Movies you had the most trouble understanding?

Text-only Version: Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.



Surtur
This thread is inspired by the movie "Mulholland Drive". Mostly because of how this movie came with an actual list of tips in order to try to help you to better understand what the f*ck was going on lol.

So on that note, what movies did you have trouble understanding? It can be a movie you have never truly understood, or it can be one that you only understood after repeated viewings.

Not surprisingly I will mention Mulholland Drive, to which despite it coming with helpful hints to try to make it easier..I still really have no clue wtf was truly going on.

John Murdoch
Does it mean I'm not that bright if I say American Psycho?

steverules_2
I was confused by that, was he killing people or was it in his mind? I haven't seen the movie in a while

Ridley_Prime
Trying to make sense of everything the Architect said in the Matrix Reloaded.

John Murdoch
Originally posted by steverules_2
I was confused by that, was he killing people or was it in his mind? I haven't seen the movie in a while

I mean, I think that is the final plot point when he talks to his lawyer at the climax of the movie.

Originally posted by Ridley_Prime
Trying to make sense of everything the Architect said in the Matrix Reloaded.

Will Ferrell MTV Movie Award spoof: "You know what, I don't understand what I'm saying."

Lord Lucien
Sherlock Holmes. I watched it without subtitles and I had no clue what anyone was saying through the quick-talking accents.


Very confusing.

Flyattractor
Donnie Darko ....I might have been too drunk....or not drunk enough.

Adam Grimes
Originally posted by steverules_2
I was confused by that, was he killing people or was it in his mind? I haven't seen the movie in a while In the movie it's left to the viewer's interpretation, although only one option makes sense tbh.

Dr Will Hatch
The author of the book and the director of the movie said that he WAS killing people, but people in the American Psycho universe are all so shallow and self absorbed that they didn't notice/care what Bateman was doing.

Surtur
Originally posted by John Murdoch
Does it mean I'm not that bright if I say American Psycho?

No I had the same problem, was he a killer? Was he not? I don't know.

Vanilla Sky is another weird f*cking movie.

jaden101
I first watched Memento when I was about 14 and that was a bit of a mind boggler at the time.

I'd have to say Primer is still the film that pickles my brain even after several viewings. Physics was never my best subject and it's very heavily loaded in that dept.

steverules_2
Originally posted by Surtur
No I had the same problem, was he a killer? Was he not? I don't know.



Look at the post above yours

Mindset
You're all stoopid morans.

Flyattractor
Originally posted by Mindset
You're all stoopid morans.

That is why the Transformers, Twilight, Fifty Shades, and Rogue 1 made money.

Arachnid1
Originally posted by Mindset
You're all stoopid morans. *stupid *morons

kthx bye

Patient_Leech
I agree with a lot of the ones mentioned so far...

American Psycho
Vanilla Sky

I did not understand either of those films. I'll also add Mission Impossible. It's been a long time since I've seen it, though.

I did understand Mulholland Drive, though. It's been many years since I've seen it, but what I remember thinking is that it's conceptual in that you are living this depressed girl's hopes and dreams moving to Hollywood to make it big, but then get jolted to reality and she has killed herself. It's a pretty epically depressing movie... feel good film of the year.

Esau Cairn
No Country For Old Men.

It wasn't so much as not understanding but I totally missed that minor scene where the husband is randomly killed. It was shown as a news footage of dead bodies in a hotel room & you're apparently supposed to recognise the husband by the boots he was wearing...such a minor detail considering the other dead men were wearing boots too.

Anyway I totally expected the husband to finally turn up at the end of the movie to save his wife & when he didn't, I had to rewind the film to figure out he was actually randomly killed (for no apparent reason to the plot) halfway through.

Mindset
Originally posted by Arachnid1
*stupid *morons

kthx bye I'm not sure if you didn't get the sarcasm, or I'm not getting yours...

Arachnid1
Originally posted by Mindset
I'm not sure if you didn't get the sarcasm, or I'm not getting yours... You're not getting mine, but it was admittedly a pretty weak attempt on my part thumb up

tkitna
Originally posted by Ridley_Prime
Trying to make sense of everything the Architect said in the Matrix Reloaded.

I was going to say the same thing.

Surtur
Originally posted by Dr Will Hatch
The author of the book and the director of the movie said that he WAS killing people, but people in the American Psycho universe are all so shallow and self absorbed that they didn't notice/care what Bateman was doing.

I can understand the reasoning why nobody cared, but why did Bateman himself seem to be hallucinating whether he did it or not?

Surtur
Okay so I want to mention Da Vinci Code, I understood the movie overall..but there is one scene I don't understand.

You have the part where they are on the plane and they land and the old guy has to sneak the main characters out into his car without the authorities seeing them. So they do this and they then begin driving to their destination in London.

After this we have another scene of the main villain the "teacher" talking to that Bishop on the phone about their plan. This is what puzzles me, because as people know..the old guy turns out to be this "teacher". However, this would have meant he made that phone call to the bishop with EVERYONE in the car. It was a small car, there is no way they wouldn't have heard the conversation, and this scene took place before they even arrived at their destination.

So is this just some kind of error on the part of the crew or was there another person(besides his butler) that was working with him pretending to be the "teacher" ?

Surtur
Originally posted by Patient_Leech


I did understand Mulholland Drive, though. It's been many years since I've seen it, but what I remember thinking is that it's conceptual in that you are living this depressed girl's hopes and dreams moving to Hollywood to make it big, but then get jolted to reality and she has killed herself. It's a pretty epically depressing movie... feel good film of the year.

So what the heck was the purpose of that monstrous looking homeless guy you see in an alley or something at one point?

Patient_Leech
I'm a little hazy on some of the details in The Da Vinci Code, too...

Originally posted by Surtur
So what the heck was the purpose of that monstrous looking homeless guy you see in an alley or something at one point?

It's been so long since I've seen it, but Lynch likes to use symbolic imagery, so it may not be meant to have a literal meaning.

And speaking of Lynch...

Indland Empire (2006)

No idea how to make sense of that movie.

queeq
You're not supposed to.

To me the hardest to understand were Transformers 2, 3 and 4. And prolly 5.

Robtard
Originally posted by Surtur
So what the heck was the purpose of that monstrous looking homeless guy you see in an alley or something at one point?

To signify that nightmares can also be reality or something. Honestly, Lynch just does stuff and he only knows why. Red drapes, midgets, what have you.

jaden101
Originally posted by Surtur
So what the heck was the purpose of that monstrous looking homeless guy you see in an alley or something at one point?

That was a woman.

Esau Cairn
Birdman with Michael Keaton.

I didn't have trouble understanding but after reading what the director had to say, I totally misunderstood the ending.

For me, it was a feel good ending that left me smiling.
Riggan jumps out the hospital window. His daughter briefly looks down expecting to see her father dead on the pavement then glances up in the sky & smiles, tears of joy.

Her father isn't crazy after all, he's a real superhero that can fly!
The End.

In actual fact, when the daughter looks down, she actually does see her father dead on the pavement & in that brief moment, she loses her mind.

And when she gazes upward to the sky & smiles, she has finally lost her grip of reality & becomes delusional just like her dad.

Ascendancy
Originally posted by Esau Cairn
Birdman with Michael Keaton.

I didn't have trouble understanding but after reading what the director had to say, I totally misunderstood the ending.

For me, it was a feel good ending that left me smiling.
Riggan jumps out the hospital window. His daughter briefly looks down expecting to see her father dead on the pavement then glances up in the sky & smiles, tears of joy.

Her father isn't crazy after all, he's a real superhero that can fly!
The End.

In actual fact, when the daughter looks down, she actually does see her father dead on the pavement & in that brief moment, she loses her mind.

And when she gazes upward to the sky & smiles, she has finally lost her grip of reality & becomes delusional just like her dad.
Interesting, though I don't understand how one would pick that up just from that brief closing scene.

Originally posted by Esau Cairn
No Country For Old Men.

It wasn't so much as not understanding but I totally missed that minor scene where the husband is randomly killed. It was shown as a news footage of dead bodies in a hotel room & you're apparently supposed to recognise the husband by the boots he was wearing...such a minor detail considering the other dead men were wearing boots too.

Anyway I totally expected the husband to finally turn up at the end of the movie to save his wife & when he didn't, I had to rewind the film to figure out he was actually randomly killed (for no apparent reason to the plot) halfway through.

This is actually what happened in the book, though it played out a bit differently. Having seen this, The Road, and The Counselor, it just seems that McCarthy's films do a poor job of tying up the story. Even the close of the film didn't do justice to the message of the book. It was just very off, but it's not surprising that anyone who hadn't read the book would be lost, it wasn't handled very well.

Dr Will Hatch
Originally posted by Surtur
I can understand the reasoning why nobody cared, but why did Bateman himself seem to be hallucinating whether he did it or not?

Because he's crazy. All of the stuff where he's seeing ATM's telling him to feed it stray cats, and possibly when he caused that explosion were all in his head.

Actually, the book had some other trippy scenes in it too where he's watching TV watching Bigfoot and a talking Cheerio being interviewed, and a park bench following him home. But the murders DID happen.


Or maybe they didn't. I don't think that you always need to follow what Word of God tells you to think. Fans can make up their own minds.

Dr Will Hatch
Originally posted by Esau Cairn
Birdman with Michael Keaton.

I didn't have trouble understanding but after reading what the director had to say, I totally misunderstood the ending.

For me, it was a feel good ending that left me smiling.
Riggan jumps out the hospital window. His daughter briefly looks down expecting to see her father dead on the pavement then glances up in the sky & smiles, tears of joy.

Her father isn't crazy after all, he's a real superhero that can fly!
The End.

In actual fact, when the daughter looks down, she actually does see her father dead on the pavement & in that brief moment, she loses her mind.

And when she gazes upward to the sky & smiles, she has finally lost her grip of reality & becomes delusional just like her dad.

That's how I took the ending.

nfactor1995
Interstellar had me confused for awhile afterwards

Dreampanther
I have never understood anything David Lynch did - nor do I care enough to try. I once accidentally watched a movie of his because I heard Trent Reznor did the soundtrack, then fell asleep in the middle. When I woke up, I seriously thought I was watching another movie. Still have no idea what that movie was about. Still don't care.

If you really must know, the movie was Lost Highway.

Firefly218
2001 Space Odyssey

Firefly218
Originally posted by Dreampanther
I have never understood anything David Lynch did - nor do I care enough to try. I once accidentally watched a movie of his because I heard Trent Reznor did the soundtrack, then fell asleep in the middle. When I woke up, I seriously thought I was watching another movie. Still have no idea what that movie was about. Still don't care.

If you really must know, the movie was Lost Highway. Try watching Blue Velvet. Also Twin Peaks is fantastic

Dreampanther
Originally posted by Firefly218
Try watching Blue Velvet. Also Twin Peaks is fantastic

I know that lots of people think David Lynch is fantastic and I am happy for you and them, but I made peace a long time ago with the fact that I'm just not part of the audience that will ever enjoy his work. I'm the same about Wes Anderson and Jared Hess - people rave about their movies while I just get bored. I don't think they are funny and I've stopped trying to understand or care why people like their movies.

It doesn't mean I think they are bad directors - I just definitely am not now nor ever will be a fan of theirs.

Firefly218
Fair enough. Lynch isn't for everyone

Patient_Leech
Originally posted by Dreampanther
I know that lots of people think David Lynch is fantastic and I am happy for you and them, but I made peace a long time ago with the fact that I'm just not part of the audience that will ever enjoy his work. I'm the same about Wes Anderson and Jared Hess - people rave about their movies while I just get bored. I don't think they are funny and I've stopped trying to understand or care why people like their movies.

It doesn't mean I think they are bad directors - I just definitely am not now nor ever will be a fan of theirs.

Yeah, Blue Velvet is a pretty good movie, even for non-Lynch fans.

I feel the same way about Wes Anderson for the most part. His movies just don't interest me. Life Aquatic wasn't that funny to me, and Grand Budapest Hotel was well films and somewhat amusing, but just not my cup of tea.

Esau Cairn
Originally posted by Patient_Leech
Life Aquatic wasn't that funny to me, and Grand Budapest Hotel was well films and somewhat amusing, but just not my cup of tea.

I enjoy his movies but you really gotta be in the mood for them.

Kinda like you want to be amused by melancholy nostalgia...

I also find his imagination for set design pieces amazing.
The life size model of the submarine in Life Aquatic where it's dissected in half so you can see what everybody is doing in their separate compartments was a visual delight.

riv6672
Didnt wanna start a new thread, and this kinda fits what i'm asking, so:

AGE OF ADALINE
what gave her her 'Sherlock Scan' (able to notice minute details and make spot in deductions)?
I discussed this in RL once, and, didnt buy my friend's theory that it was because she had an extended lifespan.

My point was, she DIDNT have an extended lifespan, not really.
She stopped aging at 29 for 78 years, so she was just past 100.
Al Roker celebrates ppl in that age range all the time.

Was it because she was young that whole time? Still doesnt seem right.

Any theories or actual canon reasons why i havent come across?

John Murdoch
^I liked the movie Riv, but must not remember her extreme attention-to-detail Detective Vision. Maybe since she didn't age she didn't have any normal memory loss related to age?

Note: I mean the memory loss that occurs normally with aging, not memory loss due to a syndrome like dementia or another underlying condition.

That doesn't explain why she has super-duper memory instead though.

EDIT: Didn't realize I was starting a new page; the up arrow is referring to Riv's comment about why Adaline in Age of Adaline had Sherlock Holmes super deductive skills.


I was confused when I was a teen and watched Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes and Fight Club because of both of the endings, but then I realized Burton's PotA remake wasn't really a good movie and didn't care and, in Fight Club's case, I hadn't seen enough movies with the "main character is really the bad guy and said bad guy was all in his head the whole time!" trope yet.

NemeBro
Originally posted by Surtur
I can understand the reasoning why nobody cared, but why did Bateman himself seem to be hallucinating whether he did it or not? It's a lot more clear in the book, but Bateman, along with being a narcissistic serial killing sociopath, is legitimately insane, and suffers from hallucinations and delusions. Remember when he heard an ATM machine tell him to feed it a stray cat, and then tried to do it?

riv6672
Originally posted by John Murdoch
^I liked the movie Riv, but must not remember her extreme attention-to-detail Detective Vision. Maybe since she didn't age she didn't have any normal memory loss related to age?

Note: I mean the memory loss that occurs normally with aging, not memory loss due to a syndrome like dementia or another underlying condition.

That doesn't explain why she has super-duper memory instead though.

EDIT: Didn't realize I was starting a new page; the up arrow is referring to Riv's comment about why Adaline in Age of Adaline had Sherlock Holmes super deductive skills.


I was confused when I was a teen and watched Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes and Fight Club because of both of the endings, but then I realized Burton's PotA remake wasn't really a good movie and didn't care and, in Fight Club's case, I hadn't seen enough movies with the "main character is really the bad guy and said bad guy was all in his head the whole time!" trope yet.
Thanks, man, that makes as much sense as anything i guess!

I'm with you on the Apes movie, thst was an especially dilly ending.
Its like someone thought it'd be cool to see monkey Zlincoln so they just tacked it on.

riv6672
Okay, the original Toy Story.

If Buzz didnt believe he was a toy, why did he go inanimate whenever Andy showed up/played with him?
Its been shown in the moves (including that one) that toys freeze up by choice, and can interract with humans/animals.
Why wasnt Buzz shouting at the giant about needing to contact space command?

John Murdoch
Originally posted by riv6672
Okay, the original Toy Story.

If Buzz didnt believe he was a toy, why did he go inanimate whenever Andy showed up/played with him?
Its been shown in the moves (including that one) that toys freeze up by choice, and can interract with humans/animals.
Why wasnt Buzz shouting at the giant about needing to contact space command?

Been a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time since I've watched Toy Story, but I've got a 3-year old and a 4-month old. I bet I can do some recon and get back to you within the next few months/years haha.

riv6672
Originally posted by John Murdoch
I've got a 3-year old and a 4-month old.
Scariest thing i've read all day.

steverules_2
Back to the future Pt.3

Marty goes back to the old west, arrow hits the delorean which then leaks fuel so no fuel in the delorean. However when Doc got sent back to the old west he buried the delorean which Marty retrieves in 1955 so when Marty went back to 1885 the delorean is still in the cave for Marty in 1955. They could've used fuel from the delorean in the cave, then by 1955 the delorean could easily be refueled when Doc and Marty get it from the cave.

riv6672

John Murdoch
Originally posted by riv6672
Scariest thing i've read all day.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. They are both endearing and terrifying daily.

riv6672
^^^I'm SO glad mine are all past that point. Be strong.

John Murdoch
I shall my friend. High stress, but (mostly) good stress smile

riv6672
^^^Mostly!

Now if only i can get a Toy Story answer...dots...

carthage
Enemy

riv6672
K.

HulkIsHulk
Memento

mehedi067
no choice I no problem understand any movie

prabhash.s
The inception. Had to watch thrice to understand it

Text-only Version: Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.