doesn't discredit it.
 
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DaBossIsBack

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Actor/writer/director

Renoir
Truffaut
Godard
Welles
Hitchcock
Kubrick (big influence)
Scorsese
Tarkovsky
PTA (biggest influence)
Van Sant
Fincher
Glazer
Haneke
Michod
Carax
Noe

I've got a lot. Constantly finding new influences too.
 
L

-LEK-

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DaBossIsBack said:
Liking Hemingway is in itself pretentious and dumb.
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Saying Hemingway is bad is pretentious and stupid. Actually I'm ok with being pretentious, just don't be stupid. But you keep being both. Deadly combination.
 
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