Movies you hate but everyone likes or are critically acclaimed

Off-Topic Movies, TV and Entertainment
49

Thing is, with that movie, reversing the order of the scenes doesn’t put things in their place, it actually makes things far more confusing. It’s a common belief that Memento is “in reverse” or “shown backwards” but that isn’t really the case. It’s actually shown forwards and backwards at the same time, ending up in the middle.

It can get a bit confusing but I’ll try to explain. I know you said it had been explained to you, but maybe I can improve on that.

There is only one timeline:

(Start of the film) “A” ------ Middle ------ “B” (End of the film)

  • Segment “A”, presented in black and white, covers the part of the story from the start to the middle. This segment is presented to us in chronological order.
  • A single scene at “middle” that starts in black and white and ends in color.
  • Segment “B”, presented in color, covers the part of the story from the middle to the end. This segment is presented to us in reverse chronological order.

The genius is in the editing. The scenes are shown to us in such a way as to force the memory disorders of the protagonist on to the viewer.

Let’s just say each segment has five parts, so then the theatrically presented order is something like:

A1, B5, A2, B4, A3, B3, A4, B2, A5, B1, Middle.

But to view in chronological order, you need to re-edit them to:

A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, Middle, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5.

That’s actually way over simplified. :yum:

The following forum post explains the convoluted way you would need to watch the film in order to see it completely chronologically, which does defeat the filmmakers’ intent, but is cool to check out at least once:

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/memento-watch-the-american-release-in-chronological-order.16096/

It goes a bit like this:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
10:12
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
26:43
31:41
Chapter 8
45:00
…and so on.

You’ll find that by viewing the film like this, the first half is entirely black and white, while the second half is in color, the two being linked by the “middle” color transition scene. In actual chronological order, the narrative is very straight-forward and easy to understand.

A-freakin’-mazing, IMO :open_mouth:

Some of the DVD / Blu-Ray releases of this movie have easter eggs that allow you to view the scenes chronologically. Alternately, if you Google for the chronological version, it is available for viewing.

<-- Huge Christopher / Jonathan Nolan fan here. If you end up figuring out Memento and are interested in more, check out Christopher’s first movie, Following. It’s also presented in a strange chronological order, gritty black and white … an excellent film.

P.S. Yeah it took me like six edits to get this thing right LOL.

50

Excellent suggestion (the Following) and thank you for the breakdown of Memento. That was a brilliant explanation. Going to have to try to watch it like that, now :wink:

1 Like
51

Independence Day

Interesting story but totally dumb execution.
So a Biologist with no computer training(ok, maybe he is a part time hacker) somehow can hack into a foreign species computer system and somehow figure out how to write a virus in the foreign OS without using a code compiler or editor and exploit the foreign OS?
All of it done in several minutes.
LOL

2 Likes
52

Yeah, I was disappointed too. Randy Quaid killed it for me. Never liked that actor, and his portrayal of…whoever he was playing was lowbrow and caricatured.

53

Yeah that was stupid but Jeff Goldbloom’s character wasn’t a biologist. He was a “satellite technician” (not sure that’s a real job title but whatevs.)

Anyways, I think all Roland Emmerich movies are really freaking stupid. He’s down there with Michael Bay and M. Night Shyamalan (although M.Night is making a comeback I’ve heard.)

1 Like
54

Hunger Games.

7 Likes
55

You just explained the 90’s in one paragraph.

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56

Dodgeball.

57

You just explained the 90’s in one paragraph.

The 90s was a dark age.

58

Depends on the topic, for movies yes.

For video games it was a Renaissance.

59

Anything by Quentin Tarantino and just about every remake.

Oh and the bane batman movie.

60

Yeah, he’s overrated imo too.

61

Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill say otherwise.

62

He’s a one trick pony, he moves backwards and forwards through a story to make it look interesting, but it isn’t. Well done for buying into the hype.

Pulp Fiction was awful and Kill Bill was just a music video.

63

Eh, that style, which was pioneered by movies like Kurosawa’s Rashomon, is interesting and keeps you on your toes.

Both Pulp Fiction and Rashomon are widely considered to be among the best movies ever made. Subjective is subjective; fair enough if someone doesn’t like Tarantino. But objectively, Pulp Fiction deserves its place in the textbooks and history books for the storytelling and style it brought to the screen.

What I said up there being said, I really disliked Kill Bill. It seemed to be nothing but a grandstand, no subtlety in the story, really nothing to “think” about like in his other films. I mean, I get it. His influences bleed through in his filmmaking, kung fu movies included. But he is way better at crime dramas than he is at kung fu flicks. IMO, of course.

64

Overrated =/= bad

65

Why did you not like Schindler’s list and fight club? What are your reasons?

1 Like
66

Tarantino is only considered a “good” director because his films are dark and edgy than have any artistic merit. And please, his films aren’t as gory compared to other directors that are lesser known or film directors from other nations, his look more like PG-13 level of stuff instead of hardcore NC-17 that other directors will risk.

Mel Gibson’s Braveheart had more explicit blood and gore than all of Tarantinos movies combined. I have seen even more gorier stuff in the Alien films with the chestburster scenes. Most zombie movies have scarier gore than Tarantino does.

67

Little Miss Sunshine. Maleficent and all of the other Disney live action films. 300. Bridesmaids. Avatar. Holy Motors. Saw. Glass. Life of Pi. Slumdog Millionaire. The Exorcist. The Thing. It. A Quite Place. Halloween. Coco. Those CGI trashy “anime” Godzilla films. Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs. The Evagelion movies.

I think that’s enough for now.

She’s allergic to cats, poor thing, and had to do several scenes with one. I won’t hold it against her for now. I see you forgot Terrance Howard, who got replaced for similar rumors. Tut tut.

69

Rocky Horror Picture Show is trash. I cannot fathom why anyone finds that cringey dumpster fire enjoyable, even ironically.

Anyone who thinks The Last Jedi is a good movie is objectively wrong.

The Deadpool movies werent funny, he just made a lot of snappy one-liners and sex jokes.

Interstellar’s ending made no sense and it ruined the whole movie.

4 Likes