Movies you just couldn't get

[Maddy McCall]

Even though most DUers are smarter than the average bear, some of us have difficulty understanding some movies.

I just didn't get Crash, with James Spader, one of the Arquette sisters, and Holly Hunter. Talk about a FREAKSHOW of a movie!!

Which movie could you just not get??

Or, if you can interpret a movie for another DUer, please help!

[HEyHEY]

1. The Thin red line

Hate to qoute Dennis Miller but...
"What can I say, Terry Malick is a genius. And so is anyone who understood this film"

[Wolfman 11]

2. I'm no genius

but I thought it was a great movie. It dealt with the psychological aspects of war and didn't glorify war as most traditional war movies have. Plus it had a great cast.

[xJlM]

3. TRL was a disappointment

I bought it back in 1999, and I only watched it once. I've got war movies that I've seen several times, including Saving Private Ryan, Hamburger Hill, Windtalkers, and even Full Metal Jacket, but Thin Red Line just escaped me.

[democracyindanger]

4. Eraserhead n/t

[ronzo]

8. Really...

:wtf:

[classics]

34. Dittos... err, I mean me too.

The movie just made me sick to my stomach. Maybe it was supposed to have that effect?

[mac56]

57. Me too.

Friends rave about it, but I just think it's weirdness for the sake of being weird.

[Kat45]

5. My Dinner With Andre...

it was so incredibly boring; what was the fucking point?

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

6. "The Fisher King" and "Grand Canyon"

Neither of which made any sense to me whatsoever.

[TahitiNut]

10. "Grand Canyon" is one of my favorites.

Go figure. :shrug:

[MoonGod]

16. Heh... and Fisher King is one of my favorites...

... I liked Grand Canyon, too, though.

Hmm, if Fisher King threw you for a loop, you should try Brazil. Terry Gilliam was being quite tame with Fisher King.. heh.

[SoCalDem]

45. Grand Canyon is a great metaphor of our times..

things are not what they seem..

[SoCalDem]

46. Grand Canyon is a great metaphor of our times..

things are not what they seem..

[Rabrrrrrr]

50. Fisher King - brilliant!

I thought it made perfect sense. But then, it's more in my line of thinking.

Now take a schlop movie like "Love Story" - I absolutely didn't get, and still don't. Laughed through the whole thing.

[joeybee12]

58. I agree totally

I never cared for Lawrence Kasden movies--amazingly pretentious.

The Fisher king was way out there, and then it tried to tack on a Hollywood ending.

[bif]

59. Loved it.

One of my favorite movies.

[RandomKoolzip]

7. "Weekend," the Godard film.

Unbearably pretentious. It would have made a wonderful short film, had the preceding 85 minutes been excised from the final section (the killing and eating of the rich...you know the segment I'm talkin' bout!)

[Cat Atomic]

9. Being Human

I didn't get it. I suspect it's because it sucked, but I could just be dumb. I dunno.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

11. shakespeare in love

i really wanted to enjoy it, and so did my date, but it was so mediocre we left. The movie took itself too seriously, and when it received accolades at the Academy awards I still didn't get it.

[peekaloo]

12. The Matrix

lost interest early in the film.

[xJlM]

15. Gotta follow the story line

The first time I saw it I wasn't paying much attention, and it sort of confused me. The special effects were good, so I was willing to give it another view.

[LearnedHand]

13. "Prospero's Books"

Sheesh. I gave up after an hour.

[JCMach1]

41. I wrote a paper about that

:)

Peter Greenaway is always a little obtuse...

[Wolfman 11]

14. City of Angels

was the only movie I've ever walked out of. I don't even know why we went in the first place. My roommate in college and I one day got bored and smoked a j and went to the movies and it was the only thing showing. It basically reminded me of a 90-minute Goo-Goo Dolls video shot in a gritty sandstorm in the run-down industrialized section of some abandoned southwestern city.

[MoonGod]

17. Hehe.. never seen it, but Wings of Desire..

... the Wim Wenders movie on which City of Angels is loosely based is definitely an odd one. I only sat through it 'cuz my g/f said it was one of her favorite films. It was quite odd and disorienting and not particularly enjoyable... then suddenly in the last 30 minutes it all came together, made sense, and became one of my fave films, too.

[Rashind]

18. Repo Man???

How the hell did that trash-burning man get so wise?!

[Twillig]

37. By not driving!

"The more you drive, the less intelligent you are."

[Rashind]

61. D'oh!

I understand, now! They go to the past. *buys a bus pass*

[BrotherBuzz]

19. Wonderwall by George Harrison

I didn't understand it when it first came out and it didn't improve when I saw it straight, thirty years later. I don't get it.

[Wolfman 11]

20. Also, "Weekend at Bernies' II".

I mean, they got away with it in the first one, but wouldn't the corpse begin to smell in the sequel?

[ronzo]

21. LOL... not so much "wha..? as "why?" : ) n/t

[classics]

35. They just started filming Weekend at Bernies III

Not kidding. :puke:

[masmdu]

22. Mulholland Dr

Just watched it for the first time...digesting now...comment on destructive nature of negative desires and fame? Ala Sunset Blvd which it quotes...?

[cprise]

31. M.D. is one of my faves

The first half is a kind of delusional dream. Everything that was wrong in her life was turned on its head in the dream, and many of the dream's players were taken from the dinner party where she was traumatized.

She dreamed that her bid to have her lover killed was botched, and that her lover came back to her with amnesia ready for another relationship (this time with meaning).

Then she wakes and has some real-life flashbacks. Then she sees the key and descends into psychotic hysteria.

[ZenLefty]

23. The Lathe of Heaven

I never read the book, compounding my confusion. :dunce:

[masmdu]

24. I vaguely remember that one...could you refresh my memory...

What's the story?

[ZenLefty]

25. You're asking *me* ??

...don't hold me to this, as I may be way off base here...

This guy has a problem that certain dreams he has (maybe all of them) come true. He goes to a psychologist, who works with him to help out. Eventually, the shrink makes him have dreams that said shrink is the richest shrink in the universe, and so that comes true and the shrink becomes all powerful.

Then, he tries to have a dream to solve racism. Poof - everyone becomes gray. No black, no white, all gray.

Then, the aliens land.

Then, he fights the shrink in some laser-generated tunnel, crafted by the same special effects team famous for many episodes of Dr. Who.

Sometime thereafter, the credits roll.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. But at least the movie version ends up

with him no longer having this power and not remembering that he ever did have it, and running into the main female character again and feeling strangely attracted to her--sort of like "Heaven Can Wait."

Another thing about The Lathe of Heaven is that when the shrink starts to control the guy's dreams, they have unintended consequences. For example, overpopulation is solved through an epidemic that kills 2/3 of the people in the world.

[ZenLefty]

29. Is there a downside to that?

Right now, I think 2/3 of the people in the world are complete assholes and wish they were on Neutune's moon. But I'm just grumpy lately.

[Rocinante]

32. Lathe of Heaven

is that the one that starred Bruce Davison? Well I think that's his name. I think that movie was shown on PBS years ago. Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

[arcos]

26. Mulholland (sp?) Drive. n/t

[NightTrain]

28. M*A*S*H, La Dolce Vita, and...

...everything with the Marx Brothers.
I'm sorry, but to me, those men simply were NOT funny!

I've never so much as cracked a smile when watching a Marx Brothers film. Go figure.

[joeybee12]

56. I love Fellini, but somewhat agree about La Dolce Vita

I think you have to look at it considering when it was first released--it was shocking, and seems tame now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. Have any of you ever seen Last Year at Marienbad?

It was all the rage among cinematic intellectuals in the early 1960s, so I was looking forward to seeing it in film class in college.

Aargh. What a mess! It took about a ten-minute story (He claims He met Her last year at Marienbad, and She says No) and stretched it out over I-don't-know-how-long by playing the same scenes over and over and mixing up the time element. The main character wanders through the halls of the spa at Marienbad mumbling "ces couloirs" ("these corridors").

I'd almost like to see it again, just to see if it still as bad as I thought it was thirty years ago.

[NightTrain]

33. It's in a book called "The 50 Worst Films of All Time"

As such, I never tried to see the film. I did, however, once check the book of Alain Robbe-Grillet's screenplay out of the library and found it unintentionally hilarious!

[classics]

36. Stalker by Tarkovsky

Absolutely the worst, most depressing movie I have ever watched.

[FDRrocks]

38. donnie darko...

I watched it twice, just do not get it. I mean, I get it, as in the time relation, but there is such acclaim to this film... I do not get that.

[ronzo]

39. yeah that's a pretty warped flick...

Had to see it twice to figure out what the director was trying to do. I thought it was good...

[DoveTurnedHawk]

40. The English Patient

I fell asleep during that movie, I thought it was so dull. I couldn't believe that it won Best Picture.

DTH

[JCMach1]

42. What's not to understand about CRASH

It was just a bad movie, period...

Very disappointing.

[Maddy McCall]

43. I think it was so bad that I tried to see something artistic in it

but all I got out of it is that there are a bunch of sickos in the world who get off on car wrecks.

[SoCalDem]

44. 2001

:shrug:

[ronzo]

47. oooooh.... pretty.

someone feel free to explain Kubrick's ending to me...

[Kellanved]

52. me too

The book cleared it up though.

[jafap]

48. apocalypse now

Going up the river to get this guy, and when they get there I cannot figure out what was going on.

Also ET. Like, why did ET die? How did he come back to life? Where did he suddenly get the ability to fly?

[Spirochete]

49. Buffalo 66

seemed pretty odd to me.

[Maddy McCall]

53. I loved it...basically a redemption movie.

About an unlovable thug who is redeemed by the love of the young woman who he kidnapped.

It was odd, but Gallo and Ricci were both great in it. I really dug that movie.

[eileen_d]

51. Mission Impossible

That is the only movie where I felt like I had actual comprehension problems. So many double-crossers double-crossing each other, I got completely lost. And I did not enjoy leaving the movie theater feeling like a complete idiot. ;)

[NYYFan]

54. Easy Rider

Maybe because I am African-American, don't ride motorcycles or born in the 70's ? Not sure which :shrug:

[MaineDem]

55. Lord of the Rings

I know everyone raves about it (the first one) but I have tried about 6 times to watch it and I just can't get into it at all.

[bif]

60. Rumblefish

I think it was called. what a waste of time that film was. Totally pointless. And the trilogy Red, White and Blue by that Polish fella. Wyda or something like that.

[soupkitchen]

62. At the time I called it MumbleFish