This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is a fun one, since it's more personal and a movie that fits for one blogger might not fit for others: Movies that Confused You. Not counting some of the movies I've come across on the Mexican TV channels and tried to watch with just closed captioning in Spanish rather than English subtitles, my Spanish being very poor, there are still any number of movies that are confusing enough. I think I used one a couple of years ago in a completely different theme, but it definitely fits here.
The Big Sleep (1946). Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart had been a big hit together in To Have and Have Not and got married, so Warner Bros. decided to cast them together again in this one. Bogart plays Philip Marlowe, so we know he's going to get involved in a mystery, this tim at the behest of Bacall's father. The real mystery, however, is what the movie's mystery is about.
The World's Greatest Sinner (1962). A vanity project for Timothy Carey, who plays an insurance salesman who drops out of life to become some sort of charismatic preacher type who then gets involved in rock-and-roll and then politics. Or something like that. A little bit of Timothy Carey goes a long way, and there's a lot of Carey here. Frank Zappa wrote the music.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). As I understand it, Arthur C. Clarke's novelization, written contemporaneously with the movie, explains the Space Baby of the third act in a somewhat more coherent way than Stanley Kubrick's direction does. Any time TCM shows the movie, I turn on the Descriptive Video Service for the third act to try to make it more comprehensible, but it's still a mess.
5 comments:
Great list! I still need to watch 2001 Space Odyssey. Sounds like an interesting movie!
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Ronyell @ Rabbit Ears Book Blog
2001 is one I really need to finish but I just couldn't get into it. Next year, I swear.
There are some really great things in The Big Sleep, especially Martha Vickers and to a lesser extant Dorothy Malone, but it's a very opaque film. I've given it multiple chances and my attention always drifts by the end.
I've never understood all the love for 2001. It's well-made but interminable.
I haven't seen that Timothy Carey movie and from the sounds of it I've missed nothing. Thanks for the warning!!
My first two are critical darlings but I'm at a loss as to why. My last is just a jumbled mess of a thing.
Brazil (1985)-Some low-level flunky (Jonathan Pryce) in a world dominated by machines and technology spends his time daydreaming to escape his mundane existence leading to a muddled mess of confusion and ennui for the audience.
Eraserhead (1977)-In the gloomy city Henry (John Nance) lives in a bleak apartment with his wife Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) a one night stand he knocked up. When the baby comes it’s a bizarre lizard-like creature that won't stop wailing. Henry tries to find the reasoning behind this from the other tenants, including a disfigured lady who lives inside a radiator, but answers aren’t easy to come by. In my case they were impossible.
Liquid Sky (1982)- An alien creature invades New York's punk subculture in its search for an opiate released by the brain during orgasm or something like that, I’ll be damned if I could figure out what the point was or if this thing even had one!
I had a feeling you would choose The Big Sleep which is known for its confusion but still excellent film. I have not seen your second choice but 2001..I agree with you. I think if it came out any other time, it would not have been a hit or that well known but it came out at the right time hence that psychedelic part with Kier going through space and seeing all those fun colours.
2001 is considered one of the greatest films of all time but I couldn't get it into myself. I can understand why it's on this list 100%.
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