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I can watch these and enjoy them, no matter how bad people think they are.
Oh, my God, I LOVE this poster.
Movies You Unexplainably Love.
- Thread starter redhawk23
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Oh, my God, I LOVE this poster.
Rez
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Closer is a perfect storm of a movie for me- I have no doubt it would be one of my favorite films if I just saw it under normal circumstances and had no connections to it what so ever.
However everything about the film- from how I first saw it, to the situations and characters in the film- hit me on a very personal and important level. The experience of seeing the movie was just as important as seeing the movie, so it is unquestionably my favorite film ever.
I saw it in theaters by accident and for free. My best friend and something of a father figure picked me up one day and we went to the movies. When there, he produced a newspaper and complained that the times in the paper did not match the times showing, and that we had just driven an hour to make whatever film and it was not showing again for another 2 hours. I stood by and nodded my head with sadness. In fact, we only drove about 10 minutes and the paper was intentionally a week old, but nevertheless it produced us two free tickets into seeing whatever movie we wanted... we chose Alexander. After sitting through that nearly 3 hour film and noticing a grainy line through the screen for, oh, about 25 minutes near the end, we went back out to the stand. Some complaining about the poor picture quality and nonexistent mess on the floor later, he managed to get a refund for our free tickets. As well as a coupon for a large free popcorn. So, with 20 dollars we didn't have before and a big bucket of popcorn, we walked back into the theaters saying that we just came out to get popcorn... and walked into the next showing of Closer.
We watched the film and I returned home, and about a week later he died. Seeing Closer with him was the last thing we did together.
My name is Dan, I'm an aspiring writer, but I'm not very good. I got the chance to play Dr. Larry in the stage play on which the film is based. Owen, Portman, and Law are three of my favorite actors, although that was more because of this film than anything else.
To make things worse, (better?), my long term on and off girlfriend and undoubtably love of my life... IS Jane. Alice. Whatever. Perhaps it is cliche to compare a movie character to our loved ones, but I try to avoid it in most cases and yet it could not be more true here. While I'm certain I know her real name and she hasn't taken up stripping... yet, that is exactly where the differences in actions and personality end. Besides, she has pulled out a fake name for other people before, and has promised to resort to stripping should money ever become an issue. We've even been involved in a pedestrian car accident and subsequent hospital visit together.
So maybe I'm a little biased.
But even if I am, that wouldn't change how perfect the movie is. Everything about it- the raw acting, the script, storyline, even the cinematograpy. It's a talking heads movie with all of four people in the damn thing, and the movie looks gorgeous.
When the film came out, I was very eager to discuss it- but the only thing people around me really said about the movie was how unlikable the characters were- how there was no one to root for and no one to relate to. What the ****? Here I was comparing my entire life to these people. I loved these people, because of their flaws, because of their lies, and because of their mistakes. They were perfect.
As to your question- Alice is all of those things. She is a perfect contradiction. She's a master manipulator, a liar, an actress. You could argue that her entire time in Europe is simply a role for her to live out, an escape from her life back home. Indeed, the only scene where she is actually honest in the entire film is when stripping for the good doctor.
On the surface this could be seen as something malificent and evil, but I always thought of it as the exact opposite. She takes the name of Alice to honor the woman that we are revealed to at the end because she wishes that it was her- she aspires to be a hero, a great and selfless person. She hopes to be someone that will light up other people's lives, inspire them, change them. It is only when she is abandonned, lied to, and heartbroken herself that she falls back into herself- or what she worries she actually is underneath.
She is both innocent and guilty, victim and manipulator. Dan is so caught up on the past, on who she was, on the bad things she has done in the past, that he can't let it go long enough to let her be who she wants to in the present. When he finally breaks her into revealing these truths before she is ready, it breaks them. Why should she love a man who can't trust her? It doesn't matter to her that she was lying- perhaps she would have told him someday, perhaps not. What matters is that it was over, and that it couldn't be changed. And yet it was constantly being brought up and bashed over her head. She couldn't escape it without escaping him. And so her charade ends, ruined by both their actions.
But she is still the same person, eager to move on and not let life pass her by. She got the adventure and experience she wanted, and we get the sense that out of all the characters, she is the only one who ultimately doesn't regret a thing.
DACrowe
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Wow. I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but I do agree these characters are relatable.
I'll say that they're all very human and do unlikable things throughout. You can relate because I'm sure we all have said things in our relationships that we regret (though hopefully nothing as cruel as the affairs and sex games these characters play with each other). There are times I like and hate all of them. But there is something tragically endearing to these people, because we can see ourselves in them. Plus the dialogue is amazing, as is how Nichols visualized it. He took a "stagey" film and made it very visceral.
As for my views on Alice:
The film leaves itself open to completely valid and different interpretations of Alice/Jane's character and her motivations.
They both begin with an early-20s American girl having come to London for an experience. What that experience exactly may be is unclear. After she meets Dan she gives him a false name and starts a long, whirlwind romance that lasts 4 years.
1) One way to view the play/film is that she is an innocent--or at least more innocent than the rest of the characters. She is younger and while she knows how to make love and lie (the two things most important to the relationships in this story), she has a romantic view of them. She uses her words of love to become attached and somewhat needy of Dan. She believes in the love she has with him; a love that is pretty unconditional. His more adult and casually cruel use of words and "love" (as she overhears him plea with Anna while she is in the bathroom) breaks her heart.
The other three characters are adults and she is a child trying to act like one. That is why she changed her name, so as to create this self-image of maturity. But she cannot handle the level of betrayal and awfulness that comes with adult relationships, as presented in the film. When Dan finally reveals he cheated on her for a year and is leaving her, she has to walk out of the door first.
Yet, she spends months upon months waiting for him to return even though he doesn't know her real name and she shouldn't care. When she meets Larry in the strip club, she has put away her lies she made when more ignorant and tells him her name (not that he would believe the truth, anyway). She then also reveals to him that she doesn't view love as a war, but sees lying as a game. Larry finds both views ridiculous from a silly girl who knows nothing of "love." Love is a war, not a romance for Larry and lies are used to destroy (like luring Anna back into bed with him later), not for self-fulfillment and role play.
She only understands this when Dan is questioning her again and again about her lie of having slept with Larry. It is no longer a game and she feels as hollow inside as they do. She ends the relationship and her simple notions of romance and true love. She realizes those things may not exist and can't stand Dan anymore for revealing that. He reinforces the bitterness of reality when he slaps her across the face, revealing her lover of 4 years to be a complete *****e bag on the inside.
So when the movie ends, she is now an adult walking in Times Square. The similarities to the opening shot are not about the signs, but about her. At the beginning she was a gamine, punk pixie that only Dan noticed. Gone are the adornments of youth and she dresses like a sexy, but sad woman. Every man in the street notices her as a sex bomb, but she doesn't care. She's now an adult who doesn't view the first glance from a man on the street as an opportunity for high romance. Rather she is as sad and broken as the other three characters and all those who go through the "love game."
2) Alice/Jane is a manipulative, scheming, evil, evil *****. She is still an American girl in London for an experience. But that experience is a calculated one. She dresses like a girlish pop punk waif at the beginning of the film to play a part. Dan buys it hook, line and sinker. Jane becomes Alice and her entire innocent, seemingly dependent love on Dan is not that of a lovestruck girl. It is a manipulative one playing a game because it's "the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off."
Her heartbreak with Anna is her playing the betrayed lover Alice, a character she created so she could experience that kind of longing and sadness. When she is with Larry, the only honest character in the story who just so happens to be the densest, she drops her guard down. She views art as a lie and has a decidedly unromantic view of love as she talks to him at the aquarium. She even admits her tears are a lie in that photograph.
When she sees him again at the strip club she is cruel and viscous with her callous words towards his pain. She has a dark view of love and lets him project what he wants on her. She is not the desperate lover who needs Dan that we saw in the break-up scene. She only reveals her pain for Dan off-screen after she has decided to sleep with Larry. Perhaps, she is using Larry to lure Dan back. She then saps Dan of the end of the role playing game which is the return of the relationship. Dan continues to needle her for honesty, attempting to break through her facade. She grows tired of him and falls out of love with him like switching a lamp off. She is ending this character of Alice, as she's grown tired of her.
At the end she is not an adult with hard earned knowledge, but walking for the first time in the film openly as Jane....and Jane doesn't give a crap about all the men checking her out on the street. Not until the process starts again, if she so chooses.
Both are valid interpretations of the character and the film.
I'll say that they're all very human and do unlikable things throughout. You can relate because I'm sure we all have said things in our relationships that we regret (though hopefully nothing as cruel as the affairs and sex games these characters play with each other). There are times I like and hate all of them. But there is something tragically endearing to these people, because we can see ourselves in them. Plus the dialogue is amazing, as is how Nichols visualized it. He took a "stagey" film and made it very visceral.
As for my views on Alice:
The film leaves itself open to completely valid and different interpretations of Alice/Jane's character and her motivations.
They both begin with an early-20s American girl having come to London for an experience. What that experience exactly may be is unclear. After she meets Dan she gives him a false name and starts a long, whirlwind romance that lasts 4 years.
1) One way to view the play/film is that she is an innocent--or at least more innocent than the rest of the characters. She is younger and while she knows how to make love and lie (the two things most important to the relationships in this story), she has a romantic view of them. She uses her words of love to become attached and somewhat needy of Dan. She believes in the love she has with him; a love that is pretty unconditional. His more adult and casually cruel use of words and "love" (as she overhears him plea with Anna while she is in the bathroom) breaks her heart.
The other three characters are adults and she is a child trying to act like one. That is why she changed her name, so as to create this self-image of maturity. But she cannot handle the level of betrayal and awfulness that comes with adult relationships, as presented in the film. When Dan finally reveals he cheated on her for a year and is leaving her, she has to walk out of the door first.
Yet, she spends months upon months waiting for him to return even though he doesn't know her real name and she shouldn't care. When she meets Larry in the strip club, she has put away her lies she made when more ignorant and tells him her name (not that he would believe the truth, anyway). She then also reveals to him that she doesn't view love as a war, but sees lying as a game. Larry finds both views ridiculous from a silly girl who knows nothing of "love." Love is a war, not a romance for Larry and lies are used to destroy (like luring Anna back into bed with him later), not for self-fulfillment and role play.
She only understands this when Dan is questioning her again and again about her lie of having slept with Larry. It is no longer a game and she feels as hollow inside as they do. She ends the relationship and her simple notions of romance and true love. She realizes those things may not exist and can't stand Dan anymore for revealing that. He reinforces the bitterness of reality when he slaps her across the face, revealing her lover of 4 years to be a complete *****e bag on the inside.
So when the movie ends, she is now an adult walking in Times Square. The similarities to the opening shot are not about the signs, but about her. At the beginning she was a gamine, punk pixie that only Dan noticed. Gone are the adornments of youth and she dresses like a sexy, but sad woman. Every man in the street notices her as a sex bomb, but she doesn't care. She's now an adult who doesn't view the first glance from a man on the street as an opportunity for high romance. Rather she is as sad and broken as the other three characters and all those who go through the "love game."
2) Alice/Jane is a manipulative, scheming, evil, evil *****. She is still an American girl in London for an experience. But that experience is a calculated one. She dresses like a girlish pop punk waif at the beginning of the film to play a part. Dan buys it hook, line and sinker. Jane becomes Alice and her entire innocent, seemingly dependent love on Dan is not that of a lovestruck girl. It is a manipulative one playing a game because it's "the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off."
Her heartbreak with Anna is her playing the betrayed lover Alice, a character she created so she could experience that kind of longing and sadness. When she is with Larry, the only honest character in the story who just so happens to be the densest, she drops her guard down. She views art as a lie and has a decidedly unromantic view of love as she talks to him at the aquarium. She even admits her tears are a lie in that photograph.
When she sees him again at the strip club she is cruel and viscous with her callous words towards his pain. She has a dark view of love and lets him project what he wants on her. She is not the desperate lover who needs Dan that we saw in the break-up scene. She only reveals her pain for Dan off-screen after she has decided to sleep with Larry. Perhaps, she is using Larry to lure Dan back. She then saps Dan of the end of the role playing game which is the return of the relationship. Dan continues to needle her for honesty, attempting to break through her facade. She grows tired of him and falls out of love with him like switching a lamp off. She is ending this character of Alice, as she's grown tired of her.
At the end she is not an adult with hard earned knowledge, but walking for the first time in the film openly as Jane....and Jane doesn't give a crap about all the men checking her out on the street. Not until the process starts again, if she so chooses.
Both are valid interpretations of the character and the film.
Rez
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Nicely said. Unfortunately I can definitely relate to many of the situations in this film due to extremely similar experiences, all manner of lies, games, and affairs included.
I've never fully considered the extent of option number 1. I think the best example of this being "true" in this view lies in the opening and closing shots- with only Dan noticing her and her responding vs everyone noticing and her not caring.
I believe her character- and the movie- are so well developed to allow for both of them, or at the very least a mix of the two without being exclusive to eachother. Much of what she does is calculated, but not all of it is sinister in nature. I'm in agreement that she is definitely there with a purpose, but just what that purpose and her intentions with it vary greatly. I've never before considered the amount of growth that she may experience in the film, and that will definitely be on my mind next time I watch through it. She always seemed to be the one static character to me... but since I'm an idiot, I never considered the girl growing into woman point you presented.
I've never fully considered the extent of option number 1. I think the best example of this being "true" in this view lies in the opening and closing shots- with only Dan noticing her and her responding vs everyone noticing and her not caring.
I believe her character- and the movie- are so well developed to allow for both of them, or at the very least a mix of the two without being exclusive to eachother. Much of what she does is calculated, but not all of it is sinister in nature. I'm in agreement that she is definitely there with a purpose, but just what that purpose and her intentions with it vary greatly. I've never before considered the amount of growth that she may experience in the film, and that will definitely be on my mind next time I watch through it. She always seemed to be the one static character to me... but since I'm an idiot, I never considered the girl growing into woman point you presented.
Bim
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Thats another one. Mathew McConaughey reaches near Shatner levels of scene shredding, that and it somewhat blew my mind when i watched it for the first time since it had come out and realized that the main character was Christian Bale.
Also the part when the guys are performing the climax of Empire Strikes Back and some kid asks them if they made it up and they respond, "Yes, yes we did."
totally! kvz5: yeah... i was surprised indeed when i realized it was those three actors together. Sorry, but i LOVE this movie! i dont care how much people bash it.
Oh, my God, I LOVE this poster.
Dudes with swords on a surfboard. Whats not to love! Check this out.
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Surf-Ninjas-1993-Posters_i6284334_.htm
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Definitely one of the funniest posters I have ever seen.
bullets
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I agree a lot with what you said , I enjoy Rob Zombie's Halloween films as their own separate entity. I put this on my list.
Other:
Flash Gordon (1980).. This movie is really cheesy but fun .. also Aura is hot ..so hot.
Punisher:WarZone.. So ridiculous but I didn't mind. Ray Stevenson was the best Punisher IMO
Superman Returns .. I really enjoyed it , Routh was good and it was a nice throwback to Reeves performance. Not enough action but certain sequences were memorable.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) JEH did the best he could with it and it was still cool seeing Freddy slashing people in the modern era
Dread (2009) Sometime I rent slasher type movies out of boredom but this one really stood out to me. It's a worthy rental for horror fans.
Harsh Times Only because someone mentioned this but Bale is good as always.
co2
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HA!, Yea, I'm with you on that one. It's one of those movies that I would never claim as great, but it's a damn silly, entertaining time. I think it fits in well with what this thread is about
redhawk23
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I absolutely loved that movie, I saw it in theaters for free. Since then though, I enjoy it less everytime I see it, so I try to avoid it.
Ipodman
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I liked JEH's Freddy a lot... this is definitely the most unfairly hated movie of 2010...
The Punisher(2004)
Thomas Jane nailed the punisher. If they made a sequel with him that's where we would have seen the dark side of the character that so many fan boys clammored for. People forget they were watching an origin story. His line in the end, standing on the bridge, that was the real punisher. We just never got a chance to see that charcter played out. The fight with the russain remains one of the best fight scenes in film history. A true work of art. Loved how he turned the saints against themselves. Quinton glass was perfect. Very intimidating. Love the line "but your a small piece of ****, and I don't want the karma of your death on my soul." Harry heck, while not as awesome as the russain, was also just fantastic. He made me try and smoke like he did with the cigg inbetween his pinky and ring finger, until I burned myself. All in all just a great movie that got so much hate. Too much hate.
Thomas Jane nailed the punisher. If they made a sequel with him that's where we would have seen the dark side of the character that so many fan boys clammored for. People forget they were watching an origin story. His line in the end, standing on the bridge, that was the real punisher. We just never got a chance to see that charcter played out. The fight with the russain remains one of the best fight scenes in film history. A true work of art. Loved how he turned the saints against themselves. Quinton glass was perfect. Very intimidating. Love the line "but your a small piece of ****, and I don't want the karma of your death on my soul." Harry heck, while not as awesome as the russain, was also just fantastic. He made me try and smoke like he did with the cigg inbetween his pinky and ring finger, until I burned myself. All in all just a great movie that got so much hate. Too much hate.
redhawk23
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I second the Punisher love. For me, while I think its a pretty decent movie, there was just a set of circumstances around the first time I saw the movie that the associations and memories I have of it make me like it way more than I probably would otherwise.
Another movie I have inexblicable love for: The Butterfly Effect. I just really like the premise.
Another movie I have inexblicable love for: The Butterfly Effect. I just really like the premise.
Master Chief
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The Tremors and Soot man, one of my fave movies. The shot where Buddy threw the Ace of Spades into the couch got me into magic, and I've been blowing minds since 2007 lol.
Kurosawa
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Bring it On- total crap but I like it anyway.
Xanadu-terrible movie with great music and a beautiful ONJ and I love the art-deco auditorium they used as the nightclub exterior.
Battle of the Planets. Stupid movie, I loved it to death as a kid.
Galaxy of Terror-very cheesy Alien rip-off with the infamous tentacle monster scene and Erin Gray from Happy Days in it.
Any Herschell Gordon Lewis movie, I've seen about all of them and they are terrible but they are also required viewing if you are into genre/horror/exploitation stuff.
Massacre at Central High. This is the movie that Heathers was based off of, but I like it better personally.
Princess of Mars. It's terrible, with a very old looking Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris, a John Carter who sounds more like a Jersey Shore reject than a Virginian and Green Martians who look more like the Gorn from Star Trek and have only two arms, but it is the only John Carter movie that exists until Disney's version. Typical cheesy quickie made by the Asylum, who are the modern day equivalent of the old Hollywood Poverty Row studios like Monogram.
I do watch serious, artistically valuable movies as well but I freely admit that I will go out of the way to watch total crap.
Xanadu-terrible movie with great music and a beautiful ONJ and I love the art-deco auditorium they used as the nightclub exterior.
Battle of the Planets. Stupid movie, I loved it to death as a kid.
Galaxy of Terror-very cheesy Alien rip-off with the infamous tentacle monster scene and Erin Gray from Happy Days in it.
Any Herschell Gordon Lewis movie, I've seen about all of them and they are terrible but they are also required viewing if you are into genre/horror/exploitation stuff.
Massacre at Central High. This is the movie that Heathers was based off of, but I like it better personally.
Princess of Mars. It's terrible, with a very old looking Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris, a John Carter who sounds more like a Jersey Shore reject than a Virginian and Green Martians who look more like the Gorn from Star Trek and have only two arms, but it is the only John Carter movie that exists until Disney's version. Typical cheesy quickie made by the Asylum, who are the modern day equivalent of the old Hollywood Poverty Row studios like Monogram.
I do watch serious, artistically valuable movies as well but I freely admit that I will go out of the way to watch total crap.
childeroland
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Seconding Batman (1966). Who cares how bad it is; pudgy-Batman/Adam West should be celebrated. Well, at least not hated.
New Best Friend. One of the worse thrillers (to call it a thriller) ever made, lacking almost everything but basic film-making competence. But hilariously exploitative and fun.
The Smokers. A group of girls who feel exploited by men decide to form a rape squad and go after men. Makes I Spit On Your Grave look thoughtful, though at least it's not (too) disgusting, being far too incompetent to even be as offensive as it sounds.
Tart. Other than Dominique Swain losing her best friend and dealing with sex and drug issues, I am at a loss to explain what the film is even about. But...I don't know why I like it. It is badly written and acted and directed, everything. Maybe I'm just in love with Swain. Eh, whatever.
New Best Friend. One of the worse thrillers (to call it a thriller) ever made, lacking almost everything but basic film-making competence. But hilariously exploitative and fun.
The Smokers. A group of girls who feel exploited by men decide to form a rape squad and go after men. Makes I Spit On Your Grave look thoughtful, though at least it's not (too) disgusting, being far too incompetent to even be as offensive as it sounds.
Tart. Other than Dominique Swain losing her best friend and dealing with sex and drug issues, I am at a loss to explain what the film is even about. But...I don't know why I like it. It is badly written and acted and directed, everything. Maybe I'm just in love with Swain. Eh, whatever.
childeroland
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But doesn't that make her more of an adult than she was when she fell for Dan?
Octoberist
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I will defend Dick Tracy and Return to Oz till the very end!
hopefuldreamer
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White Chicks... I honestly have no idea why I love it, but I just do 
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