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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Memento (was: Moderator bait...)

Mister Remington Finn

12:42 / 17.01.02

I saw Memento yesterday (living out here in the boonies of The Nether Nether Lands, we´re totally dependent of tourist with vids for us to loot after we carved up their bones into cute little windmills)
And I was Totally blown away.

So, is there a thread about this one?
Or is this a fresh new one?
Anyways...is this movie good, or is it stuck on its own gimmick?

[ 17-01-2002: Message edited by: The Return Of Rothkoid ]

[ 19-01-2002: Message edited by: Mister Remington Finn ]

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:56 / 17.01.02

Well, there was a good thread on Memento. But it fell off the board, due to the thirty day limit, I believe.

I thought it was great; pretty sure that was the consensus...

ps: have edited the title of this thread to refer to the movie, now.

14:36 / 17.01.02

Hmn.

I think it's very good, but having now seen it three times, would like to point out that it gets shakier with repeat viewing. It's all very good and clever... but almost "of its time". Refreshing, certainly, when I saw it, and hugely enjoyable (and it's great fun watching it with OTHER people who HAVEN'T seen it) but really, I'm becoming a bit underwhelmed by it.

Would love to see Nolan's debut, Following, though.

14:38 / 17.01.02

Oh, and Nolan is now remaking Insomnia.

Which was a perfectly good movie, starring Stellan Skarsgard, about a Swedish cop in Norway getting Insomnia, going nuts, permanent sunlight and all...

anyhow, it's now in Alaska, stars Robin Williams (as the bad guy, so probably with a beard) and Al Pacino (as the cop, going to... Alaska, fs) and sounds COMPLETELY POINTLESS.

It'll be good, though. Just pointless. (Oh - it also has Maura Tierney and her fabulous arse in it, though, which is some consolation).

Knodge - YOUR nemesis!

17:09 / 17.01.02

I enjoyed it.

I also think that 'Following' is very good. The DVD has a commentary track on it, I haven't got around to listening to it yet but am hoping that it provides some interesting insight into Nolan's thoughts and ideas. 'Memento' is being released on a special edition DVD in the coming months and will probably also have a commentary track.

15:29 / 18.01.02

Neat flick. Bent my brain pretty good.

I especially like that its essencially chaos magick in practice. He defines his own reality.

19:21 / 18.01.02

I hope on the DVD they have an option to play the film backwards, ie forwards.

19:54 / 18.01.02

I have the DVD, and they don't. You just have to program your DVD player to play the scenes in the right order. I played a bit with this, but it was more work than I cared to spend on it.

The DVD has a neat bonus, a hypertext newspaper clipping that leads off to all sorts of wierd pictures and articles that fill in the rest of the back story. Such as, how long he's been wandering around since he escaped from the hospital, about how many folks he's killed, that sort of thing. The original short story its based on is included, too.

20:58 / 18.01.02

The DVD in this country, certainly DOES.

It's a hidden feature.

Why you'd want to, I don't know. Sounds like a silly idea to me.

05:33 / 19.01.02

quote:Originally posted by cusm:

The DVD has a neat bonus, a hypertext newspaper clipping that leads off to all sorts of wierd pictures and articles that fill in the rest of the back story.

i think that's what's on the website otnemem.com too.

Mister Remington Finn

12:18 / 19.01.02

the only thing I couldnt get was the part about Sammy Jenkins (I could follow it upto where the black and white story line caught up with the full colour storyline). Who did he kill?. It even lead methink the main guy was Jenkins and he got that fucked around in his head.
And although aman with no memory ( or recolection) would feel no guilt, I´m not tottally convinced that would makehim the perfect killer. It makes him though the perfect accomplice.

17:55 / 22.01.02

According to the interview that's on the DVD, the short story was writing by Nolan's brother. The idea of the story inspired the movie, but both were acctually finished around the same time (in other words it took the brother for ever to write the short story). Nolan says that the story is the begining, the film is the end, the web page (that weird clipping) is the middle.

quote:Originally posted by Mister Remington Finn:
the only thing I couldnt get was the part about Sammy Jenkins (I could follow it upto where the black and white story line caught up with the full colour storyline). Who did he kill?. It even lead methink the main guy was Jenkins and he got that fucked around in his head.
And although aman with no memory ( or recolection) would feel no guilt, I´m not tottally convinced that would makehim the perfect killer. It makes him though the perfect accomplice.

My understanding is that Jenkins was someone the charecter invented to remind himself to stay in a routine. You're lead to beleave that he killed his wife. And then convinced himself that someone else did.

As for the murder bit. No memory means no remorse/regret. Which is ussually one of the first signs of a serial killer. Why again wouldn't he make a perfect killer?

18:00 / 22.01.02

What I want to know is all the little shit that's left out.

How does the charecter know the guy in the truck who shoots out his window? ("you don't remember me?" or something like that)

And there was something about the cop, Natellie, and the charecter, that bugged me, but it's been awhile since I've seen the film so I can't remember it now.

What I get off on though is people's reaction to the film. You get people who think that Time Cop had an interesting twist, and then show them flicks like Momento or Fight Club, and it just kind of fucks 'em up. Fun.

21:08 / 31.01.02

quote: How does the charecter know the guy in the truck who shoots out his window? ("you don't remember me?" or something like that)

I think he's referring to Pearce's character not remembering him from thirty seconds before, when he was chasing him with gun drawn.

I just saw this, and enjoyed it, although it seemed at the end Pearce was able to remember an awful long stretch - SPOILER - enough to work out Lenny was telling him a whole bunch of different stories, that he shouldn't trust him, then work out a scheme to get himself to kill him and write it down; all done calmly, unlike the scene where he goes into an absolute panic trying to write stuff about Natalie down before he forgets. That annoyed me a little.

On the other hand, a DVD that fills in all the back story seems like a horrible idea - surely half the appeal is not knowing which story is true?

12:22 / 01.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Dread Pirate Crunchy:

I think he's referring to Pearce's character not remembering him from thirty seconds before, when he was chasing him with gun drawn.

It's been awhile, but I remember the "you don't remember me?" being before the chase scene. Acctually, being the begining of the chase scene. I'll have to watch it again though.

quote:I just saw this, and enjoyed it, although it seemed at the end Pearce was able to remember an awful long stretch -

Again, it's been awhile, so I can't give you specifics. Remember though, his condition is mental, not physical. It's not that he is incapable of creating new memories. It's that his mind doesn't want to create new memories.

It is also easier to keep thoughts in your head when you're calm. Esspecially when you're not distracted. In the scene with what's her name, she distracts him when she comes in the door, and so he loses his train of thought. He's also in a very agitated mental state.

Spoilers:

Also, I didn't make the assumption that he neccisarily beleaved the stories at the end. They were one possible story that could have happened. He didn't like that story, so wrote himself a note not to trust him anymore, so he didn't have to give the story any credence.

12:26 / 01.02.02

Yes, I felt that at that point he was angry with Teddy and did not want to accept what Teddy was telling him - and that was why he wrote that note.

12:41 / 01.02.02

Obvious spoiler:

no "you have a memory condition" tatoo. How can he remember to keep telling people?

Which points to the whole serial killer thing: he likes the kill. But more than that, he likes setting others up to let him kill. He loves the whole _getting away with it_, in some ways more than the kill itself. After the third time, the holes in the film become quite evident.

I'm not sold on the "Leonard's a psycho!" line, but it's one of several possible ideas you have to consider.

13:21 / 04.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Paleface:
Obvious spoiler:
no "you have a memory condition" tatoo. How can he remember to keep telling people?

That's the point of the "Remember Sammy Jenkins" tattoo, and why he keeps telling people about Sammy. He remembers the memory condition and his need for repitition.

Also, again, remember that he doesn't really have a memory condition. It's purely psycological. Which means he CAN make new memories, his brain just doesn't want to. This is the explanation for minor slip ups that I'm using.

quote:Which points to the whole serial killer thing: he likes the kill. But more than that, he likes setting others up to let him kill. He loves the whole _getting away with it_, in some ways more than the kill itself.

Where's your proof of this? Seems a big leap. A smaller one is the "revenge" theory, and that he just keeps getting played by the people around him.

16:25 / 29.12.04

Can we get a consensus on who everyone was?

Teddy- presumably a bent guy with experience of working as a police officer. But surely he can't be a currently serving, if he abuses his brief so widely?

the barlady (I forget the name) - do you think she was downright evil, or is she a sympathetic character in some ways?

Did Leonard actually kill his wife's killer? Presumably even this is of secondary importance; the fact is that he's going to forget everything he hears anyway and will presumably be played for the rest of his life.

17:36 / 29.12.04

Did Leonard actually kill his wife's killer? Presumably even this is of secondary importance; the fact is that he's going to forget everything he hears anyway and will presumably be played for the rest of his life.

- SPOILERS -

It's been a long time since I watched Memento, but wasn't the idea that there was no "wife's killer?" Wasn't it that she was raped at some point in time, and then at another Leonard fucked up her insulin and she died of that? (Or was the rape a fabrication, I forget.)

As for Teddy, the way I recall it he was a police officer or detective who had become some kind of self-appointed babysitter to Lenny, watching over him a bit, and assisting Lenny in a false quest for "the killer" while making sure he never 'found' & killed anyone - except for, you know, any drug dealers or other bad guys it might be convenient to have disappear.

Lenny had no reason to mistrust Teddy, exactly, other than the fact that he (T) was manipulating him (L) for his (T) own benefit. It was when Teddy came too close to penetrating Leonard's thick denial/"memory"-block that Lenny reacted by labeling him as an enemy. He was the enemy in the sense that he threatened to remind L of what really happened to the wife.

18:46 / 29.12.04

Yes - that's right - ironically *he* killed his wife - so he was searching for himself literally as well as metaphorically.

I'd never thought of the possibility that he was killing Lenny for reminding him of the truth. I thought it was for selling him so many yarns over the months.

18:51 / 29.12.04

*Teddy*, sorry.