View Full Version : Your most confusing movies...
imagineer99
10-31-2006, 11:13 PM
After having a seriously epic conversation with a friend regarding the nature of time travel in 12 Monkeys, I thought it would be interesting to hear about those movies that have worked your brain long after the credits rolled. Movies that made you think until thinking became painful. Or, as DannyT so eloquently put it, movies that require a decoder ring to figure out.
Some ones off the top of my head:
-Primer (An obvious choice. Damn, time travel movies always spark the most odd discussion)
-Mulholland drive (Interesting. Confusing. One of the greatest sex scenes of all time.)
-Donnie Darko (To be honest, I don't even think Richard Kelly knows what he was trying to achieve with this. Yeah, it's a good flick, but I'll be the first to admit I didn't fully get it on my first watch)
-Adaptation. (Maybe not confusing. More weird. Still, it's such a self-referential film that it's often times difficult to discern reality from film from film reality, etc.)
-Persona (one of the most difficult films ever made)
Any others?
bullgator2255
10-31-2006, 11:46 PM
Mission Impossible - no ones understands all of it their first viewing.
tarmanydyn
10-31-2006, 11:57 PM
Co-sign for Primer
viscountradu
11-01-2006, 12:07 AM
Lost Highway, Fight Club, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Amélie: I got them all, but it took me a second time through to really understand it.
briangilmore
11-01-2006, 12:10 AM
obvious one, but: Eraserhead is BRILLIANT.
Also, I can see how Twin Peaks the tvshow could be confusing, but Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (the movie prequel after the show still by David Lynch)...um...someone...please...why the F-U-D-G-E does that monkey say Judy?
slowmtnsilhouette
11-01-2006, 12:13 AM
obvious one, but: Eraserhead is BRILLIANT.
Also, I can see how Twin Peaks the tvshow could be confusing, but Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (the movie prequel after the show still by David Lynch)...um...someone...please...why the F-U-D-G-E does that monkey say Judy?
i watched the show when i was little, when my dad first got into it... freaked-me-the-f*ck-out... and when we go camping, he plays the soundtrack at night when its really late, so it still creeps me out....
as far as movies i didnt understand, mullholland drive makes no sense to me whatsoever...
briangilmore
11-01-2006, 12:16 AM
i watched the show when i was little, when my dad first got into it... freaked-me-the-f*ck-out... and when we go camping, he plays the soundtrack at night when its really late, so it still creeps me out....
as far as movies i didnt understand, mullholland drive makes no sense to me whatsoever...
haha, that score is also brilliant. the twin peaks theme. it's so eerie in a very innocent type of way that's not exactly obvious until you know it in the contet of the show it's in...kind of like the town of twin peaks itself. *sigh* I love David Lynch and slowmountainsilhouette.
slowmtnsilhouette
11-01-2006, 12:21 AM
haha, that score is also brilliant. the twin peaks theme. it's so eerie in a very innocent type of way that's not exactly obvious until you know it in the contet of the show it's in...kind of like the town of twin peaks itself. *sigh* I love David Lynch and slowmountainsilhouette.
hahaha... likewise good fellow... likewise...
iggystar
11-01-2006, 12:57 AM
Call me a dunce but I could never get The Usual Suspects. I get who Kyser Sose is but everything in between, I'm lost.
capitolp
11-01-2006, 01:45 AM
Has anyone ever seen the Japanese movie "Suicide Club"? Thats some crazy weirdness. I've read that you need to watch with a Japanese mindset which I can do to a point, but even then I was nuts.
Also "American Psycho" is pretty high up there.
"Feed me a stray cat."
tokenuser
11-01-2006, 02:02 AM
Memento - until you figure out whats going on, then its "I need to go back and watch it again knowing what I know now". Like Usual Suspects, and Fight Club, I enjoyed it more the second time around.
13th Floor - again, until the whole crux of the plot drops, its a run of the mill movie ... but the the twist happens, and its like "wah?".
proglodyte
11-01-2006, 03:17 AM
and when we go camping, he plays the soundtrack at night when its really late, so it still creeps me out....
Considering what goes down in that movie between Laura Palmer and her father that is ultra creepy.
But yeah, I think all Lynch's movies are confusing as hell for the most part.
slowmtnsilhouette
11-01-2006, 02:48 PM
Considering what goes down in that movie between Laura Palmer and her father that is ultra creepy.
But yeah, I think all Lynch's movies are confusing as hell for the most part.
hahaha... oh jeez. i totally didnt think of that before, but then again, it wasnt her dad that scared me, it was bob. crazy muthaf*cka. and when i first started watching carnivale, samson scared me just because he creeped me out in twin peaks...
but yes, lynch's movies are crazy confusing...
paulsaves
11-01-2006, 03:51 PM
Has anyone ever seen the Japanese movie "Suicide Club"? Thats some crazy weirdness. I've read that you need to watch with a Japanese mindset which I can do to a point, but even then I was nuts.
Also "American Psycho" is pretty high up there.
"Feed me a stray cat."
Yeah I saw "Suicide Club" I liked it for the most part, but I think I need to watch that shit again. And I think it's so ****ing confusing.
Primer is confusing too, but I sorta watched it three times, three days in a row and after that I got it, listening to the director's commentary helps a lot too.
madripper1
11-01-2006, 03:57 PM
I agree with Fight Club and adding Run Lola Run and Crash not the new version with all the actors the one where people would crash to have sex and get excited.
paulsaves
11-01-2006, 04:11 PM
I agree with Fight Club and adding Run Lola Run and Crash not the new version with all the actors the one where people would crash to have sex and get excited.
For me Fight Club wasn't that confusing. I don't think it's that confusing if you read the book first.
satori
11-01-2006, 04:16 PM
I totally get it now, but I watched 2001 when I was 9 and I just couldn't figure the last 30 minutes out. Once I understood what THC was it all fell in to place.
superdeformed
11-01-2006, 04:19 PM
David Lynch movies make perfect sense if you know that he's a pretentious dildo. Mullholland Drive was an awesome movie until the very last scene. Going randomly abstract at the end does not make you deep.
Anyway, Time Bandits is my pick.
losojosdemuerte
11-01-2006, 05:00 PM
Mulholland Drive, and Lost Highway are still the most confusing movies I have ever seen. My tiny brain is just shot when I watched those movies. I have not seen 13th Floor in a long time, but man it was weird and confusing.
I just recently watched the movie The King. The ending is what got to me. I was confused watching this.
bcool
11-01-2006, 07:25 PM
-Donnie Darko (To be honest, I don't even think Richard Kelly knows what he was trying to achieve with this. Yeah, it's a good flick, but I'll be the first to admit I didn't fully get it on my first watch)
I thought the directors cut was a little more clear. They added the excerpts from the book that sort of explained the whole parrallel universe collapsing thing.
thegamebabe
11-20-2006, 08:06 AM
I'm not sure if this movie confused anyone else... but I got off work one night... got home late and my roomates were watching this movie... they said I only came in like 5 minutes late.... I didn't get it... I had to watch the movie again.. and look it up online :)
satansmagichat
11-20-2006, 08:28 AM
Has anyone ever seen the Japanese movie "Suicide Club"? Thats some crazy weirdness. I've read that you need to watch with a Japanese mindset which I can do to a point, but even then I was nuts.
Also "American Psycho" is pretty high up there.
"Feed me a stray cat."
Spoilers!
I felt the same way about that, cuz after I first saw it, a friend explained it by saying that Christian Bale's character was imagining it all, because he was so arrogant as to believe he could actually take other peoples' lives and get away with it.
Well, I just saw this the other day cuz a roommate was watching it, and I disagree with that idea. I think he actually did kill all those people, but because of how the movie shows how completely identical and interchangeable all these guys are, it's impossible to tell who did what, and just no one cared. I mean, no one in the whole movie remember who this guy's name is, and when that one guy says he had dinner with in London with that one guy, it's easy to believe it was someone else he just assumed was the same guy. I hope that made sense.
Also, on Donnie Darko, I think it was easier to understand after going to a field trip on Time Travel with actual theories by Stephen Hawking represented. Still, I dont think Richard Kelly made it clear enough what he was thinking. Oh well, I liked it anyways. "Go suck a ****!"
madripper1
11-20-2006, 04:39 PM
Casino Royale was very confusing to me.
losojosdemuerte
11-20-2006, 04:45 PM
Casino Royale was very confusing to me.
Are you serious? It was totally explained. :p
eraserhead. but i'm pretty sure all that was on purpose.
memento. you walk away from the movie for 5 minutes and you gotta start from the beginning. the whole movie's like 3 scenes.
madripper1
11-20-2006, 04:49 PM
Are you serious? It was totally explained. :p
No it wasn't let me count the confusing holes? One Bond is new and young not a 40 year old guy he was supposed to be early 20's. The card game in the book was baccarat not poker, The ending made no sense at all and I still cant figure it out. i am watching it again tonight so i can pause and fast forward on my sofa to see if it gets any clearer.
chrischristman
11-20-2006, 04:50 PM
The movies that are a little confusing the first time to me are 2001 A Space Odyssey, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Matrix, and Silent Hill. Silent Hill sucked so thats ok. Fear and Loathing I was confused about the entire first time through, until I realized that it's basically two guys completely out of their minds on drugs drivin through Vegas. And 2001, like many Kubrick films, is way too deep for me, and most people, to understand all of the first time through.
madripper1
11-20-2006, 05:06 PM
i agree on Silent Hill
losojosdemuerte
11-20-2006, 06:05 PM
No it wasn't let me count the confusing holes? One Bond is new and young not a 40 year old guy he was supposed to be early 20's. The card game in the book was baccarat not poker, The ending made no sense at all and I still cant figure it out. i am watching it again tonight so i can pause and fast forward on my sofa to see if it gets any clearer.
I have never read the books, so sorry if I have no idea of what you are talking about. All I did was compare it to all the other Bond pics I have already seen. I should just shut up now. I had this exact same discussion with someone else.
Oh yeah, Fear and Loathing is all about two guys going to Vegas and getting wasted. Loved it.
guybers
11-20-2006, 06:18 PM
Dark City by Alex Proyas, more holes than 50 cent after a drive-by...this barely beats out Night Watch.
Night Watch was way dumber than I thought it would be.
Dark City tried way too hard to wow the audience and i think that's where it fell short, very short.
araym
11-20-2006, 07:40 PM
Vanilla sky
viscountradu
11-20-2006, 07:47 PM
Vanilla sky
i guess i was confused on why people paid to see that movie.
madripper1
11-20-2006, 08:08 PM
I liked vanilla sky and paid to see it. wait i fell asleep half way through so i actually paid to sleep in a theater during vanilla sky.
ariastar
11-20-2006, 11:13 PM
There's this indie film called The Dreamers. Yeah. That one.