movies you like but don't understand what they are about

[Rev. Powell]

It's very similar to most Lynch movies. There are literal explanations for almost of all of them, but to find them out would ruin the magic. It's like a magician telling you how his tricks work. You don't want to know because it will make the elusive and ephemeral concrete. No fun at all.

Your preaching my liturgy, brother! 

[bob]

I didn't fully understand 2001: A Space Odyssey at first viewing, but loved it anyways. I like to think I understand most of it now, though.

lol... Agree here... the movie would make so much sense without the 20 minutes of classical music, the apes and a girl walking upside down, on the other hand the movie would then suck cheese without those visuals.

I tend to believe the guy (lead character in the end of the movie his name escapes me) dies in space. But instead of showing us a floating corpse we see his mind dreaming an endless dream.

the beginning introduces the monolinth concept which is further used as the reason for the ultra-awesome space sequences, although that still doesn't completely explain 2001 I think

and the main character at the end is Dave

[A_Dubya]

Hmm, I suppose Napoleon Dynamite. I'm one of the few people who love that film, even though it was all over the place. I loved the creativity, even down to things like the opening credits. I enjoyed  the odd nature of the story also. Don't ask me what it's about though.

Not sure, but I just always understand it as being about friendship, and staying true to your buds.

[Snivelly]

Any David Lynch movie.
VALHALLA RISING - unless "Christians suck" really was the only message they were trying to convey. 

I liked Valhalla Rising but I have no idea what the director's message was there. 

[Flick James]

You and me both, brother. I think I finally got a handle on those films when I realized the concept was implicit in the title. Police ACADEMY. The films, properly understood, are a delicate exploration of the state that lies between being and becoming. It's a shame they never finished the planned 11-film cycle. It's so frustrating to be denied the answers to all life's questions that could have been. Would of made Schubert's Unfinished Symphony look like a pile of puke.

I just now read this. Mofo, you complete me. 

[Doggett]

Leaving Las Vegas.

Shes a hooker, hes a drinker.

And...

Thats it?

There's no change or heart? No character growth? No lessons learnt?
Or... Maybe that is what the films about.


And Primer.
I had to go online to see diagrams of how the time travel worked in that. I was lost!

[Rev. Powell]

Leaving Las Vegas.

Shes a hooker, hes a drinker.

And...

Thats it?

There's no change or heart? No character growth? No lessons learnt?
Or... Maybe that is what the films about.

It's about unconditional love taken to the extreme.  Cage or Shue accept each other for what they are, and neither tries to change the other.  But -- should they have?   

[Allhallowsday]

I didn't fully understand 2001: A Space Odyssey at first viewing, but loved it anyways. I like to think I understand most of it now, though.

lol... Agree here... the movie would make so much sense without the 20 minutes of classical music, the apes and a girl walking upside down, on the other hand the movie would then suck cheese without those visuals.

Well you appreciated the visuals, which was certainly the whole point of that film.  The apes, however, explain the whole movie; that's why the bone tossed in the air segways to a spaceship... it's cool, but ham-handed actually... that's also the most obvious use of "classical music"... "The Blue Danube".  That waltz by STRAUSS explains more: we'd gone from bone-tooled raw-meat eaters to space children...

I tend to believe the guy (lead character in the end of the movie his name escapes me) dies in space. But instead of showing us a floating corpse we see his mind dreaming an endless dream.

Uhm... Cmdr Dave Bowman...?   That's not a dream but a transmogrification.  And did you forget the climactic moment of the film when the "star child" appears near planet Earth?  Looks just like KEIR DULLEA.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXS8P0HksQo

[JaseSF]

I didn't get Adaptation. upon first viewing. Some say I don't get Boogie Nights yet I still don't like it. I like Quintet but I'm not sure I fully "get" it.

[Mofo Rising]

Permit me to discuss 2001 for a while here; I find that film fascinating.

The monolith clearly represents a spark that transforms the band of apes from animals to what is now humanity. A divine spark if you will. It's no coincidence that the apes touch the monolith and then progress to realize that they can use the world around them to form tools. The first tool they use is a bone used as a club, which amplifies their ability to kill and thus their power.

It's important to realize their first tool was an implement of killing.

The film ties the use of tools into the flowering of human consciousness, and it was the monolith that provided this impetus. The entire rest of human history is jump-cutted in that famous sequence. We go from Australopithecus to space travel.

I don't think the use of tools was the impetus that sparked off the "human revolution," but this was the '60s and they still didn't have all the data we have these days. I'd say the use of language is what really kick-started it all, but I digress from the movie's central thesis.

Now, this rest of this is just my interpretation, and the movie intentionally obscures itself to invite interpretation. The main thrust of the middle part of the movie is dedicated as to whether or not mankind can overcome its tools to move on to the next phase of evolution. HAL 9000 is the ultimate tool. "He" is the culmination of every technological innovation from that basic club to electronics and space travel. The mystery of the movie is just why HAL turns murderous. It's explained explicitly in Clarke's book, but the book is not the movie.

In the interpretation I like, it doesn't matter what HAL's "reasons" were, because the computer is only a symbol for mankind's tools, and as they are only a stepping stone for greater things, "he" is only the crutch we must move beyond. Dave Bowman manages to do this, and so we move on to the next phase.

Good for Bowman, but notice that the astronauts in the film barely function beyond their clearly defined roles. They're as close to robots as you can get.

Now, I don't agree with this interpretation of human history and potential. Our tools and technology are not something to fight against. They are us; we are not separate.

Also, the monolith was not a divine spark. It's a great metaphor, but in this movie's cosmology, it was simply an invitation to join a proposed larger community. The existence of the monolith is proof that there are other intelligences in the galaxy/universe, and they are recruiting.

As for the endlessly long cuts with the monkeys and the light show, it's a movie. This is light, sound, and music, the things that movies excel at. You know, the sort of things raised apes enjoy.

Anyway, carry on.

[bob]

I'd like to chime in again on 2001. See 2010, I greatly enjoyed it and it sheds light on some of what happens in 2001.