Just saw INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS. **SPOILERS**

[raccoon]

I didn't get it, what happened in the beginning of the movie happened in the end (the guy in the alley beating him up). Only thing different is Bob Dylan had appeared. (By the way, was that a real Dylan song he was singing?)

It was pure fantasy, when he went in the subway with the cat in his arms--and the cat didn't freak at the subways roaring by. Cat must've been on tranquilizers.

IMO it was an OK movie, not as good as PHILOMENA, not near as good as GRAVITY.

[Electric Monk]

1. Yes, it was a real Dylan song

http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/farewell

[pnwmom]

2. Well, the saving the cat scene was clearly a "save the cat scene."

Done very well, I might add. I was certainly rooting for him, on or off the subway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_Snyder

The title Save the Cat! is a term coined by Snyder and describes the scene where the audience meets the hero of a movie for the first time. The hero does something nice—e.g. saving a cat—that makes the audience like the hero and root for him. According to Snyder, it is a simple scene that helps the audience invest themselves in the character and the story, but is often lacking in many of today's movies.

[Electric Monk]

3. That's really interesting. I did not know that, about that screenwriting manual.

Thanks for sharing that tidbit

[pnwmom]

4. Yeah, that was considered, for a long time, to be an essential element of a good screenplay.

So there was an extra tongue-in-cheek element to that part of the plot.

[nirvana555]

5. Thanks for the input. There are so many other movies I need to see that

Are Oscar related like 12 years a slave, Dallas buyers club and others.

[Arugula Latte]

6. It was confusing, but ...

The opening scene is the end of the movie. Llewyn wakes up, and you think it is the next day, but he is unmarked from his beating. In the end you realize that that second scene takes place about a week previous and is the start of the lead-up to his beating, explaining the strange events that culminated in the beating. The person who beat him up is the husband of the older folk singer that he was berating -- but the Coen brothers should have made that link much clearer, because I didn't get that until I asked the person I watched the movie with.

The cat abandonment and cat being hit by car scenes just about ripped my heart out. I can't take that kind of stuff.

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

8. so I guess the point about saving the cat goes

out the window. Is it the protagonists fault the cat gets hit?

[Arugula Latte]

9. Well, there was more than one cat.

The original cat returns to its owners. He abandons another cat (which he'd thought was the first cat) on a road trip in a car with a passed-out John Goodman. Later he is driving and the cat runs out in front of his car and he unavoidably hits it (at least I think it was supposed to be the same previously abandoned cat -- it looked like that one). It's still alive but injured (limping) and he leaves it to struggle off into the woods. Awful.

[mysuzuki2]

7. I liked the movie very much.

Being a baby boomer, many of the scenes, references etc were pretty familiar. I remember the great folk scare pretty well. All in all, I think the movie depicts the main character (Llewyn) in the middle of a giant nervous breakdown over the death of his friend and singing partner. It would be nice to know what happened to Llewyn afterwards. BTW, I think he totally deserved the asskicking he received.