When Game of Thrones returns this Sunday, Cersei Lannister will be ruling Westeros from her ill-gotten place on the Iron Throne. But with well-armed enemies closing. Look carefully at this photo of a rainbow over Dinas Head near Fishguard in Wales (above) and you will notice that as it nears land it looks like there is a sharp. The 3. 0 Most Confusing Movies In Cinema History « Taste of Cinema. Upstream Color – Shane Carruth. Writer and director Shane Carruth’s sophomore film is about two people who, after being infected by a parasite lose countless memories and their sense of identity. While clamoring to rebuild their broken lives, they begin to inexplicably remember each other’s histories as their own. ![]() ![]() Eventually everything leads back to a pig farm where they find records of other people who’ve been similarly affected. They send out copies of a text by Walden to summon all these individuals to the pig farm. Upstream Color is markedly different from Carruth’s “Primer” in both aesthetics and story. In this film the cinematography is gorgeous, reminiscent of some of the more recent work of Terrence Malick. This is a list of the weirdest films ever. I have restricted the list to one film per director and I have not included. The narrative is interesting on paper, but nearly impossible to follow on screen. However Carruth has said that like Primer, everything one needs to understand Upstream Color is there for attentive viewers who’re up for the task. Donnie Darko – Richard Kelly. Donnie Darko is a genre- defying cult classic that forever changed the reputation of demonic bunny suits. ![]() Jake Gyllenhaal plays Donnie Darko, a teenager with severe mental issues. Donnie has sleep- walking spells where he’s beckoned by Frank (creepy demonic bunny man) to do things (acts of vandalism etc.) Frank tells Donnie that soon the world will end, and thus begins the countdown to Donnie’s demise. Richard Kelly’s debut film is a true original, even if it’s a bit on the confusing side in the latter half of the story. The writing is tight, the music is fitting, and the acting is solid all around; especially from Gyllenhaal who completely embodies Darko with just the right amount of teenage angst without coming off as irritating. Patrick Swayze is great as well, as the teen motivational speaker/child porn aficionado. Donnie Darko might elude you the first trip you take into its confounding, dark, deliriously funny world. Think of this as our obsessive love letter to the obsessed maniacs responsible for all of this. Can't get enough of movies and TV shows that scare up a good fright? Check out Scary Good, IMDb's Horror Entertainment Guide. Enter if you dare. Here are 15 movies that are guaranteed to inspire heated discussion in your friend group, as well as a healthy amount of head scratching. Dialogue drives Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction,'' dialogue of such high quality it deserves comparison with other masters of spare, hard-boiled prose, from Raymond. Lost Highway – David Lynch. Bill Pullman is a saxophone musician who’s convicted of killing his wife and sentenced to die. Before his execution he changes into a different person entirely: Pete Dayton, played by Charlie Sheen doppelganger Balthazar Getty. Pete is released from prison and finds himself in a relationship with Bill Pullman’s “dead” wife (Patricia Arquette.)Lost Highway, like all of Lynch’s strangest films is an overwhelming labyrinth of parallel universes and bizarre characters. Lynch himself said Highway is part of the same universe as the equally strange “Twin Peaks.” With this frame of reference one can feebly extrapolate some kind of logic out of the plot. However, one could argue with this film (along with Mulholland Dr. It’s confusing as heck and nightmarish in tone, particularly the scenes featuring Robert Blake’s creepy character “Mystery Man.” You may not understand the road Lost Highway takes you down, but it’s undoubtedly a cinematic journey like no other. Hukkle – Gyorgy Palfi. In a quaint village in Hungary, an old man with a case of insatiable hiccups sits outside his house and watches the towns inhabitants. Hukkle is the first film from Gyorgy Palfi, who gained notoriety for his disturbing and strangely funny sophomore movie “Taxidermia.” In Hukkle, one can see the emergence of an interesting new voice in cinema. This work has literally no plot whatsoever. The seemingly meaningless actions of the townspeople perplexes from the beginning. Why are we watching a cat get poisoned and die? Why are we watching two men watch with radiant happiness at their pigs copulating? Why does the old man have hiccups? The film is brim with these bizarre mysteries. If experimental narrative is your cup of tea, check out Hukkle. It’s unlike anything else out there. Under the Skin – Jonathan Glazer. Jonathan Glazer directs this cryptic but endlessly fascinating film starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien seductress who prowls the streets of Scotland for horny young males, only to take them back to her lair and submerge them in a viscous black liquid for unknown purposes. Upon meeting a severely deformed man during her “hunt,” she’s overcome for the first time with a sense of remorse for the man. This experience moves Johansson’s alien to become curious what it’s like to live as a human being. This is a particularly hard film to pin down. Because of the highly interpretive nature of the disturbing otherworldly images and mostly unknown character motivations, Under The Skin will alienate audiences that need everything spelled out to them. This movie is something to experience, not necessarily understand. The true power of this masterpiece might elude until the strange and deeply moving climax. It’s must- see science fiction, and one of the most confusing films of all time. Paprika – Satoshi Kon. A revolutionary new machine allows therapists to view the dreams of their patients. Soon the entire fabric of reality is pulling apart at the seams as characters begin entering each other’s dreams. Paprika is wildly original and beautifully animated. It’s also quite a dizzying mind trip, one that can easily lose you in its own logical inconsistencies. The movie never bothers with explaining the rules of its world, and arguably the audience suffers for it. Then again, in a movie that takes place in surreal dreamscapes, logic be damned! It’s worth a watch if you’re into trippy animation or maddeningly confounding storylines. Paprika has both in excess. The Matrix Trilogy – The Wachowski Brothers. Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving star in three science fiction films that will forever inspire thrills, thought, disappointment, and sometimes all- out confusion. This seminal trilogy starts off straight forward enough in its first film, and manages to completely fly off the rails in its second and third installments. How did Agent Smith escape the Matrix? How did he possess the body of hacker Bane in the real world? Why did the Oracle lie to Neo about being “the one?” These questions are never answered, and yet beneath the heavy special effects and seemingly never- ending fight scenes, the philosophical ideas in The Matrix are worth pondering even if we never understand what the hell really happened at the end. Fellini Satyricon – Federico Fellini. Fellini Satyricon is iconic Italian director Federico Fellini’s take on Petronius’s “Satyricon” a book written in ancient Rome during the reign of Nero. This is hands down the most experimental and all around bonkers film in Fellini’s impressive resume. The episodic structure of Satyricon, coupled with the truly wacky behavior of its characters adds to the utter confusion of this strange masterpiece. There are really no character or plot arcs to describe in Satyricon, it’s really more of a showcase of a Roman culture drunk on decadence. Fellini uses his mastery of cinematic technique to capture this tone from the opening scenes to the dizzyingly surreal final minutes. When Fellini Satyricon opened in 1. Watch this film; it’s beautifully directed and shot, it’s weird, it’s one of the most confusing movies of all time. Schizopolis – Steven Soderberg. Schizopolis tells the story of Fletcher Munson, an office employee under the management of Theodore Schwitters, who’s the head of a scientology- like self help group. While Schizopolis is not structured like a normal film, it does have 3 distinctive acts. Each act tells the same story from a different characters perspective. Steven Soderberg is known for hard- edged dramas like the Oscar winning Traffic, Erin Brockovich, and the hit “Ocean’s” heist franchise. Schizopolis is easily Soderberg’s most inaccessible work; with its non- linear narrative, non- sequitur dialog, and general randomness of the experience. That said, this movie is also compulsively watchable and very funny. Soderberg, acting in the lead role, shows a natural knack for comedic timing. Upon its theatrical release, Schizopolis was considered too weird for mainstream audiences and only played in a select few theatres. In the years since, the movie has garnered cult status and even secured a spot as a Criterion film. The extreme randomness of this movie may put one off at first, but it’s definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of Soderberg and want a look at his most experimental work to date. Inherent Vice – Paul Thomas Anderson. Joaquin Phoenix is Larry “Doc” Sportello, a pot smoking private detective who is hired by his ex girlfriend to look for her missing lover Mickey Wolfmann. At this, Doc spirals down a maddeningly intricate and confounding mystery that possibly has no resolution. We meet many bizarre characters along the way; including Bigfoot Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) a straight- laced cop with an oral asphyxiation, Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd (Martin Short) a cocaine- obsessed dentist, and Coy (Owen Wilson) a heroin addict who as it turns out may or may not be more than one character in the story. Inherent Vice is based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon. Paul Thomas Anderson’s films have always teetered between genres and categorizations. In the case of Inherent Vice, one can see the influence of hard- broiled film noir as well as the off- kilter goofiness of a Cheech and Chong stoner movie. This movie weaves so many threads together at a certain point one realizes it’s futile to untangle the plot, just give up and let the beautiful cinematography and hypnotic soundtrack wash over you. There’s a profundity to Inherent Vice that evade until the last minutes of the film. It is here we get a sense that the confusion and convolution is really making a point about our journey through history, why we as a people drift in one cultural direction over another. As Vice’s narrator puts it: “. The years of progress gone and unrecoverable, of the land almost allowed to reclaim its better destiny only to have that claim jumped by evil- doers known all too well. The 2. 0 Weirdest Movies Of The 2. Century « Taste of Cinema. Since the turn of the century, Hollywood has given us fine pieces of movie- making art. We have the Leonardo Da Vincis, the Vincent Van Goghs, so on and so forth. Then, we have the other guys. The Salvador Dalis, the Pablo Picassos, the weirdists. From an angle, their work may seem abstract, obtuse, maybe even grotesque. But sometimes, you have to look harder to see what exactly Picasso is saying. This list is dedicated to the Pablo Picassos of Hollywood, who aren’t afraid to make something many people, if not nobody, will truly understand. And for that, we thank you, David Lynchs, Lars von Triers, even the Michel Gondrys, for not being afraid to be just plain weird. Here are the weirdest movies of the millenium so far. Catfish. The movie: A documentary about a photographer (Nev Schulman) setting out to find the girl he met on Facebook (Meg Faccio) with upsetting results (Meg Faccio is actually Angela Basset). What’s weird: Not necessarily “Weird”, but a very unsettling look at the world of internet lies. Weirdest moment: The resolution. Angela reveals all of the lies she told Nev via a package she sends him at the end of the film. Melancholia. The movie: Melancholia is a planet that is heading directly towards earth. Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsg. They have to fight for their marriage and their sanity in the knowing face of death. What’s weird: Kirsten Dunst steals the show with her unshakable performance. Lars von Trier writes and directs one of the most depressing movies of the 2. Weirdest moment: SPOILER ALERT. The ending, where Melancholia is about to crash into earth. A Scanner Darkly. The movie: Philip K. Dick’s novel about an undercover narc (Keanu Reeves) who takes effect from a new drug. What’s weird: The entire movie is in a rotoscope animation fashion, making it a strange, yet compelling arthouse flick. Weirdest moment: Reeves wears a “Scramble Suit” which continually morphs and blurs his body to protect his identity. The Machinist. The movie: Christian Bale plays an insomniac factory worker in one of his most intense and dedicated roles to date. What’s weird: Christian Bale lost 6. Batman in Batman Begins. Weirdest moment: No exact moment in particular, just seeing Bale without his shirt on is messed up enough as it is. Cashback. The movie: Ben, a young insomnia- stricken man takes a job in a local supermarket. With only his imagination to keep him entertained, he discovers that he has the ability to literally stop time. What’s weird: The surreality of the whole aspect of stopping time isn’t weird, but very oddly compelling in a way. Weirdest moment: Once again, no moment in particular. Director Sean Ellis’s film is full of beautifully weird moments. Oldboy. The movie: A man is locked in a prison cell for reasons unknown for 1. In jail he learns that his wife has been killed. When he is released, he is given a phone and a sum of cash, and proceeds to find out what exactly is happening. What’s weird: Honestly, if it wasn’t for the brutal violence, Oldboy would be a great action film with its brilliant storyline. Weirdest moment: The main character hammers his way through a hallway of villains in a jaw- dropping single take. The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence. The movie: Staging the events that happened in the first movie were literally nothing more than a movie, a troubled loner sets out to create his own human centipede with 1. What’s weird: Almost no dialogue is spoken through the entire movie. The black and white adds to a very gritty realism. Weirdest moment: Barbed wire rape, baby head- crushing, you name it. Donnie Darko. The movie: Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), is a troubled student who is visited by a 6- foot tall man wearing a rabbit costume named Frank. One night, Frank shows Donnie that in less than a month, the world will end. What’s weird: Richard Kelly’s debut film is beautiful and bizarre. The audience hopes to solve questions asked by the film, but by the time the curtains close, we have more questions than answers. Weirdest moment: A jet engine crashes into Donnie’s bedroom. Teeth. The movie: Good girl student Dawn gets closer to her guy friend, but the only thing that tries to hold her back from any sexual relationship is a little body problem. What’s weird: She has teeth in her vagina. Weirdest moment: Basically any sex scene, as you can kind of tell. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The movie: Michel Gondry’s critically acclaimed collaboration with Charlie Kaufman about a man named Joel (Jim Carrey) who is heartbroken to find out that his girlfriend (Kate Winslet) has gone through a procedure that deleted every memory of him from her mind, so he decides to do the same. In the process, he realizes that he still loves her, and will do anything to keep his memories of her. What’s weird: The trippy visuals and directing style make for a movie that’s more confusing and complex than Inception. Weirdest moment: Joel is shrunken down to half his size in a memory about his childhood.
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