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tph890's Replies
It’s been a good long while since I’ve watched this film, but I do remember enjoying it. It was a bittersweet film, filled with solid performances all around. Clooney, Woodley, and Lillard stand out the most in my memory. Also a big fan of “Sideways”, so I guess Alexander Payne speaks to my subconscious.
However, I think that Clooney gave his best performance to date in “O Brother Where Art Thou”.
The Departed!
In my humble opinion
That’s pretty cool.
It’s definitely a fun and entertaining flick.
He was also very good in ‘Road to Perdition’.
I can dig that.
This makes me think about something that Bret Easton Ellis once said about novels. Paraphrasing, but basically it’s that “novels are dreams resurrected with words”. And this movie is a pretty great adaptation of a novel, so perhaps the filmmakers were channeling that dream-energy subconsciously and you tapped into that in your viewing.
I personally get a very nihilistic realist vibe from this movie.
As far as characters conveniently finding each other, I have to disagree. There was a tracker in the satchel, so that’s how Chigurh was able to find Lewelyn.
Tommy Lee Jones was a veteran sheriff, so he was relying on his experience and wit to connect the dots.
And then that business man was playing both sides in order to secure his investment, which Chigurh found out about through the Woody Harrelson character (I think, if I’m remembering correctly).
Chance and happenstance was not a fundamental factor in how the events unfold, other than Lewelyn chancing upon the satchel of money and deciding to take it. And then maybe when he decided to drink some beer with that lady by the pool.
I was just kidding around there.
In all seriousness, this movie is definitely a ‘reality’ movie.
It’s an extended representation of the notion that “if something appears too good to be true, then it probably is”.
Expecting that satchel of money to be consequence-free was the “too good to be true” mistake of the main character, and disaster follows.
No.
You’re thinking of “There Will Be Blood”.
I am a big fan of both part 1 and 2, they make a pretty great double feature for the Halloween season. I have actively avoided watching the third one, because I think they just waited too long to make it, so I have no trust in the continuity. I am perfectly content with the ending provided in part 2.
I think the Creeper works best when its origins are vague and we have to come up with our own answers for what it may be.
I mean, it starts out as a man, driving dangerously in a van, and then it’s a man dumping bodies down a pipe, and then it’s some psycho sniffing your laundry, and then it’s cutting a cop’s head off with a random axe and eating his tongue, and then he has wings!
It’s fucking insane. The Creeper is just a beast out of your nightmares. And (maybe) it’s been here forever.
Any thoughts?
6. If you have just successfully completed an undercover FBI operation, your next plan of action is to go home and sleep with your wife!
I would go with contempt rather than respect.
However, I think your interpretation is certainly valid.
Perhaps a begrudging respect formed later, but I don’t think it was there in that moment.
According to Google, yes. Paternal half-brother.
Never would have guessed it myself.
“The mental health aspect is good. I think it's a good example of using a film (deliberately or accidentally? I don't know) to talk about something without turning it into a commercial, PSA, or piece of propaganda. I came away from the film pondering what it must be like to have something like paranoid schizophrenia and/or memory loss or false memories.”
^^—I’m with you here, and I do think it was intentional by the filmmakers. The mind-trip aspect is a big reason why I’m a fan of this movie.
I have to agree that a lack of clear rules does constitute as a flaw, but I feel that it’s a minor flaw. The movie is pretty tense as is, in my humble opinion.
And your idea for the ending is certainly triumphant, but it made me think of the opposite: what if there never was a crack in the mirror?
But now my brain is just spinning, I’m gonna have to give this one a rewatch too sometime in the near future.
Cheers and thanks for sharing your thoughts!
The film definitely taps into the mental health angle, which in my opinion is one of its strengths. I think the supernatural aspects of this film are real, but they also contribute to real-life insanity in the characters who are affected by the mirror.
I get what you’re saying about wanting more clarity about the power of the mirror, but I think we—the audience—can’t really know because we only learn from the brother and sister, and even they don’t know (because they are eventually bested by it).
I like to think that the mirror is some sort of conscious inter-dimensional being that only appears to be a mirror to us, and isn’t necessarily malicious but is naturally destructive to the human psyche, like mental radiation poisoning. But hey, that’s just me.
Definitely give it a rewatch, you won’t be disappointed.
And as far as the timelines go, I think that both are filled with illusions and time-warps, but that both are ultimately valid, and the tragic ending is indeed the truth.
I also really enjoy this movie. It’s a great creepy ride that rewards the rewatch. One of my Halloween season favorites.
One theory I came across on these boards a while back was that only one of the timelines was real, and that the other was a manifestation of the mirror, and it’s up to the viewer to choose which is which.
I think that, cinematically, the dual synchronous conclusions work very well, but I also wonder how much the mirror actually manipulated reality, to the extent that it might actually create false memories (which is hinted at a bit through the brother) along with in the moment hallucinations.
Also, I thought the acting was fantastic. I really bought into all of the performances.
It’s a very strange movie, but I say give it shot, just to be able to say that you’ve watched it.
And if you can’t even get through it, well that’s perfectly understandable.
I personally think that it’s a quirky mess of a movie, but it has its moments and for some reason I still find it tolerable to watch on certain late nights if I have a couple drinks in me and it happens to be on HBO.
Definitely worth a watch. It’s got a cool vibe to it. A good movie to watch late at night.
I didn’t know that! Very fascinating.
Any takers?
Hopefully this is just one step in broadening her audience past SNL fans, and she’ll start doing movies soon. I’m looking forward to the next phase of her career where she isn’t limited by sketch structure.