BTW, all the stories were tied together.
The cop was dating the addict who was the game-show host’s daughter who hosted the show the kid was on who wet his pants, and Donny the game show kid who wanted dental surgery. Cruise was the old dude’s son and the old dude (IIRC) owned the TV station. Or something like that.
–Tim
Ooner, but I thought that the killer from the first movie just went to a different University? At least, that was the ending of the first Urban Legend. Argh!!..Now Final Cut seems really crappy…
Ok so, I’ve got 2 movies to add, Memento being the first, I get everything but (spoiler) the picture with him pointing the the “I did it” tatoo while laying with his wife.
The second is American Psyco, did he not really kill anyone? I was just very confused but never bothered to see it again.
Hmm…I just saw Memento last night and i don’t recall the scene you just desribed. Are you talkin about the picture of him all bloody and he’s pointing to his chest?
Regarding American Psycho, i think all of his murders were a part of a grand delusion.
I saw this several times. In the credits there are at least 5 classical music selections listed as having been used in the movie.
I don’t think the title has anything to do with the women.
The screwiest movie ever!Ever! None of the other movies mentioned comes close to this mumbo jumbo of meaningless plot & sub plots. Full of symbolism that they never explaine. What the hell was with those monkeys? Who did they represent? And the guy trying to melt his Johnson. WTF:confused: They never explain where or when on Earth any of this stuff is taking place, or what the hell they’re talking about. I heard Bruce Lee was involved in the script or something. I think he read it and died of confusion.
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That was a “wishful thinking” scene. His wife had actually died during the attack (the website is very explicit on this). His wish was to be with his wife after finding the killer.
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Boy, am I glad to hear Eve saying she didn’t get 2001. Since she is, IMH[sub](and entirely accurate)[/sub]O, the SDMB’s resident Ultimate Authority on class and good taste, particularly as regards to Art, she has helped me feel less self conscious when I say,
“IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE ANY GODDAMMED SENSE!”
Harlan Ellison referred to it as “an exercise in directorial excess”. But I think I’ll replace that as my favorite quote about the movie with Eve saying “What pretentious CRAP!”
Abso-dam’-lutely…
And furthermore, let me add that I found Brazil to be completely beyond me. I saw that in a double feature with Baron Munchausen and left the theater certain that Terry Gilliam just plain didn’t have any clue as to how a director is supposed to make a movie end. Those two didn’t end, they just stopped!
At the risk of sounding like an idiot after much discussion on the topic - when I first read the thread title, “Jacob’s Ladder” popped instantly to mind. Jomo Mojo, care to explain it to me, please?
Ginger
Saw the Monkees’ notorious film “Head” when it was on VH1, and have to vote that one least coherent film I’ve ever seen. Hated it. “Eraserhead” is a close second, but I loved it. Go figure.
A couple of comments on films mentioned in previous posts:
Re: “Magnolia”; there is a certainly a biblical element to the rain of frogs, which brings retribution to certain characters and grace to others. Equally, the prologue, in which the voice of magician Ricky Jay describes a series of strange coincidences, (and which is the setup for strange rain late in the film), apparently is meant to reference the various “coincidental” plot threads that bring the characters together throughout the film. The specific incidents in the prologue are partly based on the writings of Charles Fort, who collected and published many such strange stories, and whose legacy lives on in the wonderful Fortean Times magazine. There actually have been documented, localized rains of small amphibians and fish. It would have to be some wind, indeed to lift up thousands of large toads and dump 'em over LA, but hey, it makes for a riveting scene, so, like, whatever.
Five Easy Pieces: according to the IMDB, the title refers to a book of piano lessons for beginners. In addition, however, it specifically describes Bobby Dupea’s (the Jack Nicholson character) wasted life. In his youth he dreamed of being a concert pianist, but he gave up after he had learned only five relatively easy classical works. This is mentioned, IIRC, in a bit of throwaway dialogue late in the film. Basically, it’s a metaphor for the way Bobby always takes off down the road whenever faced with an unpleasant or difficult decision.
Oh God, the eternal “2001: masterpiece or pretentious crap?” debate again. Sorry, but if one “doesn’t get it”, that doesn’t mean it’s crap; it may simply mean that the viewer is incapable of understanding a narrative if the characters aren’t contantly shouting out plot points.
Really, if you hate “2001”, no problem. Just means you’re a lightweight, that’s all :D. Go back to watching “Armageddon” on your VCR and think no more about it. Sheesh.
Traffic!!! It got all these great reviews, my best friend and I went to see it and were bored to fucking tears! What the hell was so good about that movie? Yeah, okay, so it said that the drug war isn’t the best way to solve the problem. Big deal. Lots of people have been saying that for years. So why is this movie so highly regarded? Having dealt with the drug situation from both sides of the law, I saw numerous plot holes in the damn thing, not to mention couldn’t buy most of the characters in the whole movie. (Major plot hole is when Zeta Jones tells the hitman to shoot the witness while she’s on her cell phone! Come on, guys, don’t you think that the cops would have had her cell calls monitored? Don’t you think that her screaming into the phone, “Kill him!” wouldn’t have raised a few eyebrows when they were listening to the conversation? And the drug czar’s daughter a heroin addict and being able to walk away from the treatment facility? Christ! How lame can you get?)
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I’ll explain it. Jacob Singer’s platoon in Vietnam was used as lab rats for an experimental drug. It drove them insane, they attacked and killed each other. The rest of the movie is a hallucination Jacob experiences in his last few moments of life as his soul desperately tries to hold onto life. His entire “life” after returning from Vietnam never actually happened. He died there of the wounds suffered in the insanity produced by the drugs. Because his soul refused to accept his death (possilby because of the hallucinatory drug), he was caught in a kind of purgatory until he is able to accept his fate and, it is implied anyway, goes to heaven. On the DVD, there is a deleted scene in which a mysterious stranger gives him a “cure” for the drug which frees him of the hallucinations and enables him to let go of life.
His (Danny Aiello IIRC)chiropractor actually explains it to him about half-way into the movie.
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If you’ve seen Carnival of Souls or The Sixth Sense or the Twilight zone episode adaptation of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, it’s basically the same idea. He dies at the beginning, but doesn’t know he’s dead until near the end.
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This was Bruce Lee’s (and one of his students who just happened to be a screenplay writer) attempt to introduce and explain Zen and related concepts to the Western audience. He died before filming could start, and David Carradine was cast in his roles.
If you know anything about Zen, particularly the adulterated brand that was popular in the West in the 60s and 70s, a lot of the symbolism is pretty obvious.
The monkeys represent our base selves, animalistic, treacherous and violent. With the secret the student uses in beating the monkey leader (Don’t turn your back on him), the seeker is reminded to always be aware this part of him exists.
The setting is irrelevant to the central premise of the film; as a result they didn’t bother to develop it. Think of it as “Long ago in a country far, far away”.
The guy dissolving his yoohoodie in oil represents the often touted but misguided need to turn away from physical desires in order to attain enlightenment. He was too weak-willed to do it with a knife; so he took the slow and more comfortable way out. The seeker’s ridicule and disbelief illustrate that this is not necessarily the way to go about it, but the scene also points out that it takes time and concerted effort to overcome this aspect of self.
The Khan represents the desire for power, wealth and gratification. 'Nuff said there.
The girl represents humans’ need to love and be loved, as well as the destructive aspects of jealousy and possession that often accompany that need.
Circle of Iron is, at the lowest level, intended to introduce the viewer to Zen by following one obnoxious seeker’s trials and tribulations on the way to enlightenment. Unfortunately, you need some insight into both Zen practice and Western psych in order to fully get it.
That, of course, doesn’t help to make the movie any better. It really really REALLY sucks.
Well, shoot, I wish I hadn’t looked at those spoilers about Jacob’s Ladder, but it was my own doing.
I did rent the movie again and it’s taking me a while to get through (if only for lack of time on my part), but I’m almost done.
I believe I’m getting it this time around and will belatedly remove it from my list in my OP.
But I’m leaving Repo Man on it, as well as Lost Highway.
Thank you, Number Six. I have always been murky on the ending, but the rest of it seemed to work for me.
Repo Man I also found a little off. I haven’t seen Lost Highway, but when I do I’ll try my durndest to understand it.
Ginger
I’ve seen 2001 10 or 20 times since it first came out, but I’ve never been able to figure out what the ending means, if anything.
FYI, Casino Royale was filmed in the 40s as a straight spy movie. I’m sure it was much better than the later one.
Akira doesn’t make any sense because it was a weak effort at squeezing a dozen or so thick graphic novels into 2 hours of film, a film which only covers the last 40% of the story. (Imagine seeing Return of the Jedi without seeing the previous two Star Wars films, and that should give you some idea of how much was left out.) The comic books discuss: 1) what happened to Akira before the events in the film begin 2) the nature of the science project which creates Akira and the three blue-skinned kids, and 3) why Tetsuo mutates the way he does. The story makes a lot more sence knowing those things.
(E-mail or post if you want more info–don’t want to post spoilers here…)
Which version of Brazil did you see? Which ending?
A friend and I once rented Amadeus. After about forty minutes, I said, “Why are we watching this?” He popped it out of the VCR and put in Monty Python (speaking of Gilliam).
As a kid, I didn’t get The Fury. First I thought “So when is she (Amy Irving) going to realize she’s psychic?” Then I thought, “Does any one scene in this lead into the next?”
Also didn’t get Prospero’s Books, Don’t Look Now, Heavy, or Under the Cherry Moon.
Although Heavy gave me a pleasant surprise by having one scene with my boy David Patrick Kelly! Gray works for him, as does any chance to be a kookaloris! Rented it a time or two just to watch that scene. “But I don’t buy the green bananas any more yanowatImean?..Seventy-nine!”
urban1,
Was there an actual motion picture filmed, or are you perhaps misremembering and referring to the “Casino Royale” episode of the TV show (IIRC) CLIMAX! circa 1954? This is the program that made Bond American and Leiter French, but had a stand-out performance (considering the rushed nature of live TV) by Peter Lorre as the main villain, whose name I cannot remember at the moment.
Because if there’s a lost Bond film out there, I wanna find it.
Sir Rhosis
Good question, actually. I haven’t seen the movie, just the box at a movie store. I believe it starred Barry Sullivan, possibly.