unforum

[imbri]

[Omnie]

[addlepated]

Has anyone mentioned Donnie Darko yet?

[Dorkmaster]

I loved "Dark City" as it also was a person unraveling a mystery with cool sci-fi elements, and discovering more as you went along...

Not too "puzzling" but a great twist on the old "muder mystery" format, placed in a dazzling special effects world. IMHO, of course.

[Omnie]

[krystyn]

I dunno, I didn't really delve into any extra content on the website or DVD, and I was STILL completely devastated by the implications and reality of the ending.

In fact, I own the DVD, and I can't even bring myself to view it a second time. I started to, a couple weeks ago, but ... yeah.

[addlepated]

[catherwood]

krystyn, seriously? wanna sell me your DVD? Which version is it?

Addy, I had read a review of Requiem (maybe on IMDB) which said that it was not really worth owning as no one wants to watch it a 2nd time. So i didn't buy it, even at a bargain price, but I still haven't even seen it a first time.

I was thinking back to the original purpose of the thread. (Did we help him meet his deadline?) There seems to be two opposing categories for all of these movies, and neither is completely good at being ARG-like. While the beginning of a good ARG does have that "whoa! is this for real?" head trip aspect, the game shouldn't be about the mystery of what is or is not real (or in-game). But many of us seem to enjoy movies and stories which play with our sense of reality. Then there is the category of movies with a character tracking down clues and putting together the pieces of a mystery. I suspect a lot of us also enjoy forensics TV shows for a similar reason, to be "playing along" with the characters and solving the mystery before the answer is revealed to the audience. But again, are these specifically ARG-like stories, or just representative of that facet of ARGs?

Heh, leave it to me to wander into yet another META discussion. :)

[urthstripe]

[Giskard]

[catherwood]

Mulholland Driving

[krystyn]

[Phaedra]

Salon does a nice job of explaining Mulholland Drive (as much as it can be explained) here.

You have to watch an ad to read it all if you're not a Salon member, but it's not too bad.

[terminalskeptik]

In terms of reality-questioning, I will add to the list;
Big Fish (in a fun, Tim Burton fantasy kind of way)
The Recruit
Jacobs Ladder
The Jacket
The Cell

Primer is an excellent example of a movie that gets your mind so warped that you forget reality even exists. There is an interview with Shane Carruth, the writer, that really clears up the intent of the film
http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_041008carruth.html

Primer is such an excellent film in that you don't have to know how, or why it works to be drawn in by it. I watched it 3 times in a row and found myself lingering over it for days afterward.

To me, films don't have to blow you away with Matrixesque flair in order to question reality. Actually, I will add Hotel Rwanda to the list because it made me question the reality of day to day life for me in the USA as opposed to what other people wake up to every day.

[Dorkmaster]

Sorry to stray off topic again with Primer, but that website REALLY does an excellent job of putting it all together. I thought I understood (with admitted lapses of "concrete evidence") but this really makes the most sense, and tells you how absolutely complicated filming this thing must have been! What a spectacular movie. (Primer just went from a repeat rental to a "must own".) Just spectacular. (Tarantino must be supremely jealous somewhere, of this way of taking his trademark non-linear time cuts, and folding them inward exponentially. )