Movies that challenge our intellect. Best 10 movies you need to watch again to understand. Movies that go beyond imagination.
Memento
|
The
Fountain |
12
Monkeys |
2001:
A Space Odyssey |
Inherent
Vice |
Fight
Club |
The
Tree Of Life |
8
1/2 |
Mulholland
Drive |
Primer
|
Memento
If
you wouldn't listen to Pink Floyd backwards, then watching a two-hour movie
that begins at the end and ends at the beginning probably sounds unappealing.
That is the sum total of Memento, a story told in reverse by an unreliable
narrator.
It
is a mind-bender like most of his movies,but the clues to unraveling. Memento
are woven throughout its structure. Since Memento is release, Christopher Nolan
has become Hollywood's go-to guy for brainy blockbusting.
The
Fountain
The
story of Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain is easy to comprehend: a
neuro-scientist named Tom is bent on curing cancer to save his dying wife,
Izzi. But his story plays out alongside the tales of conquistador Tomas and
space traveler Tommy. That's much less straightforward than a medical
drama.
Aronofsky
ties these disparate threads together with the repeated casting of Hugh Jackman
and Rachel Weisz . He also uses a common motif: The tree of life, which
symbolizes the interconnection of life and immortality. It's the key to solving
Aronofsky's puzzling genre-blending movie.
12
Monkeys
Time
travel is always a tricky concept. Even very good time travel stories stumble
over their own continuity. Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys avoids the worst pitfalls
of the genre by keeping it simple, relatively speaking.
Plagued
by cryptic dreams, prisoner James Cole is sent back in time to prevent a viral
outbreak that wipes out most of humanity.The movie comes full circle, and we
learn that as a boy Cole saw his older, time-traveling self gunned down in the
airport where the climax occurs. By trying to save the world,James walks into
his inevitable doom.
2001:
A Space Odyssey
Stanley
Kubrick is a legend in the movie world,and his most widely recognized film,
2001: A Space Odyssey, is every bit as iconic as he is. It's an homage to
mankind's evolution throughout the eons and arguably the best movie about space
exploration ever filmed.
It's
also long and complicated. 2001: A Space Odyssey clocks in just shy of three
hours and packs so much detail that you can't watch it once and grasp
everything. You'll understand the film (apart from its divisive ending), but
you won't totally get it, either.
Inherent
Vice
Paul
Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's 2009 detective yarn plays like
a glib, stoner-influenced riff on a Carl Hiaasen novel. That's pretty much the
life of hippie private eye Doc Sportello in a nutshell.
Doc
leads a hazy life, he takes on three separate cases that end up intertwining.
What do a missing real estate mogul, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, and a
supposedly dead musician have in common? Nothing, but also everything.Make sure
to block off time for multiple consecutive views on Blu-ray.
Fight
Club
If
you're a Fight Club devotee, beware; we're about to break its first two rules.
When the time comes for the big reveal in David Fincher's adaptation of the
Chuck Palahniuk book, everything theoretically makes sense.
The
unnamed narrator and Tyler Durden are two sides of the same disassociated coin.
The moment we learn the truth of Tyler's true existence, Fight Club unhinges.
What, exactly, is going on in Norton's scenes with Brad Pitt throughout the
whole movie? Flashbacks hint at the narrator's lunacy,but try watching the film
with the truth in mind; every moment Norton and Pitt share onscreen becomes
even more interesting.
The
Tree of Life
There
aren't many directors in the world who make movies like Terrance Malick. The
director's flicks are enigmatic. Even his most straightforward movies, Badlands
and Days of Heaven, require extra viewings.
In
The Tree of Life, Malick tells the story of Jack (played by Sean Penn), a
middle-aged man reconciling his childhood memories. The plot takes viewers all
the way back to the Big Bang, tours through the Cretaceous period and
eventually arrives at the present in Waco, Texas.
How
does the birth of the universe and the extinction of dinosaurs shape the
meaning of Jack's existence today? The moments show the dueling paths of grace
and nature but the connection isn't apparent in a single viewing.
Eight
and a half
Federico
Fellini began his film making career shooting movies that captured authentic
life experiences. So his 1963 masterpiece, the dreamlike 8 & 1/2,
represented a surreal change of pace for the director.
But
truth is stranger than fiction. Fellini takes flights of fancy in 8 & 1/2,
but he includes autobiographical notes, too. The story of Guido Anselmi is
similar to the story of Federico Fellini. Guido's struggles in his latest
project, a science fiction picture, as well as his marital woes and mental
strife, often reflect Fellini's own personal troubles.
Mulholl
and Drive
David
Lynch originally envisioned Mulholl and Drive as a TV pilot, and repurposed it
for the big screen after television executives rejected the show. The story
feels episodic but that, along with its weirder elements,make the film
difficult to understand at first glance.
The
world of Mulholl and Drive is littered with amnesiacs, assassination attempts,
romantic interludes, and waking nightmares that lurk around the corners of our
worst fears. What all of these things add up to in the end is all in the eye of
the beholder. Good luck figuring it out in a single sitting.
Primer
Unpacking
Primer requires a handful of viewings plus several hours consulting the Internet.
Even if you put in that footwork, you still might only achieve a sliver of
comprehension, because this is one of the most complex time travel films ever
made.
But
the lessons taught in Primer are clear, even when its approach to time travel is
confusing - traveling through time is a bad idea. Protagonists Abe and Aaron
start out as pals but slowly work to out-scheme and outmaneuver each other when
Abe comes to realize that time travel is dangerous. Bad way to end a
friendship.
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