Movies with incomprehensible plots?

Mulholland Drive makes perfect sense when you.umderstand the first half is just a dream fantasy of a dying woman. I got this on first viewing at the cinema. Although there are some sub-plots that were obviously meant to mean more when it was being made as a tv series.

 

Really???

I mean it's a classic case of an unreliable narrator so all we see happen could be made up so there is nothing to 'get straight' as we never know what the straight version is.

 

Though I have never seen it, I am told Last Year at Marienbad has a black belt in Incomprehensible.

 

anything christopher nolan.......yet you cannot take you eyes off of the screen?

 

It’s essentially a 90 minute perfume ad.

 

I'm not the sharpest but this movie really confused me. I lent it to a friend who is way smarter... he didn't get it either

 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (1967), a made-for-TV movie with Robert Wagner and Peter Lawford and some other notables. I did not see it recently, but I saw it twice when I was younger and could not figure out what the devil was going on even though it seemed like something was ("do you, Mister Jones"). I obtained a DVD copied from Australian TV several years ago, and I now think I know how it unwinds. I nevertheless think it is interesting, and disagree with Leonard Maltin's criticism of the movie as "muddy" and "below average". Muddy is not the same as incomprehensible. I think it just takes a little more work to follow the plot, which is easier if you can replay a scene or two rather than watching it on TV with no replay ability.

 

In a nutshell...it contains four different subplots involving oil, corruption, and money.

 

The Thin Red Line is indeed a very spiritual movie. It's my favorite of his. It was a wonderful treatment of the book and the added elements elevated it.

 

That explains it! Like Dallas, without the tits and hair

 

I hear you; I've watched this movie many, many times and also get more out of it every time. I especially like watching the subtle clues and foreshadowing that unfold during the runtime when you know how it ends....

Yea, the first couple of times I saw it there were so many moving parts in the story that I didn't really know how it all hung together as the various twists/story lines came at you pretty fast. Several threads were developed, overthrown, obfuscated, etc. throughout.

From what I've read about this movie here and there I'm definitely not the only one who had to watch it a couple of times to put it together. Indeed, a common critique about the movie was it's overly convoluted plot, etc.

True that it's likely all a made up story by Verbal, etc. with bits of reality mixed with 'padding' but I didn't follow his overall narrative until subsequent viewings.

Great flick...a favorite for sure.

 

A lot of the issues with Godfather II was the fact that Richard Castellano pulled out because he didn't like Clemenza having to become a traitor and they replaced him with the Pentangeli character.
This in my opinion totally screwed up the storyline as there was no reference to Pentangeli in the previous movie. And what was Pentangeli's relationship to Clemenza?

 

Just remembered, The holy mountain

 

I had read the book so I kind of knew what to expect. I'm a big fan of the author David Mitchell. He plays with time, layered stories and reappearing characters in most of his books. They are a great read.
I also think the Wachowskis were not the right people to adapt the book.

 

Vanilla Sky is one of favorite movies. The end makes perfect sense and explains clearly what was going on since the accident.

 

Just a series of surreal vignettes.

 

I'd like to read the book too; it's highly recommended to anyone who liked the movie I hear over and over.

Can you elaborate on why you think the Wachowskis weren't suited to adapt the book? Given how complex the story/stories are and how difficult the adaptation must have been I thought the movie 'worked' and liked it. I'm curious who you might think would have done a better job, and why?

 

I believe Pentangeli was in Clemenza's crew

 

I was totally baffled within the first 5 minutes !

 

Ocean's Twelve

Half of what went on bore no relevance to the task at hand, and those sequences that did were rendered moot at the end of the movie.

 

In the first movie, Clemenza was the Vito's henchman, and didn't really have his own crew as far as I can see.
We learn in the second movie that Pentangeli was Vito's sidekick going back years and yet didn't feature at all in the first movie.
I would have put in a new actor to play Clemenza in the second movie, to at least make the continuity more believable.
Obviously it doesn't help that it keeps switching between the two eras for most of the movie.

 

"The Tin Drum". Love the film, struggled with the novel (which is almost impossible to make into a coherent script). The symbolism of Oskar relentlessly beating his drum has more than one interpretation which makes it even more difficult.

 

Clemenza had his own crew, so did Tessio. They were both Caporigemi's in Vito Corleone's family and each had their own outfit which granted them some autonomy but they both answered too and respected the Don.
Unfortunately when it came to Part II Richard Castellano had a dispute with the Studio and / or Coppola and ultimately refused to take part in the film so the Pentangeli character was created to take his place in the Michael part of the movie. Bruno Kirby played the younger Clemenza in the Vito part of the movie.

Peter Clemenza - Wikipedia

 

It would have made more sense to "promote" Willie Cici (spelling?) and create a new subordinate, as at least he was part of the crew carrying out the hits at the end of part one.