Saturday, June 17, 2017

What movies NEED to be watched twice to understand fully?

Reddit top rated comments...

Any movie you watched back as a kid and haven't seen in years.

Snatch - It's a generic heist movie on the surface, but watching a second time really brings a whole new take to the movie.

Spartacus. I have seen that movie a dozen times, still no idea who the real Spartacus is. That's what's makes it a classic who-done-it.

Primer. That movie is crazy confusing.

Groundhog Day.

12 Monkeys

Memento, Usual Suspects...

Airplane! Just watch it twice. Maybe 30 times

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The Prestige is great for this. They tell you at the beginning of the movie that the secret to a magic trick is always right in front of you. Then they spend the whole movie performing a trick that you still don't understand until the end of the movie. Upon a second watching, you see all the clues as they happen.

Paprika

Synecdoche, New York

Fight Club and Arlington Road

Being John
Malkovich

20 comments:

The Dude said...

Young Frankenstein - it is too subtle to grasp in only one viewing.

Trooper York said...

Caddyshack for the same reason.

ricpic said...

Ha ha to the both a' yiz.

ricpic said...

Was NCFOM about, at least on one level, the Mexican invasion? That's what I thought when I was watching it.

The Dude said...

NCFOM was about a lot of things, not the least of which was trying to enforce the law while swimming against a tide of illegals dealing drugs.

I watched it several times and it is not an easy movie to watch. Very painful but also allegorical.

Once I made it all the way through, and that probably took 5 viewings or so, the payoff was in the final speech made by Tommy Lee Jones' character.

Kelly Macdonald is a treat in that movie - her Texas accent is spot on. Now that is some fine acting.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Brazil (1985) the movie is Kafkaesk.

ndspinelli said...

Sixty, Are you thinking of Tommy Lee's talk w/ the old timer or w/ his wife, Tess Harper, where he talks about his dream. They are both outstanding w/ the old timer being spot on. I agree, Kelly Macdonald is superb. The Coen Bros. consistently get great performances from their actors.

The Dude said...

The dialogue with the old timer was impressive as hell "She buried him the next morning.
Digging in that hard old caliche." He painted a picture using a minimal number of words.

I was thinking of his speech wherein he describes his dream and uses the words:

"And, in the dream, I knew that he was...
...going on ahead. He was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and cold. And I knew that whenever I got there, he'd be there."

Those words resonate with me here on Father's Day eve.

Chip Ahoy said...

Thanks for the recommendation (Typed "no country for ..." and other people's searches disappeared. Just the one movie on the side appeared that late. And that's unusual.)

Fr Martin Fox said...

The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep.

AllenS said...

Spinelli beat me to it. Also, maybe more than once.

There is a show about the movie, explaining everything. It might be on youtube.

AllenS said...

Googleing this: "no country for old men explained" will give you a selection of stuff to watch. Pretty good.

ndspinelli said...

Sixty and Padre, This is odd. One of the premium channels has been replaying No Country For Old Men and I watched the last half last night. And TCM played The Big Sleep last night and my bride and I watched it. I think that was the first, maybe the second at most, times I watched it. That's odd, it's the type flick I normally would have watched numerous times. I had to suffer an INSUFFERABLE intro w/ Letterman and Alec Baldwin.

I've told this story before but it bears repeating again. There was a famous character actor, Elisha Cook, Jr. who played in both the Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. I wonder if he was a buddy of Bogey, like Ward Bond and The Duke? Anyway, I was a house dick @ The Drake Hotel back in the early 80's. I got a call from a housekeeper saying she was cleaning a room and a strange guy just walked in. I hustled up there and found the frightened maid in the hall and a short man who looked homeless searching the room. I confronted him, explaining who I was. He just said a couple times, "I'm just looking for my script, my key is back @ the set." I stood nose to nose[I had to squat] and said he had to come w/ me. All of a sudden he realized how this all looked. He smiled and said, "I'm Elisha Cook, an actor, and I'm playing a part in a Chicago Story episode." The name didn't ring a bell. He then pointed to his face and asked, "Ever seen The Maltese Falcon?" I laughed and said, "Wilmer Cook!" having seen the flick at least a dozen times. Cook was gracious, thanked me for being diligent, I helped him find his script, and that was my only encounter w/ him.

ndspinelli said...

Allen, Thanks for the tip, I will Google.

William said...

Most Bergman films. The problem is you don't want to watch them a second time......There's something about Groundhog Dog that makes repeated viewings enjoyable. When you watch it a few times you undergo an experience similar to that of the Bill Murray character. Maybe that's a trick of time loop movies. That Tom Cruise movie (Edge of Tomorrow) and Looper were fun to watch again........The Kubrick movie, 2001, has a lot of complexity that repays repeated viewings. He certainly wasn't prescient about the future of Pan Am and phone technology, but it was an interesting speculation on the origins of our existence, , I think the point of that mysterious ending is that the astronaut is on a Möbius strip and the further out in space/time you go, the more likely you are to encounter yourself at the beginning of your journey.

AllenS said...

Nick, I believe that you've told that story about Elisha Cook before.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I love you, William. You are without question my favorite internet commenter. Absolute favorite.

But it was just last week that I watched Wild Strawberries for the second time and I enjoyed it immensely. Even more than the first time.

I'll add that every Bergman film (yes, film) I've ever watched twice was more enjoyable the second time round and well worth the miniscule investment. Not that I've seen that many. I've seen maybe a half-dozen and I'm certainly no expert.

But still, give it a try, would be my well-intended advice.

Best regards.

William said...

Thanks for your kind comments. The one thing my life has been missing until now is a fan base. Please try to write admiring comments as often as possible. This will give me the sense that my fan base is widening. Use different names to heighten the illusion.. I will respond with grace and modesty. I'm sure if I had a large fan base, I would be like Tom Hanks and not like Lindsay Lohan.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I'll do what I comfortably can. Promise.

But beware. You would not be the first extremely talented person on the internet to become popular and then, slowly but surely, eventually, become insufferable.

And that would be a great loss to us all.