Small nitpick. It was actually Huckleberry Hound.
BTW, I didn’t consider the presence of Elijah Wood to be a “twist,” just that thanks to casting him, I was able to conjecture what would happen next. I would have been significantly more in the dark, had Patrick been played by an unknown, and would have hence enjoyed the film more.
Just my $0.02.
I just saw it tonight.
I liked it. I don’t think I was as blown away as a lot of people. I think it is definitely a top-shelf film. And Jim Carrey was at his acting best.
It’s possible that I felt it hit a little close to home. I saw myself and a past relationship in a lot of the bullshit. Maybe that’s why I’m hesitant to gush over it. Or maybe that’s the thing that makes this a great film. Idunno.
Anyone else find themselves identifying with a character or a quirk and start to feel uncomfortable about something or another in yourself? Or am I just hopelessly neurotic?
No way, Jack Batty, you’re not hopelessly neurotic. I think that’s why so many people hated some of the characters. I’m not going to point any fingers at myself but every time Clem said something along the lines of “I’m so pissed that you just said that,” I started coughing. For the first 3/4 of the movie I was going through stages of denial about Clem. First I had the stage of “I hate movies because guys always fall in love with some pissy chick and we’re all supposed to understand why he loves her because of the boobs and what about people like me who aren’t hypnotized by boobs, what of us?” Then I had the stage of hatin on Clem. I really was hating her. Then the stage of coughing and looking around uncomfortably when Clem says “You can’t just say something like that and then say you don’t want to talk about it!” Finally, when Clem was playing her tape and it was all about how she felt like she was always pissy around him and she hated who she’d turned into I went into a weird state of hating the whole movie. Like I say, I’m not going to point any fingers. But I thought it was a very realistic and I didn’t really want to identify with anyone but I did. I felt like the tape really redeemed Clem. Clem wasn’t an asshole. Joel used the power of his warped boyfriend perspective to turn her into one. The first half of the movie he is hating her and thinking of what a rotten drunken bigmouthed slut she is. But that’s how it goes. When you love someone, you want them to see you the way you see yourself. But I don’t want to see inside the mind of a boyfriend. It is an evil place of unflattering perceptions. Egad if only there was a spoiler box for my mind. I’m not like Clem! Neither is Clem. She got a bad rap I say!
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I just saw the ad for the upcoming DVD release. While I did really like the movie, the quote from Rolling Stone on the cover is completely wrong:
I would never have thought about classifying that movie even close to the comedy genre. I remember leaving the movie feeling emotionally exhausted and a bit meloncholy. 
Yeah, I hate when promotions for a movie deliberately misrepresent it that way. It almost guarantees that a large percentage of the viewers won’t like it, only because it will vary so much from what they thought they were buying or renting.
So are there any special features? I might just have to go buy this, but not if they’re waiting for to release the “Special Edition” a few months later.
But it stars Jim Carrey! How can it NOT be a comedy? :rolleyes: Yup, I hate that too.
Actually, I think they may be promoting it as a comedy so it’s accepted into the Musical/Comedy category for the Golden Globes, where it has a much better shot at a Picture, Actor, and Actress nomination than if it had to go up against a number of heavy-hitting dramas scheduled for release later this year. With a few GG nods, and hopefully some heavy placement in the year end critics lists, it will have increased visibility going into the Oscar season.
Interesting theory. Do the DVD box promotional blurbs really affect how it can be entered in the Golden Globes?
Thread resurrection.
Saw it this weekend. I’ve looked for it a couple times since it’s been out, but I go to a small video store and thems the breaks.
Super movie. I saw both “Malkovich” and “Adaptation” in the theater and wish I’d seen this one. I realy don’t know why I didn’t. They’re all so good and interesting.
For seemingly being such a schlub, I think Kaufman has a great take on being in love and being in a relationship. You couple that with his desire to make a movie that keeps you into it because of the structure and they’re all just so enjoyable.
Carrey bugged me for about 10 minutes, but then I found his character believable. I think he’s a real funny guy and it seems like when he “acts” all he’s really doing is “being dull”. But I forgot all about that here, and really believed Joel.
As far as I’m concerned, another great Kaufman movie (I’ve never seen Human Nature).
I just saw it this weekend, too. What an amazing film! But I saw way too much of myself in Clementine, and that’s not good. I immediately ran in to Mr. singular and apologized for all the annoying things I do! I can’t wait to watch it with him this weekend and see what he thinks. Thank Og for Netflix - I’m gonna keep this one for a few weeks and watch it with the commentaries next. I can’t wait to hear their comments on my favorite scenes - and explain what the hell was going on in the scene where he falls to the ground and slits her throat while Clementine keeps walking around and ignoring him. 
I believe you mean his throat, right?
I think he was just trying to play a prank on her. She walks in, finds her boyfriend with his neck slit poen, screams, then he pops up and says gotcha! But apparantly he either tries to do this a lot, she didn’t notice, or immediatly knew he was playing a prank, so she just decided to ignore him and not play along.
That was definitely a WTF moment, but I think that Joel knew she was in a shitty mood, so he tried to do a cute, funny little stunt to get her to crack a smile and get her to laugh, but it failed miserably. I do think they could’ve showed the ketchup packet a little better, since most people in the audience gasped in horror, apparently thinking he just offed himself.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I figured, too, but it was odd that we didn’t see him just get up afterwards. That’s why I want to hear the commentary.
And I did mean “his” throat. :smack:
I just saw it Monday and wanted to add a “me too”.
Since I knew from the previews that he’d get his memory erased, I knew that the opening sequence was post-erasure when we saw the missing diary pages which took any hope of suspense away.
I gotta say that I cringed when I saw how Kevin(?), Pat and Mary were acting in Carrey’s apartment and I’ll join in the crowd in saying I didn’t like anyone.
She’s a skanky drunk who’s flakey for the sake of being flakey, and who says horribly castrating things and can’t let things go. He’s a whiney-passive agressive loser who, she’s right, does say horribly crippling things and then refuses to talk about them or resolve them.
The saddest part is that they’re doomed. They’ll make each other’s lives a living hell and will break up again, but it’ll be worse this time. I base that in part on the fact that Jim Carrey’s character won’t admit to himself deep down, who Clementine is. Look at his memory of her. Outside of the memories of real events of her, he sees her as smart, witty, resourceful, nurturing (the “real” Clem–not Joel’s memory of Clem) would never have been smart enough to think of hiding in an unrelated memory–hell, she’d have felt the stress and gotten drunk or done something else flaky. She also would have said something cutting to L’il Joel when he was reliving his childhood trauma. Since he didn’t once imagine her as she is, I can’t see a chance for growth.
That said, wow–mostly great direction except for the telegraphed spoiler in the first part, fantastic acting (it’s harder to do loathesome characters and still make them interesting and not completly repellant than it is to do “nice”.) and solid story. Also legit SF as it not only plays with new techology, the director/writer actually took a few minutes to explore the social ramifications of it.
Overall, I really liked it. This guy did Being John Malkovic too, didn’t he? Is it worth watching?
Being John Malkovich is one of the best movies made in the last decade.
Fenris, I disagree with your synopsis for the sole reason that
[spoiler]many of Joel’s of the memories that Joel tries to hide Clem in were deleted. These memories were repressed, traumatic episodes that probably contributed heavily to his social anxiety.
I took this to mean that, inadvertently, during the treatment, Joel had erased the parts of himself that were preventing him from being open and accepting of Clem.[/spoiler]
Now, that may be a very Blame Man-centric view, but the bulk of the movie, as you said, portrays Clem as Joel sees her, not as she actually is.
Fenris:
Very much so, but be prepared for EXTREME weirdness. And for the sight of Cameron Diaz looking like a bag lady.
By “this guy”, you mean Charlie Kaufman the screenwriter and not Michel Gondry the director, right? Because Spike Jonze directed BJM, written by Kaufman.
First, forgive me, but I am doing away with the spoilers. The movie (and this thread) are months old.
That being said, I sort of disagree with this point. Or, perhaps I don’t disagree but somehow find the fact that they are trying again to have a bittersweet yet hopeful quality to it.
I like to believe (in the way that a man should believe some things, even if they are not true) that the fight that Jim Carry’s character went through to preserve the memory of Clementine was somehow Transformative and that it taught him something about what was important to him. I think that there was also an element of destiny or fate to their reconciliation.
It is tempting to see the film as somehow bleak. That we are doomed to repeat the same patterns over and over again, yet I somehow felt uplifted and hopeful about it. Funny.
Just to round off the recommendations of Kauffman, I also suggest Adapatation which was written by him. Amazing screen writer, and he seems to be able to get good directors to do his movies too. I agree with Binarydrone’s take on it too. I felt like they were starting over, but this time with the full knowledge that things aren’t going to be perfect like they seemed the first time they dated. In a way, it’s like they’ve done the hardest part of dating, but get to keep the lessons from it for the best part.
