Movies that are too clever/convoluted for their own good

Cafe Society
81

[QUOTE=Frylock]
Waitaminute, waitaminute.

I liked MD, and felt I pretty much “got” it, but I don’t remember anything about a twist, or there being two “worlds.”

Granted its been years since I’ve seen it.

But can you explain what you’re referring to?

-FrL-
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I thought:

The two “worlds” thing was that there was one real world with Betty where her girlfriend is leaving her for the film director, and one “fake” world where she has an elaborate fantasy about herself as a young ingenue where all the real things play a role, kind of like in dreams. And in the “real” world she’s setting up a murder hit on her former lover. Not sure what the “twist” is.

82

[QUOTE=Freudian Slit]
I thought:

The two “worlds” thing was that there was one real world with Betty where her girlfriend is leaving her for the film director, and one “fake” world where she has an elaborate fantasy about herself as a young ingenue where all the real things play a role, kind of like in dreams. And in the “real” world she’s setting up a murder hit on her former lover. Not sure what the “twist” is.

[/QUOTE]

Right -

the first 2 1/2 hours of the film is a dream the main character is having. As in a real dream. She lays her head down at the beginning of the film. Her dream is an idealized version of her life in Hollywood. Then she wakes up and we see her real life in Hollywood, which has superficial similarities to her dream life.

I “got it” the first time I saw the film; never suffered from any confusion at all. I’ve always thought people are trying too hard to understand MD and that’s where their confusion comes in.

I would call the dream thing a twist though. Even though she lays her head down at the beginning of the film the audience is lead to believe that the dream is the real story, then when she wakes up, SURPRISE, everything you just saw was just a fantasy, here is the real story. The purpose of the dream was to explore the psyche of a spurned lover turned killer. Her psychological/emotional state is the thing that remains the same in both the dream and the “real” world.

83

[QUOTE=pentadent]
Right -

the first 2 1/2 hours of the film is a dream the main character is having. As in a real dream. She lays her head down at the beginning of the film. Her dream is an idealized version of her life in Hollywood. Then she wakes up and we see her real life in Hollywood, which has superficial similarities to her dream life.

I “got it” the first time I saw the film; never suffered from any confusion at all. I’ve always thought people are trying too hard to understand MD and that’s where their confusion comes in.

I would call the dream thing a twist though. Even though she lays her head down at the beginning of the film the audience is lead to believe that the dream is the real story, then when she wakes up, SURPRISE, everything you just saw was just a fantasy, here is the real story. The purpose of the dream was to explore the psyche of a spurned lover turned killer. Her psychological/emotional state is the thing that remains the same in both the dream and the “real” world.
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Okay, I will need to watch this movie again, but to my recollection

the movie followed dream logic all the way to the end, for example, there were those tiny versions of the sinister old people driving her to kill herself.

My take on the movie was that

the whole thing was her brain’s desperate attempt to make sense of its own experience (mostly in the form of memories) as a bullet was ripping through it as a result of her suicide.

This is similar to my reading of Lost Highway as

the guy’s sort of waking hallucination/dream as he is hypnotized by the stripes on the road during a police chase.

I’m not sure what to make of Inland Empire, though I suspect it could easily be read similarly as

her final flurry of brain activity as she dies on the street in Hollywood.

I mean, these readings strike some of my friends as far too pat and, for lack of a better word, literal (in the sense that in a way they offer a “perfectly sensible” explanation for everything) but they seem plausible to me.

-FrL-

84

[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
Anything by David Lynch.

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Yep. Pointless close-ups of wet midgets eating pudding, from the Uvula, in reverse out to the North Star. Next scene: Hot girl-on-girl action!

All of which, while intriuging, adds nothing to the story.

85

[QUOTE=Freudian Slit]
Does the movie El Topo count? I saw that, and had no clue what I had just seen. I’m not sure if it was too clever or if the plot was just non existent.
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Damn, I’ve often wondered if I was the only person who ever saw that flick.

Can’t help you with the plot, though, as the movie made little sense to me as well.

86

I would like to add The Constant Gardener to the list.

Now, perhaps I’m just a moron but this shit went over my head. Admittedly, I’ve only seen the movie once, so maybe a second viewing could clear things up. What I gathered is Ralph Fiennes’ wife is killed and it had to do with some non approved FDA drug. Other than that I am lost. I haven’t read the LeCarre book either, but I’ve enjoyed some of his earlier works.

87

[QUOTE=Cisco]
What don’t you (and the imdb reviewer) get? It’s like he described the whole movie and then said “why?” Well, why are movies made in the first place? Why is the sky blue? How does the positraction work on a 1970 Hemi? I don’t know, man. It just does.
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I came in here specifically to mention No Country For Old Men, for exactly the same reasons outlined by DrDeth and the IMDB poster he quoted.

The movie would have been great if it was a simple “Guy finds a lot of money, nicks it, the owners come after him” film. But all the time I was watching it, I kept getting this vibe that the filmmakers were trying to inject Deeper Meaning into a movie which frankly didn’t need it.

The whole thing just ended up being muddled, depressing, confused, and spectacularly disappointing- IMHO, it perfectly fits the OP’s criteria.

Yes, I realise the movie is actually about the sheriff and not Money-Finding dude or Cattlegun Assassin guy, but all the same I just didn’t think it was a particularly good film and I don’t understand all the hype it got.

88

[QUOTE=Sleeps With Butterflies]
Just one girl, Kirsten Dunst. The other person jumping was a guy. I’m sure he’d be flattered that you found him hot though.

[/QUOTE]

Ha ha. I’m laughing at myself; everybody else might as well, too. I think I saw that movie in 2004, or shortly after it came out on video at any rate. Kirsten Dunst is one of my favorite actresses, especially in the hotness category. You’d think I would have remembered my favorite part of that terrible movie a little bit more accurately. :smack:

89

[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
The movie would have been great if it was a simple “Guy finds a lot of money, nicks it, the owners come after him” film. But all the time I was watching it, I kept getting this vibe that the filmmakers were trying to inject Deeper Meaning into a movie which frankly didn’t need it.
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That movie’s been made a hundred times. Whether or not the vague, ‘the world’s changing’ stuff made sense to you, I don’t see it as a convoluted movie. It’s a pretty simple chase story, really, even if everybody’s motivations aren’t always clear.

While Memento is pretty complicated, I can’t say it’s too complicated for its own good. The structure is what makes the movie so unique. Told chronologically it’s not nearly as interesting.

90

Just watched Matchstick Men last night on basic cable. It is one of those Xanatos plots where if just one little thing does not go according to plan, the conspirator’s plans all fall apart:

[spoiler]1. If Nicholas Cage doesn’t drop all his pills down the sink.

  1. If he doesn’t have an underage girl without a valid ID cosign for his safety deposit box (which probably isn’t legal anyway).

  2. He never contacts his ex-wife at any time after the girl starts hanging out with him, if only to touch base and let the ex know she is safe.[/spoiler]

That’s just for starters. Just once I’d like to see one of these plots fall apart, tho it didn’t really affect my ultimate appreciation of the main themes of the film (I liked their final scene together in his new work place).

91

Oh right, back to the topic. I think just about every heist film you see is too complicated for its own good- they just get ridiculous.

I forget how the big theft went down in Ocean’s 12, but that one sticks out as absurd because it hinged on

Julia Roberts’ character pretending to be Julia Roberts, which wasn’t even clever, and then there was a whole bit where everybody got arrested, except it turned out the police were in on the deal because they were actually Matt Damon’s parents, and then it turned out they’d actually done the theft the day before what you saw in the movie and got caught on purpose stealing the fake which they had to do because of Ihavenoidea.

Despite what sounds like a really elaborate plot, I found that movie to be really lazy.

92

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
No County for Old Men.

The good guy is running with the money the bad guy is chasing him the sheriff seems like he is supposed to be chasing them but doesn’t really want to and would rather be some sort of hillbilly philosopher about the whole thing.

Then the good guy suddenly dies. The bad guy escapes death by the skin of his teeth AGAIN the money disappears and the sheriff retires but not becoming so philosophical that the whole movie just ends right there at his dinner table with him rambling on about some dreams he had.
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I think you sumed up the movie quite nicely here as that was pretty much all it was about.
I guess some people really thought it had a lot to say by doing this.
I thought it was somewhat fun to watch but didn’t really come away with much of anything. For a better “The world is a changin” movie I preferred Unforgiven.

93

I like heist movies, but I agree about Ocean’s Twelve - in Eleven there were definite hints towards how they were going to do it, but it felt like they just pulled Twelve’s plan out of their ass, which kind of defeats the purpose of a heist movie.

94

[QUOTE=ntcrawler]
I prefer 2010. It may not have the depth, but it at least had a sense of flow and a plot set up in such a way that you could at least tell there was a plot. One that both movie buffs and the casual fan can both find without having to set up a major excavation to find it.
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That’s exactly what I hated about 2010. It tried to take 2001 and “explain” everything and, IMHO, did it badly. It only had the effect of taking all the magic out of the original movie and trying to give it a feel-good ending.

95

[QUOTE=Abby_Emma_Sasha]
I would like to add The Constant Gardener to the list.

Now, perhaps I’m just a moron but this shit went over my head. Admittedly, I’ve only seen the movie once, so maybe a second viewing could clear things up. What I gathered is Ralph Fiennes’ wife is killed and it had to do with some non approved FDA drug. Other than that I am lost. I haven’t read the LeCarre book either, but I’ve enjoyed some of his earlier works.
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No, you have the basic plot, but the film is really about how Africa has been abandoned by the rest of the world. Here’s an example of a film where the plot itself is largely a McGuffin; Ralph Fiennes is basically a (wealthier, better connected) stand-in for the audience witnessing the corruption, injustice, and horror that has resulted since much of Africa became an object of Western exploitation (not necessarily agreeing with that premise, but the movie clearly had this message).

No Country for Old Men and Syriana fall into the same category. It isn’t so much that their plot is convoluted, but rather that it’s a secondary consideration. Such films are really about mustering a tone through a series of (often disjoint) events, often with some central character as a witness/Greek Chorus (Tommy Lee Jones in the first, George Clooney with Matt Damon in the second). So IMO I wouldn’t say the plots of these films were convoluted, but less important (and therefore less airtight) than in standard narrative.

96

I think the Anime film “Paprika” (2007) fits in here. Beautiful to look at, but what a narrative mess of convolutions. From a description;“Based on a novel by the noted Japanese science fiction writer Yasutaka Tsutui, the brilliant and unsettling feature Paprika continues director Satoshi Kon’s exploration of the disturbingly permeable boundaries between dreams and reality.” Anytime I see something about ‘between dreams and reality’, I expect there’s going be trouble.

97

[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Primer was just right.

The Usual Suspects. Clever, sure. But I’ve never had an urge to watch it again, because (and I can’t believe I’m using a spoiler box for this) the big revelation at the end means that we don’t know how much, if any, of what we’ve spent two hours watching really happened.
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Why was it such a surprise? I had it pegged about 20 minutes in.

Soze uses the lighter to burn the dock and Verbal uses the exact same lighter to light his cigarettes.

98

[QUOTE=Saint Cad]
Why was it such a surprise? I had it pegged about 20 minutes in.

Soze uses the lighter to burn the dock and Verbal uses the exact same lighter to light his cigarettes.

[/QUOTE]

:rolleyes:

99

[QUOTE=Frylock]
Yeah, that totally cinches it. They used the same lighter. Of course. What idiot wouldn’t pick up on that?
[/QUOTE]

The made it pretty obvious. Remember when Verbal wa trying to light it? Remember any of the lighters the other guys used. Perfect example of Cechov’s rifle.

100

I have no embarrassment admitting I said (or at least thought) “WTF?” at the end of 2001 first time I saw it. I liked it a lot better after I read the book though. The book and the film were unusual in that really “neither came first”- they came out together, each meant to complement the other, and they do, but the details given by the book add worlds [no pun intended] to the images in the movie. This was especially true in the portion of the book that describes the hominids and their encounter with the monolith; once you understand what the hell is going on there it makes a lot more sense what the monolith’s purpose is and the happenings the next few times you see the monolith.
AMERICAN PSYCHO may qualify for this thread. It was supposed to be a satire and an intellectual thriller and surreal and to me it didn’t work as any of those. To me the only purpose it served was Christian Bale’s best nudity to date.
I detest the sets and “too quirky/too clever” touches in most Tim Burton films. He removes them from believability.
I’m not talking about Big Fish obviously, where that’s the point, and in Ed Wood he restrained himself marvelously and it worked better than any of his vehicles, but in Scissorhands and Charlie/Chocolate Factory and some of his other live action films he goes waaaay overboard in trying for the clever visual and distracts from the (often wafer thin already) plot.