Oh yeah, I forgot about the pantless Julianne Moore running around in Short Cuts. That’s kind of famous, isn’t it? As for there being a heterosexual sex scene in Timecode, I confess that I’m a bit foggy on everything after Selma Hayek makes out with Jeanne Tripplehorne. But, yeah, I guess it’s the later sex scene that’s more explicit.
Thanks to Steve Coogan, Tristram Shandy has the best scene involving roasted chestnuts you’ll ever see.
-Tom
Wasn’t there a TV show that was filmed like this? Boomtown?
I’m sure there’s a couple of Simpsons episodes or something, would that be better? Or does it have to be a film?
Most of what I remember about Timecode is that I thought it was rather unfair for the director to have things occurring in other frames while Salma Hayek was making out with the other chick.
Other multithreaded movies:
Sin City
Snatch
Hm. I don’t think they make family-friendly multithreaded movies. Perhaps they assume that the kids will be too dumb to get it and will annoy the parents.
I thought of Sin City too, as well as Thin Red Line. Interesting how multithreaded = “adult.” Well, I suppose it does make sense: I’m imagining a few kids in my class who will strongly object to the complexity of more than one story plot running simultaneously.
Simpsons and Futurama episodes would also be more than welcome. Family Guy… probably not so much – for these purposes, anyway.
The Limey is pretty fractured, and I don’t remember there being anything too offensive in it. Some violence, certainly, but nothing too appalling.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is even more fractured, but the links between scenes are usually fairly straightforward.
If you want Futurama recommendations, the movie they released recently, being about time travel, might be of interest to you.
Clue! (Just kidding)
He Said, She Said?
One Fine Day?
Requiem for a Dream. Scare the little fuckers straight while educating them.
There’s the Futurama movie, which JPR suggested. There’s of course the 22 Short Films about Springfield episode of The Simpsons, too.
Mystery Train!
And wasn’t the 22 Short Films kinda inspired by Pulp Fiction? Which I’m kind of surprised hasn’t been mentioned (then again, the violence aspect…)
Otherwise, the stuff that comes to mind might be Linklater’s Slacker or A Waking Life and Soderbergh’s Schitzopolis.
Yea, I mean Pulp Fiction had violence, drug use, and rape, but that was over ten years ago! I haven’t seen Pulp Fiction in a couple of years, but I bet it just seems quaint and tame now compared to what the Internet has forced upon my senses since I was in grade 8.
Otherwise, the Simpsons episode is the safe way to go, but I guess they’d miss the better laughs from it.
If we’re allowing time travel movies now, a far better choice would be Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.
Bender’s Big Score didn’t even try to be internally consistent with its time-travel shenanigans.
Primer -
Low budget and talky for 12th graders probably, but exactly (I think) what you are looking for.
Primer is TOO HARD. Plus, isn’t the narrative completely linear until the last 10 minutes? Maybe I’m misremembering that.
Personally, I think time travel sort of misrepresents the idea of hypertext, especially in the context of teaching it. Plenty of films dealing with time travel do fit the bill, but I would worry that some students may make a one-to-one association when that really isn’t the case. There are cases (like the remake of The Time Machine) wherein it shows causality of time traveling events, but the narrative is still strictly linear.
I guess the same could be said about movies that rely heavily on flashbacks, but at least flashbacks are (IMO) closer to the idea that’s trying to be conveyed.
Flashbacks are great - close to what I’m trying to get at.
Anyway, considering my target audience, I’m going to go with Run Lola Run if I have enough time, and if not, then the X-Files episode Bad Blood (Luke Wilson & vampires FTW) and the Simpsons episode mentioned in this thread. The other suggestions, however, I’ll be renting over the next few weeks for my own personal edification. Lone Star in particular looks interesting; I’m not sure how I missed that one.
As X-Files episodes go, I’d be much more inclined to recommend “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”. It has flashbacks, multiple viewpoints of the same events, and Alex Trebeck as an MIB. How can you beat that?