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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Films You Didn't Get

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09:44 / 18.04.07

Spent two hours last night trying to understand the moral compass of the 'squid and the whale'. i couldn't understand any coherent story, emotional direction, strength of character bar the main character's little brother. It seemed like something of a meander, so would welcome people's comments to the contrary.

I also didn't see any point of "Being John Malkovich', and couldn't understand what I was supposed to take from "We were soldiers" apart from a series of simulated action scenes.

Which films didn't you get?

Whisky Priestess

10:00 / 18.04.07

"Adaptation" - I missed half of Heroes because I was told it was going to pay off in a spectacularly clever way, and the ending was, as far as I was concerned, extremely disappointing in the way that pure self-indulgent shit so often is. It started well with the sibling rivalry, and I loved Eternal Sunshine and thought it was very clever, but this? Meuh. What was Kaufman failing to smoke?

10:07 / 18.04.07

The point of Adaptation, surely, was that it was always going to end in a shit way? It's self-evidently a fairly brutal and heavy handed swipe at the Hollywood script writing machine.

As far as I can remember there's a very clearly demarcated point where Adaptation transforms from something interesting into teh arse. It's entirely deliberate.

I've heard this criticism loads of times and it never fails to induce a headscratch. Not sayin' you have to like what Kaufman does with the movie, just confused why you'd think anything else was coming.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:14 / 18.04.07

That's far from the only interpretation of Adaptation, Boboss - as this thread indicates.

Janean Patience

10:38 / 18.04.07

The History Boys. I understand what went on and everything - Eight Go Down To Oxford - but if there was a higher purpose to everything that was going on, a larger debate about life and history being played out with these characters, then I missed it. I've studied history and been in circumstances pretty similar to the film, so I was fairly well-placed to understand the themes which appeared to be absent. What was the point, apart from everyone's gay for Dakin?

11:11 / 18.04.07

Ah, thanks for bringing that up, Fly.

For some reason that reductive gumpf above is what was resting on my "what's the deal with Adaptation?" shelf in special brane.

Gonna go reread that thread and get reaccquainted with why exactly I enjoyed the movie so much at the time.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

11:42 / 18.04.07

I need to watch it again (if I can ever find it again) -- Lost Highway completely baffled me. It's the only Lynch film that's ever left me completely bamboozled.

I revisit Cronenberg's Naked Lunch about once a year, and it's not that I don't understand it, but I always find something more to understand.

And Vanishing Point is like a Zen parable for me. I'm not sure if it's more profound than I can quite wrap my head around, or just kind of dumb and profound-looking enough to fool a bunch of people into thinking it means something.

11:46 / 18.04.07

Matt, a big in with Lost Highway is to view it as a sister to movie to Mullholland Drive. Lots of similar stuff going on.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

11:48 / 18.04.07

I need to see LH again for sure -- I did "get" Mulholland Drive, and haven't seen it since then. It would probably be a lot less obscure now.

Whisky Priestess

13:49 / 18.04.07

Also, Until the End(s?) of the Earth, that 80s European/Australian ecodisaster film that went on ... for ... ever ... I just didn't get the point of it at all, or what happened. Even Sam Neill looked confused.

And Boboss - my real problem was that I was told (by someone who'd seen it before) it was going to pay off in a spectacularly clever way. And "predictable cop out/film turns to crap" does not = "spectacularly clever" in my book.

They say that no-one ever sets out to make a bad movie - what you seem to be saying that in the case of Adaptation, this received wisdom is wrong - that it was always meant and destined to be that bad?

I can believe you, but I think there are better ways of satirising formulaic nonsense than descending into it. I however, don't have Charlie Kaufman's
a) millions
b) stones

14:51 / 18.04.07

All fair points, Whisky.

As I've said above, I was regurgitating a rather dumb stock answer rather than actually thinking, or even engaging with my own experience of the film. I was also underestimating your abilities as a reader which was a crap thing to do.

14:51 / 18.04.07

I first saw Fargo in Brainerd, MN, with a bunch of locals who claimed to sort of remember the events of the movie, and who were really indignant about the way their hometown was portrayed. Under their sway, I completely and spectacularly missed the point of the movie.

I did get it a few years later when I saw it again, though.

Whisky Priestess

15:29 / 18.04.07

Sorry, boboss, crosspost - had that up for ages without refreshing the page.

16:14 / 18.04.07

La Bete Humaine?
Trains, choking, silliness. Ok, it was noir-esque and I could hardly be suprised at the hyperbolic emotion and terrible off-screen staring but *holds head in hands*

Given that its an novel adaption I'd be almost inclined not to blame Renoir, that is, if I hadn't seen La Regle du Jeu my dislike and befuddled bemusement at which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Basically, I'm not even sure if I did fail to understand these films, which perhaps is worst of all, did others just appreciate the subtle beauty and biting satire of what I found to be cackhanded attempts at the evocative or hammer-to brain variety satire and social criticism? Or am I just not that aesthetically attuned to his particular brand of poetic realism in the same way some people don't like marmite?

17:32 / 18.04.07

Tony Scott's 'Spy Game'.

I'll wait for everybody to stop laughing.

Right, then. There's something weird going on in that film. It may be that I've only seen it twice, both times in the dead of night, totally wiped, and both times with the same person, but... between the awkward number of wives, and some other discontinuities in Redford's character's dialogue... I just keep feeling like I'm missing something bigger.

Or, there's a bad rewrite/edit in that movie somewhere.

17:39 / 18.04.07

I actually enjoy the crazy over the topness of the end of Adaptation, the way everything just shifts into fantasy universe. It may lack the intense psychological examination of the film's first half, but I think it's still wildly entertaining.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

18:16 / 18.04.07

Now I'm scared that I've totally missed something dead obvious about Fargo.

19:41 / 18.04.07

I liked Adaptation's end for the feeling you get that "Donald" is a real person that wrote the film I was seeing (or gave the ideas, or pushed the script into that direction and that "he actually died on that way"; the basic premise is to watch how the film we're watching was made, no?). Makes the character's death and sweetness throughout the film to be more gut-punching (and his Oscar nomination in real life just adds to the film's story to an immense degree).

It has (or finds itself to achieve) a genuine affection for a viewing angle and storytelling that's becoming way too much despised (even if it is formulaic, superficial, cheap, easy etc). It was kinda sweet and pretentious as hell in it's way of lacking a pretentious approach (but it does has a lot of high-brow angles if you care to find it -- I still find the experience in watching it an unbelievable twist on reality, fiction and a enormous piss-twist on "cinéma verité" and all sorts of easy knee-jerk critiques of "easy formulaic storytellings").

19:42 / 18.04.07

And I reaaally have no idea what's so good about Fargo (even though I watched it when I was 15 -- I can't remember anything that would make me want to give it another shot).

19:55 / 18.04.07

Fargo is not really 'based on a true story'. It is good, though.

20:11 / 18.04.07

Now I'm scared that I've totally missed something dead obvious about Fargo.

The thing I missed that was so dead obvious was that the movie wasn't dead earnest. As long as you got that, you were ahead of me circa 1996.

Another movie I didn't get (but this one I continue not to get): The Science of Sleep. I like all of the creators involved, and lots of people whose tastes I respect love it. But the best I can say about it was "frequently nice-looking mess."

20:14 / 18.04.07

Lost Highway completely baffled me. It's the only Lynch film that's ever left me completely bamboozled.

Including Inland Empire or have you not seen that one? Lost Highway is the fucking Straight Story compared to Inland Empire in terms of bamboozlement. But in a good way.

20:43 / 18.04.07

That's a real shame Sparrow. I'm one of those that considers the Coens to be Gods amongst men when it comes to film-making. There's nothing particularly flashy or ostentatiously brilliant about Fargo, it's the culminative effect of all the perfect little details.

Madman in the ruins.

20:44 / 18.04.07

Napoleion Dynamite.

IS it just a quiestion of laugh at his disfunctional life? all the hype I just didnt get it.

20:53 / 18.04.07

I kinda think Fargo is their least good film, though.

You know what confusedized me fiercely? 'Lust for Dracula'. Again, I'll wait for everyone to stop laughing. But, seriously, I watched this in the theatre because a friend of mine swore up and down it was brilliant (not that she could explain it away, either) and the whole schoolgirls with invisible thighmasters thing will haunt me into my grave, but was that just a collection of nudity and disturbing psychosexual oddity, or was there some message I was missing. If someone could explain away the naked at the pool talking under the moonlight scene alone, that'd be great.

21:56 / 18.04.07

Well, how are we meant to answer - sincerely, as in I did not understand it, or sardonically, as in everyone loved it but I thought it was shit? Seems both types of replies are present.

In the former category for me, Syriana. I think I got the overall point - oil business is fucked up, right? - but as for the specific plots, dialogue, and characters I comprehended very little of it.

In the latter category, Lost in Translation.

22:05 / 18.04.07

I would posit the 'thought it was shit, everyone else lover...' as more a 'I don't see why people loved this', just to avoid trampling on other folks' love of it.

I mean, both my above examples are totally honest I must have missed something comments. And my request for somebody to make it all make sense, as well.

If I were going with the everyone fucking loved this, how come I don't? I would have put down Titanic (which was classist, and sexist, and annoying all the way through and if it were true love how come she married like eighteen superrich dudes afterwards?) or The Shining with a question about how come everyone else on earth thinks this is a horrific disturbing horrorflick and I kinda think it's comforting, expecially the slow glides down halls and aroun corners, with a couple of annoying bits that drive Jack over the edge. But I wouldn't put a drunken panda subbed version of Returner in here, even if I hadn't realized, like I hadn't when I watched it the first time, that the dialogue being subbed was not the film's, but actually cut together from a bad translation of the LotR flicks with more cussing.

23:55 / 18.04.07

The Corpse Bride and to a lesser extent, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I hate Tim Burton. Sure, he's an "auteur" and has his distinct style and all that bullshit, but do I really want to watch Batman and Beetlejuice a hundred times? Every film looks the same, and people praise that. What?

I can't, for the life of me, understand why The Corpse Bride was entertaining in the slightest. It's not funny. Its characters are as bland as the claymation style in which they're animated. The movie as slow as shit. And then there's the songs. Oy.

It was okay sitting through Nightmare Before Christmas, which had a neat plot and some neat characters. But to watch the same movie but without any interesting characters or plot? No, thanks.

I also fail to understand A Clockwork Orange. I don't get the message in the film. I don't quite get the ending either. Is the ending supposed to mean that no matter what we do, we can't change our nature, and that are nature is inherently violent? If so, why was the movie so boring?

00:02 / 19.04.07

I kinda think Fargo is their least good film, though.

I guess you haven't seen The Hudsucker Proxy? But then again, I really may just not get that one, myself. The first time I saw Lebowski, I was disappointed. Maybe part of it was John Goodman's "Walter" character being so over-the-top abrasive, I don't know, really. Then a year or so later I saw it again, and the fog lifted. Same with Miller's Crossing. When I first saw it, I thought the dialogue was stilted and contrived and the story too formulaic. Which it is, kind of, but now I think it's my favorite Coen brothers movie. But Hudsucker, I've seen it three or four times, just trying to get into it, but I just can't, really. It's kind of funny, kind of clever, but just doesn't seem to work that well in the end. I do love Charles Durning's halo, though.

07:37 / 19.04.07

Boboss, I love the Cohens. But that movie just left me blank.

----

I remember as a kid giving a big "so fucking what?" to The Godfather. I find it beautifully made nowadays in many levels, but still don't consider it the best film of all times, or the perfect movie or whatever (and it fucking drives me crazy people's and critic's "opinions" of why they like it. They're always so fucking vague! It's as if they have to say they like it or else they're banned, so they vomit the most clichéd "profound" descriptions! "A solid classic", "unbelievable acting", "genius epic", "the perfect tale"; just go to something like "Rotten Tomatoes" and see what I mean -- and keep in mind the last time I saw there it was in #1 movie of all times).

And one that I still can't seem to like to this day is "Jaws". It's a movie with a subtle psychological horror-thriller-suspense premise that I'd kill for in any movie today, but the result left me wanting way more (probably 'cause I can't get past the way it aged).

The Ghost of Tom Winter

13:34 / 19.04.07

Roman Polanski's The Tenant.

Anyone see this? I don’t fucking understand it. I went in thinking something would happen. 95% of the film dragged on, was boring, and the end left me confused. I have a feeling there was some message I’m missing but I have no idea what that message could possibly be.

14:31 / 19.04.07

I can see why people would find Napoleon Dynamite pointless. I found it hilarious, but, as with Borat, have been unable to explain why.

Fargo... I thought Macy and Dormand really excelled in the movies. It was the characters that made it so funny, IMV.

14:41 / 19.04.07

The last film I remember not getting in both senses outlined above was Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract. It didn't connect with me on any level whatsoever. It has, however, been many, many years since I last saw any of Greenaway's films and I've been getting quite curious about 'em recently. I understand they are riddled with details that are only significant to an initiated few, can anyone confirm or deny this?

14:49 / 19.04.07

I understand they are riddled with details that are only significant to an initiated few, can anyone confirm or deny this?

In that some of the symbolism operates as a kind of private language. Again, I have no idea whether that's true, just what I've been told by a fanatical fan.

19:04 / 19.04.07

And Boboss - my real problem was that I was told (by someone who'd seen it before) it was going to pay off in a spectacularly clever way. And "predictable cop out/film turns to crap" does not = "spectacularly clever" in my book.

OK.

I'd like to take this opportunity to formally apologise to Whisky Priestess for making her watch 'Adaptation' instead of episode three, I'm guessing, of 'Heroes'. I now fully accept that my decision to do so means that I am an evil old lady, who is, in many important ways, lower than a worm.

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