I was watching the DVD The Departed the other night. I had heard nothing about the movie prior to rental. Well, I had numerous distractions at the beginning of the movie and somehow I got the impression that Billy Costigan and Colin Sullivan were the same person. I guess most (other than me) know that Damon and DiCaprio are two different people.
If you’ve seen the movie, maybe you can understand. Both characters are involved with undercover police work and organized crime. Both have bad haircuts. Both have bad Boston accents. Anyway, at some point both characters are in the same scene. I thought it was one of the characters hallucinating. Then I restarted the film.
Anyone else care to share a movie misunderstanding? :smack:
Matt Damon and Leo DiCaprio the same person? That’s pretty hard to top.
You’re right, Damon’s a “Southie” born and bred. Damon’s “bad” Boston accect is completely natural.
I read the other day that Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg are going to be filming another movie together that will be set in Boston too. Wahlberg, another Southie born and bred, joked that he and Damon worked so hard to get rid of their Boston accents, and now look, they’re getting paid to speak that way.
When I watched the first couple of episodes of Ugly Betty, I thought that Wilhelmina Slater was played by a nasty white lady with a bad tan.
At one point, they show a woman in bed with a dude. She rolls over to take a phone call from work - work being Mode Magazine, the central location of the show. I am like “huh, why is the magazine calling Vanessa Williams when she’s in bed?”
Anyway turns out that Willamina Slater IS Vanessa Williams. I couldn’t tell it was her until I saw her in the dim light of the bedroom with her hair down. I also remember her being younger but that’s because I remember her from 10 years ago or whatever.
I swear to god she had bleach blonde hair in the first few episodes, which made her look like a white woman with a too-dark tan.
Not really the same thing but, from hearing people joke about it over the years, I’d gotten the impression that Deliverance was a light-hearted comedy. Of course, I was in for a **huge ** shock when I finally saw it.
My friend has a hilarious and much-repeated story of watching Scream in the theater. When the lights came up, the girl in front of him said to her date - “Wait…so Neve Campbell was the killer THE WHOLE TIME!?!” :smack:
Wow! So do you often have trouble remembering or distinguishing faces from one another? I don’t think Dicaprio and Damon look very much alike, even though they share a general “type” (white male, 30something, short hair). Were you watching on a really small screen?
I had this exact same problem with the first couple of episodes. Hair, wardrobe, and makeup weren’t particularly kind to her in the first few episodes, and so I seriously thought she was an old white woman with a bad fake tan.
I had the exact same experience when watching The Departed! I was watching it with my family and somehow we managed to figure it out together that Damon and DiCaprio are not the same person. The beginning of the movie is kinda choppy and confusing, with a lot of jumps in the time line, so I guess it’s not surprising, but still…
Even more embarrassingly, it took me about 20 minutes to realize I had already seen the film before–or at least the Hong Kong version. I remember hearing that Scorcese was making a white boy version of Infernal Affairs (it was kinda odd…) but I’d forgotten. The movies are really quite similar so I’m not sure why it took so long for me to remember.
I haven’t seen **The Departed ** yet (on its way fron Netflix), but I loved **Infernal Affairs ** and am cautiously optimistic that Scorsese does the original justice.
Anyhoo, my contribution to this thread is when my wife and I were watching Infernal Affairs. About 10 minutes from the end, she says “I don’t get it–that guy’s a cop?” (meaning the Tony Leung character). The *whole film * hinges around the fact that Leung is a mole in the triad gang and is indeed a cop! It’s not a spoiler, it’s presented from the very first scene. He spends half the movie talking with his cop superior. Whooshed right by her.
(But I understand. She doesn’t watch movies much and pays more attention to fashion styles and house set designs than the actual, you know, plot.)
I had the exact opposite problem when watching the movie Run Lola Run. At the end of the movie, Lola gets into an ambulance and sees the security guard from the office where her father works. For some reason, the first two times I watched the movie I didn’t recognize the actor as being the same person (must be because of the weird camera angle), and I just thought “Why is there this random character coming in at the end of the movie? Who is this guy?” I don’t know why I didn’t recognize him, but now that I know that (and the original translation of one of the lines, which was apparently changed in the English subtitles) it really ties the movie together nicely.
In the English subtitles, she holds his hand and says “I’ll stay with him.” According to Wikipedia, the original line in German is “I belong to him,” meaning the security guard is her real father. That would’ve gone over my head the first time I saw it if someone in the audience hadn’t said “He’s her dad!” in the earlier scene when he says “You’ve come at last, my dear.” It appears I’ve seen way too many American movies where they beat the symbolism into your head to appreciate films where they actually expect you to figure it out.
I think a lot of people had the same reaction to the big twist/reveal at the very end of The Matrix Reloaded.
The Bane character had only had a few minutes of screentime in a long, very convoluted movie, and it’s not like the actor who played him has any particularly distinctive features.
I thought Love Liza was a Romantic Comedy. Part of me was relieved it wasn’t, but that was offset by the urge to climb into a warm bath with a cold razor.
