is one fucked up movie
I hadn’t watched this since it came out (1994) and had fond memories of it and saw it in the bargain bin for $9.99 and decided to buy it.
I’m still fond of it, but it is a seriously fucked up movie that I would imagine only die-hards would like.
What is it about the film that vexes you?
Take for example the scene:
The motel room where M&M are making out, the TV is showing films with violent acts but the window is actually another portal, showing wildlife having sex and then you have the conversation betweeen M&M which you’re trying to listen to.
Numerous cut-aways / flashbacks that are fast-edited, using various film mediums, grain, fog, negative, etc, that are in themselves scenes like the various driving scenes that are surrealistic with yet other scenes playing out on the sidewalks, with other scenes projected on the buildings, with flames overlayed on that already overloaded scene.
The scenes are overloaded to an extreme and it’s difficult to focus on any one element - Which is the entire point of the movie.
I get it, and I’ve got a high tolerance for weird movies - but this is so high on my fucked up meter, I’d have a hard time recommending to anyone but the most hardened movie watchers.
This was definitely the movie where Oliver Stone jumped the Shark.
I’d have to agree. I couldn’t even finish watching u-turn and haven’t had any reason to wach any of the other ones post u-turn.
I haven’t watched it because it looks and always has looked completely terrible.
Wait until you see Mulholland Drive, tampaxdx.
David Lynch, not Stone
It’s a strange film, Dess, stranger than NBK IMO. I wasn’t trying to go with the same director.
Mulholland Drive and Vanilla Sky are both attempts to create complexity where none should exist - the weird thing is Abre Los Ojos (original spanish version of Vanilla Sky) I liked a lot better even though it was higher up on my fucked up scale. Must be because I can’t stand Tom Cruise and there wasn’t so much an attempt to hide the ending like VSky was trying to do. Course it could have been the six foot vagina that swayed me on ALO.
Speaking of lynchinian movies, I watched Blue Velvet a few years ago and came away with it’s a horrible movie and people are afraid to say it’s crap because they’re afraid to say they don’t know art. Talk about scenes for no other purpose than to be cool. Awful movie.
But in the end, I’d still rate NBK above MD, VSky and BV. However, Abre Los Ojos tugs at me saying it’s much, much better than these other weird movies.
Apples to apples?
Ah, gotcha, sorry, wasn’t sure.
NP I should have been clearer as to my point.
Go ahead and hug now, you two.
While I am no fan of Stone, he does a good job of doing what he wants with this movie. It’s supposed to be surreal and difficult to watch, as part of the statement he is making on the intersection of violence, sex, the media, and our culture.
It may be one of the least commercial major motion picture release ever. I mean, how can you expect repeat viewership on that? To what demo does it really appeal? And what does it say about those who deliberately expose themselves to that repeatedly?
I really liked one of the songs from the soundtrack, that may have been the hardest song to get information about I have encountered, even in the Internet age, that being A.O.S.- History Repeats Itself. It took me years of occasionally doing research to find out even who A.O.S. is.
So while I respect what Stone was trying to do, I don’t like it at all. Which in the end may be exactly what he was hoping for.
Put your camera away first.
Jeez, I remembered loving it. I need to go back and re-watch it.
I like the soundtrack.
ditto
I kind of liked it, and I do not typically like that type of shock movie, as I usually find them condescending and pretentious.
I recall liking the odd Bonnie and Clyde element to it.