Have you ever seen a movie that left you mystified as to what it was about?

[CTyankee]

Just watched "Enemy" and was scratching my head...nothing made any sense to me. Granted I came into it after it had already been playing for a little while.

It was a weird feeling...

[bettyellen]

1. Just watched Hitchcock's Suspicion.... sort of vaguely offensive

And not that suspenseful, but weird ending

[CTyankee]

4. I'll have to see Suspicion again...I don't recall being mystified by that one but

it was made a long time ago and memory fades...

[bettyellen]

5. I can't believe Fontaine won an Oscar for that ham fisted acting/

And I guess the whole trope of a woman who wants to be mistreated didn't sit well with me. Is she paranoid and just married an asshole PUA or will he kill her some day? Let's watch! No thanks.

[Midwestern Democrat]

24. Fontaine herself believed that her Oscar for this film was really a make-up award for not getting

it for Rebecca the previous year - which she thought was both a superior film and performance. As for Suspicion, Hitchcock claimed he wanted a much different ending but the studio wouldn't go for it.

[VermontKevin]

45. They wouldn't let Cary Grant's character be the bastard he was.

Fontaine was robbed on "Rebecca."

[PJMcK]

30. The ending of Suspicion

In the original story, Cary Grant's character brings Joan Fontaine's character a glass of milk before she goes to bed. The implication is that he's going to poison her.

When the film was made, however, Mr. Grant's contract stipulated that his film characters wouldn't be "bad guys." So, the script writers had to change the ending to make "Johnny" sympathetic. Frankly, it ruins the story.

In the late 1980s, I worked on a contemporary remake of the film with Anthony Andrews and Jane Curtin. It wasn't very good and the characters and story seemed terribly out of date. At one point, Johnny says something like, "You make me feel like a passionate hairdresser!" Ugh. However, the composer Larry Grossman wrote some wonderfully beautiful and effective music for the remake.

[bettyellen]

36. That hairdresser line was in the original! I think it must have been in the story it was based on?

I wondered if t was supposed to be he was also gay and just pretending to like her on top of his other phoniness? I remember some sly cracks against gays in other old movies. Hmmmm.


I noticed the quality of dialogue varied a lot in Hitchcock while the direction is constantly very good. I noticed there was a lot of pick up artist schtick in it- him "negging" her and keeping her off balance, which is as creepy but.... the whole movie is him throwing up red flags and her face over reacting. Geeze, if I thought someone was going to kill me I'd not show my hand. LOL

[PJMcK]

38. You're right about the original!

The remake was intended to be a frame-for-frame remake but in contemporary time (ca. 1985) and in color (which weakens the tension, in my opinion).

The thing is, the hairdresser line wasn't as weird 1941 as it would be more than 40 years later. Anyway, that was probably among the least of the problems with the remake. I mean, Jane Curtin as a heart-on-her-sleeve heir to an English fortune? Anthony Andrews as an alpha-male romantic lead? Actually, his demeanor in the remake almost made the hairdresser line work! (big wink)

The producers of the remake had the idea that they would remake a number of Hitchcock's films in the same manner. After this initial effort, the idea was scuttled. However, if you ever get a chance to see it, as I said upthread, Larry Grossman wrote some terrific music and the orchestrations are pretty good, too, (my contribution!).

[bettyellen]

41. I thought the hairdresser line meant he could not only be a fake suitor but a really fake (gay)

Suitor/ husband. But it was like he made sooo many weird comments, it was just confusing. Oaf or murderer? She came off as paranoid but he came off as dangerous, lol.

[whathehell]

2. More than once, unfortunately..

I usually call them 'bad movies".

[TexasProgresive]

3. Zabrisky Point (sic)

[TenHouseCats]

10. Thank you.

I thought it was just me.

[unblock]

6. Napoleon dynamite

Mrs. Unblock wanted to see it because she heard it's a cult favorite in some circles. I said ok because I assumed there would be some Elvis Costello references and/or songs in the soundtrack.

I'm a big fan of his and he has used napoleon dynamite as an alias going back many years.

But no, they just decided to cash in on Costello's creativity and fame.

Anyway, we thought the movie was lame and pointless.

[samnsara]

7. Lost in Translation for me

[samnsara]

8. add Eraserhead to that

[jberryhill]

14. Seriously wtf

[TexasBushwhacker]

20. Oh yeah! n/t

[catbyte]

9. Donnie Darko. I liked it, but didn't understand it, lol.

[VermontKevin]

46. It's a version of "It's a Wonderful Life" with a bit of "Harvey."

[Laffy Kat]

11. "2001 A Space Odyssey" when it first came out.

I understand it now, but it was a bit much for a little kid. My parents did get it either, though. I think you had to read the book.

[TexasProgresive]

18. Mind altering chemicals help.

[Beartracks]

26. The book did have more details and explanatory info...

... but I'm of the impression that the movie purposely omitted things in order to, basically, enhance the mystery of the adventure. So while it was basically the same story PLOT (note: the book and movie were created simultaneously, and somewhat synergistically), it was like it had a different MEANING - a meaning that was open to YOUR interpretation.

===============

[Wounded Bear]

37. The "book" was written concurrently with the movie...

one might almost say after the script.

IIRC, the movie was originally based on a short story written by Bradbury a few years earlier. There wasn't that much 'there' there when they finally Kubrick'ed the story. I'm surprised there are not more Kubrick films on this list, he was the master of the WTF movie.

[Beartracks]

40. Concurrently - THAT'S the word I was looking for!

And you're right about Kubrick's WTF credentials.

=========

[sarge43]

43. I think you mean Arthur C. Clarke

He adopted the basis of 2001 from his short story The Sentinel and his novel Childhood's End

[Wounded Bear]

44. You're right, of course...

[sarge43]

47. ....

[no_hypocrisy]

32. Yup

[doc03]

12. Saw one on Neflix a couple nights ago called Fire and Sand Or Sand and Fire

it was about an environmental disaster in South America I think. It was gawd awful.

[Skittles]

22. Salt and Fire?

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/salt_and_fire/

[doc03]

23. That's it! Don't run into many good movies on Netflix anymore nt

[panader0]

13. All I can say is Keyser Soze.

I have had to watch some movies more than once to get them.

[kysrsoze]

29. I take offense to that.

[panader0]

33. Who are you---really.....?

[Skittles]

15. Eyes Wide Shut

I didn't get it and did not find it entertaining

[edbermac]

21. Try this

Guy named Rob Ager who does film analysis. Used to post all videos on YouTube but he sells most of them now. 2 vids here on EWS. Lots of other vids on YouTube analyzing it.

http://www.collativelearning.com/FILMS%20reviews%20BY%20ROB%20AGER.html

[Phentex]

48. That's the first thing I thought of...

but wasn't even sure I remembered the title correctly. I remember thinking there's two hours I'll never get back.

[pepperbear]

16. Eraserhead

[Heartstrings]

17. Mulholland Drive

"Silencio!"

[Nay]

19. Thank you. I have NO IDEA what that movie was trying to do. nt

[kysrsoze]

28. IF anyone can tell me WTF Inland Empire was about, they deserve a medal

I actually liked Mulholland Drive. It was at least entertaining, as was Lost Highway. Pretty much all of Lynch's movies are headscratchers, but I.E. was in a class by itself. My wife finally went to bed and thought I was nuts to want to finish it. I figured maybe I'd finally get some portion of it. I'll never get that time back.

[Fla Dem]

56. I so agree! I was so mystified by the movie I actually bought the DVD so I could watch it again.

I was still mystified.

[Initech]

25. Inception

I'm still wondering WTF that movie was about.

[PJMcK]

31. Yep

I was going to post the same film, Initech.

While the special effects and performances were pretty good the story was dumb. I mean, the ending is basically, "And then I woke up."

What the hell? Hollywood thought this was a great film?!

[Kablooie]

27. Antonioni's Blow Up

Starts out as an interesting murder mystery and ends up with mimes playing invisible tennis.

[Dave Starsky]

42. The mimes show that our minds fill in the details of things that aren't there...

based on what we would expect (or hope) to see.

Which was the point of the movie.

I know it seems sort of over-the-top and heavy-handed today, but many older movies seem that way now.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

34. De Duva

[Midwestern Democrat]

35. "Bullitt" - a hugely successful film (it was the first modern police thriller) but the screenplay

was just awful at making the film's plot points clear enough to an audience watching the film in a theater (who didn't have the luxury of stopping the film and rewinding it to figure out what the hell was going on). Robert Vaughn went on record saying that he turned down his role in the film three times before accepting because he couldn't understand the script - the film got away with the murky narrative because it was groundbreaking and exciting to audiences who had never seen anything like it before, but they probably wouldn't have gotten away with it if it had followed rather than inspired Dirty Harry, The French Connection, etc.

[milestogo]

39. Pulp Fiction

I don't know what the point of making this movie was. As far as John Travolta films go, this was worse than Battlefield Earth.

[skypilot]

57. Many will, no doubt, consider your post...

...to be heresy but I agree. I wasn't a fan of Reservoir Dogs either. I didn't like a Quentin T. movie until I saw Jackie Brown and that might only have been because Pam Grier was in it.

[TexasBushwhacker]

59. QT is hit and miss for me

Didn't like Reservoir Dogs. Walked out after the ear cutting scene.

Liked Pulp Fiction a lot.

Liked Jackie Brown.

Thought Kill Bill should have been cut to make one good movie. Having 2 parts stretched it out too thin.

Inglorious Basterds was fair.

Didn't watch Django. Read about some of the violence and decided it wasn't for me.

Didn't like the Hateful Eight.

Supposedly his next film is supposed to be abput the Manson murders.

[milestogo]

60. I guess he's just a little too dark for me.

[First Speaker]

49. The Big Sleep

...I've read the novel, seen the film numerous times...I'm still not sure who was doing what to whom. And frankly, I don't give a damn. It's just a thrill ride, and you don't much care where it all comes to a stop...

[jmowreader]

50. Well, there's this one...

Comes in two parts:

It's hard to decide whether they're trying to teach Homer to wash his scroungy ass...or if they're actually forming a boy band.

[bagelsforbreakfast]

51. Last Year at Marienbad...

Great film but not sure what it was about...

[Kleveland]

52. The Prestige

Weird one, about two "magicians".

Tesla played by David Bowie.... that was intriguing enough.

The ending messed me up...

An odd paradox that I cannot resolve in my simple mind.

It seriously bugs me.

[bagelsforbreakfast]

53. Another great one (but puzzling) THE Werckmeister Harmonies n/m

[VermontKevin]

54. Every damn movie by David Lynch.

[alarimer]

55. Any David Lynch movie.

Sorry. I KNOW it's uncool of me to hate on David Lynch, but I never could stand Twin Peaks either. I know that leaves me out of the cool kids club, but there it is. (Aside from the storyline, the fact that people who love Twin Peaks seem to think the rest of us are idiots or very uncool is what makes me hate it even more.)

I think the only Lynch movie I finished was Mulholland Drive, which was borderline.

[ashling]

58. In answer to your question,

yes