I'm Thinking of Ending Things

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silverscreenselect
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I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#1 Post by silverscreenselect » Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:31 pm

No, not me.

That's the title of the new Netflix movie that's undoubtedly the strangest thing you'll ever see on Netflix. The only movie that's remotely comparable was Mother with Jennifer Lawrence from a couple of years ago.

If you understand it without running to a spoiler site after you finish watching it, then you're a better viewer than I am.
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#2 Post by Bob78164 » Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:15 pm

silverscreenselect wrote:
Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:31 pm
No, not me.

That's the title of the new Netflix movie that's undoubtedly the strangest thing you'll ever see on Netflix. The only movie that's remotely comparable was Mother with Jennifer Lawrence from a couple of years ago.

If you understand it without running to a spoiler site after you finish watching it, then you're a better viewer than I am.
Mother was clear enough once you realize
Spoiler
the movie is an allegory for the Old Testament and Mother is Mother Earth.
Is this movie similarly
Spoiler
allegorical?
--Bob
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#3 Post by silverscreenselect » Sat Sep 05, 2020 3:33 pm

Bob78164 wrote:
Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:15 pm
Is this movie similarly
This reminds me of the dialogue from Gosford Park:

Maggie Smith (asking movie producer about his upcoming mystery film): And who turns out to have done it?
Producer: Oh I couldn't tell you that. It would spoil it for you.
Smith: Oh but none of us will see it.

All I will say is that this movie is similarly weird and that many people, myself included, will want to look up the meaning of it afterwards.
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#4 Post by Bob Juch » Sat Sep 05, 2020 4:49 pm

You might like Horse Girl.
Netflix wrote:Sarah, a socially isolated arts and crafts store employee, finds herself more content in the company of horses and supernatural crime shows than people. But when a series of strangely surreal dreams upend the simplicity of her waking life, Sarah struggles to distinguish her visions from reality. A darkly humorous psychological thriller about a woman's search for the truth, however abstract it may be.
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#5 Post by MarkBarrett » Sat Sep 05, 2020 5:18 pm

I watched the first episode of Away with Hilary Swank leading a mission to Mars. That's easy to follow.

To stretch the thread to various streaming options: Pen15 on Hulu with two 30-something (as in age) actresses playing 7th graders is...I'm not sure which adjectives to select.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#6 Post by Bob Juch » Sat Sep 05, 2020 7:36 pm

MarkBarrett wrote:
Sat Sep 05, 2020 5:18 pm
I watched the first episode of Away with Hilary Swank leading a mission to Mars. That's easy to follow.

To stretch the thread to various streaming options: Pen15 on Hulu with two 30-something (as in age) actresses playing 7th graders is...I'm not sure which adjectives to select.
I'm watching episode 5 of Away at this moment.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
- Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to drive in New Jersey.

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#7 Post by silverscreenselect » Sun Sep 06, 2020 11:07 pm

Well, it didn't take me long to see something else that was almost as convoluted as I'm Thinking of Ending Things.

I went to see Tenet tonight at the drive-in (which was pretty much packed with three or four screens playing Tenet). This is definitely a movie that plays better on a large indoor screen, but I'm not that adventurous yet. Once again I ran to a spoiler website when I got home to read a detailed plot summary and explanation. This time, however, I pretty much knew what went on but didn't catch a number of fine details that were explained on the spoiler site.

The movie is a good bit like Christopher Nolan's Memento, except with a science fiction basis. Sometime in the future, they figure out a way to invert time so they can send things back which then keep going backward. So, bullets fly from a wall backward into a pointed gun (and if someone is in the way, that's very unfortunate for them). Some of these time travel machines are back in the present so people can move backward in time as well. So, there are scenes involving buildings un-exploding and cars un-crashing. There's a lot of pseudo-scientific talky exposition in the movie, some of which is nearly inaudible thanks to a lot of background noise going on at the same time (I think that was deliberate on Nolan's part).

Technically, the film is very well made with a couple of terrific action set pieces and some great backward and forwards camera work (in one scene, the bottom of a building un-explodes while the top explodes at almost the exact same time. But they are also superfluous to the main storyline for the most part. And at the end of the movie, I had the feeling that there was less to it than what Nolan probably intended. I'd still give it a solid B for the technical work alone.
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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#8 Post by Beebs52 » Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:31 pm

We watched Memento last night. I found it contrived and ultimately annoying.
Well, then

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Re: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#9 Post by Bob Juch » Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:34 pm

Beebs52 wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:31 pm
We watched Memento last night. I found it contrived and ultimately annoying.
Yes, it was contrived, but I didn't find it annoying.

Away drove me nuts with their flashbacks because I couldn't always tell they jumped back.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
- Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to drive in New Jersey.

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