gdr2004

I was hanging out with a few friends and decided to watch a movie called Vanilla Sky. From the start, I was completely thrown off balance. I was about to dismiss the movie as being pretentious, and yet I couldn't stop watching due to the fascinating imagery not to mention Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diez.

However, as the movie progressed, and neared the end I was completely blown away by how awesome the movie was. And by the end I was absolutely shocked at how crazy everything was. I was not disappointed by a long shot.

You have your movies that comform to Hollywood standards and cliches, and then every now and then, you have a movie that comes and aims to break that barrier.

Which movies do you believe do that?

As far as recent movies, I'd have to say No country for old men definitely exceeded my expectations. Another movie that comes to mind is momento.

So, what can you think of?

mixedmedia

I think the first time I saw the 1927 film Napoleon (directed by Abel Gance) it blew my mind and totally made me reappraise my mindset towards silent film and eventually on filmmaking as a whole.

Other films that blew my mind:
Touch of Evil
Shock Corridor
whichever Busby Berkeley musical I saw first...one of the Golddigger ones, I am sure

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PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Plan9

Though mentioned already, I second Memento.

No other flick has managed to grab my brain quite like it.

Pure genius. Reason enough are the lines Guy Pierce narrates with:
Deep. Real deep dark.

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roachboy

hmm...there are a bunch of them.

chris marker's "la jetée"
a. tarkovsky's "solaris" (especially the driving sequence, which i still think is the coolest use of sound i know of in film)
m. kobayashi's "kwaidan"
m. teshigahara's "woman in the dunes" (unbelievably claustrophobic)
vera chytilova: "daisies" (the cutting sequence)


everything i have seen by stan brakhage
harry smith's animations.

gance's napoleon is really great.
check out some of meliès' work too. you can find examples on early cinema compilations.
o yeah, and epstein's "fall of the house of usher" is fantastic. 1927 i think as well. just fantastic.

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gdr2004

All these posts are awesome! I can't wait to check out these movies!

I just love it when filmmakers say hey, fuck Hollywood, fuck standard let's just make an awesome movie and who cares about rules!

Lasereth

Children of Men -- can't even describe the qualities of this movie. Everything about it is perfect. Proof that classic movies are still being made.

host

I'm nominating two current ones:

"American Gangster", walked out of the theatre wondering if I've been blissfully ignorant of how corrupt our law enforcement/judicial system is, and how it undermines our society.

"Gone Baby, Gone", Surprised that I saw "no gray area", in distinguishing "right from wrong" in the "hero's" key decision, and even more surprised that my wife did....

....and a recent one:

"The Departed", walked out of the theatre wondering if I've been blissfully ignorant of how corrupt our law enforcement/judicial system is, and how it undermines our society.... yet viewing "American Gangster" elicited the same reaction, only more strongly, and, as if for the first time....

LoganSnake

The following are the movies that just left me sitting staring at the screen even after the credits were over:

KPAX
Memento
Crash
A Waking Life

There are probably more, but I can't recall at the moment.

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The_Jazz

host, I had a very similar reaction to "The Departed". I haven't had a chance to see "American Gangster" yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

I remember walking out of "Magnolia" and thinking "so that's what an Amiee Mann song looks like as a movie."

"Moulan Rouge" changed my mind about all modern musicals being wastes of time, at least until I saw "Chicago".

Finally, "SOB" opened my eyes for the first time about how manipulative Hollywood actually is. That point's been made numerous times since then and often better (most notably in "Entourage"), but that was the one that made me realize how the system actually works.

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pan6467

The first time I saw "IDENTITY" blew my mind, awesome mind fuck movie.

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Jinn

American History X
The Matrix (original)
Crazy Sexy Cancer
Big Fish
Fight Club
Crash

I'm drawing a blank at the the moment for more.

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ColonelSpecial

Run Lola Run

This movie was so unreal.

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MexicanOnABike

the 1st time and then the following 5times I watched Primer in the same day, it was blowing my mind! the Time travel things in the movie were really nuts. One awesome movie!

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Plan9

The Machinist w/ Christian Bale.

Holy starvation, Batman!

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Baraka_Guru

I'll put up one of them, anyway. My namesake: Baraka. No other film has simultaneously instilled hope and horror, sadness and madness in me as this one has.

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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Strange Famous

Der Untergang

To me, it was mesmorizing... I really felt I was seeing the real Hitler. And the characterisation of Speer was brilliant.

There is a part when some of the inner circle are trying to persuade Hitler to flee, and he is resisting, but not certain.. he asks Speer if he too thinks he should run and Speer tells him "you must be on stage when the curtain falls" and Hitler's fate is sealed completely.

Later, Speer admits that he has betrayed Hitler, and offers him his hand, which Hitler will not take, he sits there close to tears and you feel pity for him... then remember that 60 seconds ago he was boasting that he was proud of addressing "the Jewish question" and that the German people deserved to die for lacking the stomach to win...

it just all feels so real.

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casual user

same here, but mostly because i was stoned when i watched it

i can't really think of a movie that blew my mind at the moment

Willravel

Second on Solaris. Madly wonderful film.

The second Ghost in the Shell movie really surprised me. I was thrown for a wonderful, trippy loop.

Children of Men was something special, too.

Star Wars IV: A New Hope. I saw this at around age 5 and I've not been the same since. It was and continues to be something special.

ItWasMe

I can't watch scary movies anymore, but I watched Nightmare on Elm Street when it came out on video. I was blown away and couldn't watch it one sitting. I had to stop watching several times, especially when she brought that hat back out of her dream.

The Others didn't blow me away, but it had a totally different ending than I had ever thought.

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ring

The Panic In Needle Park.
1971..Al Pacino
Directed by Jerry Schatzberg, I think it just became available on CD.
A dark gritty film about heroin addiction, no soundtrack to steer your emotions.
Grim and compelling.

noodle

Most of mine have been mentioned already...

Primer
American History X
Fight Club
Children of Men
Identity
The Machinist

But there were a few for special effects (Transformers, 300, Pan's Labryinth) that got me and several for emotional torture either portrayed or caused in the viewer (Silence of the Lambs, Romper Stomper, The Jacket, the rape scene in Vulgar) that rate on my list. It's difficult to "blow my mind", but these are ones that stick with me.

Of course, my mind WAS blown that a movie like Idiocracy was ever even made, it was so damn bad. Maybe that counts.

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StellaLuna

Gaslight - I love that a movie so old just grabs at my brain.
Confederate States of America
Pan's Labyrinth

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Plan9

Argh, somebody explain to me how Children of Men was so awesome.

I watched it and watched it and still couldn't get the hoo-yah kick in the crotch that everybody is talking about. Cool enough plot, lousy dialog, not intuitive enough, extraneous special effects and gunplay (even for me).

...

John Carpenter's The Thing

Kurt Russell's outta control facial hair is stuck in Antarctica where it uncovers an alien vessel buried in the ice. Said alien inhabitants (super virus) infect the human researchers, turning them into homicidal supermutants. Humans burning blood to see if they're infected. Flamethrowers. Spiderheads. Dark. Tense. Awesome musical score. No CGI. Everybody dies ending.

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LoganSnake

I have that same question to the people who thought Primer was awesome. I turned it off midway because I haven't been that bored with a movie since 28 Days Later or Ghosts of Mars.

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ring

oh yeah!! The Thing...there is one scene in particular involving a petri dish that can still make me jump enough to piss off my cat.

MexicanOnABike

theres your problem!! the movie is like 1hr and 20min. it only gets fucking insane at 1hr or so. Turning off a movie half way will not make you understand it! you have to finish it completely and not try to think too hard. in this case, theres no way you can watch it once and get it.

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LoganSnake

Well, I shut it off about 15 minutes after both guys did the time travel and saw their doubles. How far into the movie is that?

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Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

mixedmedia

I wasn't that impressed with Children of Men, either, Crompsin...so you're not alone.

Pan's Labyrinth, though, is a good choice.

Movies that blew my mind but in a way that made me feel sick for a few days afterwards...

Happiness
The House of Sand and Fog (I bought this book shortly after seeing the movie, but I have yet to take it off the shelf and read it...I just look askance at it and choose something else. lol)

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Fremen

Pan's Labyrinth blew my mind at the part Spoiler: when the guy got killed with the bottle to the forehead.
Just brutal.
I was expecting a kind of kid's fantasy and got almost a horror flick.

I ended up liking it.

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MexicanOnABike

not that far. you missed the whole good part of the movie. after that, it gets confusing in a good way till the end.

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Willravel

To those that didn't like Children of Men... did you read Asimov and Bradburry when you were younger? Clark and Verne? I felt like it was made specifically for the die-hard scifi fan.

highthief

Yeah, I thought it was very over-rated also.

Have to admit, I'm rarely blown away by any movie - if it keeps my attention for the 90-120 minutes that most movies are, it's done well!

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roachboy

i think we all have very very long lists of movies that did not blow us away.
and its hard to figure what does cause one'shead to expand when watching a film anyway. it seems mostly just a function of where your head is at when you happen to watch it. the same film might not do it for you at all if your head's in a strange place at that moment.

here are a couple additions to my earlier list

jean rouch: les maitres fous
(holy crap, what a curious film. you have to watch it. it's hard to process what you are seeing: it poses questions about what the real is like few other films i have ever seen)

ingmar bergman: persona

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Derwood

Reservoir Dogs and Se7en get votes for "movies I knew nothing about but saw them with a friend in the theatre."

ring

Eraserhead..I remember the dark and creepy theatre it was first shown at in San Diego, CA.. maybe 1977..78?

I was young and impressionable then..but I had not seen anything like it before.

Plan9

Collateral Damage

Arnie didn't use a single firearm in the entire movie. Ear biting and hand grenades, but not one shot from his hand.

Collateral

Tom Cruise in a role that didn't make me want to vomit into a cup and immediately drink it. Old hitman with moves like a 20 year old. Hot-hot H&K USP action. Subtle then explosive. I approve.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

highthief

Yeah, you know, se7en might qualify for me. Great flick.

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ozahs

Paris Texas - never really understood what cinematography was before seeing this film.

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blahblah454

I enjoyed children of men, thought it was a great story, but the movie was simply mediocre for me.

Mememto blew me away, no matter how many times I watch that movie I still want more. Did you guys know that there is a way (if you have the right version of dvd, it comes in a package that looks like a diary or something) to play the movie in order of start to finish. Like the black and white bits that go in reverse actually are played in chronological order.

Pans Labyrinth. I was going expecting a hardcore fantasy, turned out to be a brutal repressive war movie (kinda). I loved it, I haven't been this amazed by a movie in a long time.

Plan9

Yeah, I have the Collector's Edition of Memento and it totally rocks my socks. Watching the movie in order after watching it in Memento vision is bizarre.

I like how it comes with a little police file on Leonard Shelby (Pierce) and a real post-it note that reminds you to watch the film.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."