oddities

BlitzKrieg

Do you sometimes find when watching a film, a minor oddity pops out thats not crucial to the film and is probably not even on screen long (even if it is on screen.) but it stuck in your head and ended up being one of the big things you remember from the film.


Now I dont mean goofs, I mean actions taken by characters, or something in the background.


For example.

An oddity that bugged me, was in the film Elephant. The film follows all the characters going to school one day, yet I swear I never see any of the characters actually go to a class. From the morning right up to lunch the film follows the characters extensivly, yet the closest we got to going anywhere near a classroom was one guy popping into a photography room for a few minutes and a girl going to some group pow wow session. Sure we see sports and we see the library, But this is school, its 10-11am in the frickin morning, you should be in the bloody classroom! I dont know if its a fault with the film or if its how schools work in america (cause if it does, it explains alot).

Angus MacGyver

I never liked that scene in Donnie Darko in the school where the tears for fears song started and a few of the students start dancing to it. completely pointless.
I saw a film late one night, it was in technicloour so its pretty old, cant remember the name, anyway, there was a scence where a stocky bloke took on about 6 lads, the music that started playing was the superman theme tune. I was totally shocked,

johnny_ultimate

Angus MacGyver wrote:

I never liked that scene in Donnie Darko in the school where the tears for fears song started and a few of the students start dancing to it. completely pointless.

Well that scene does have relevance. It mainly helps us get to know the characters. The dancing subplot turns out to be pretty central to the story - it's because of the dancing that

Donnie's mother and his sister end up on the plane at the end

.

pbsuxok1znja4r

^Wait a minute. What?
I think someone seriously needs to explain that film to me properly...

johnny_ultimate

Let's see. Ive watched it enough times to have a fairly decent knowledge of it but again I could be wrong. Please correct the inevitable misconceptions im about to make. Oh yeah and muchos spoilerage ahead:

so the whole plot hinges on Donnie being the saviour of the planet. To do this he must travel back in time to the point in the tangent universe where the plane crashed. However, to travel back, he requires a vessel [lets not get into details, just take if for granted !]. As Noah Wyle explains to us, this vessel can be any large vehicle : a plane for example. So.. when Donnie's sister and his mother are returning from the dance contest, they take a plane, which in turn acts as the time travel vessel. So in essence you could just assume the whole dancing subplot is just a device to get the plane in the right place at the right time. Or, as i find, it is also a freaky ass look into the weirdness of children's talent shows [see also : little miss sunshine]. Oh yeah and that plane engine is the one that destroys donnie's room as well. Just so you know

monkeyfudge

The scene with the chimps in the movie Showgirls didn't seem to make any real sense.

BlitzKrieg

is this in monkeyfudge vision, or just plain gaven vision?

monkeyfudge

Ha... Oh I'm pretty sure there was a scene where a bunch of chimps burst into the showgirls changing room and start making a mess and eating their lipstick and stuff... and then the film quickly moves on.

BlitzKrieg

i wouldnt know, I only remember a crappy sex scene in a jecuzzi that disapointed my right hand (then we put on wild things and it was very happy)

monkeyfudge

There's a reference to it in the New York Times review...

http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?res=990CE2DD1F3AF931A1575AC0A963958260

So I didn't make it up in order to enjoy the film more... I sometimes find it helpful to retroactively insert monkeys and chimps into my memories of bad films in order to make them better.

BlitzKrieg

well f*ck me...chimps.


curse you monkeyfudge.

monkeyfudge

There's a scene in Logan's Run just after they escape from the city by swimming through an underwater passageway.

Logan and the girl get out of the water and he tells her to quickly get out of her clothes... so they both strip and we get a bit of a glimpse of her breasts... then he almost immediately tells her to put her clothes back on again and they continue on their way.

Also any of the horrible product placement scenes in I, Robot were completely out of place.... I really don't think there would ever be a situation where one hetrosexual man would tell another how great he thinks his shoes are.

ixoy

The Riverdance-inspired scene at the end of 'Zatoichi'. That was very odd and, apparently, done because he could...

madrab

yeah, there was alot of dancing in zatoichi that didnt make much sence

also the whole pointless go to cuba because "I lIkE MoJiToOoO" scene in miami vice

monkeyfudge

ixoy wrote:

The Riverdance-inspired scene at the end of 'Zatoichi'. That was very odd and, apparently, done because he could...

Well, if we start listing contempory Japanese cinema we'll be here all day.

Rhyme

ixoy wrote:

The Riverdance-inspired scene at the end of 'Zatoichi'. That was very odd and, apparently, done because he could...

All the 'musical' bits in that just weirded me out... good film though.

Oh and watching 'The Island' and picking out all the products.

johnny_ultimate

Rhyme wrote:

All the 'musical' bits in that just weirded me out... good film though.

Oh and watching 'The Island' and picking out all the products.

Great musical number, i thought.
And speaking of product placement, think about that scene in Mac & Me - itself awful, but featuring a full blown singing and dancing interlude in mcdonalds which is litreally cringe inducing.

gustavo

I suppose the one thing that springs to mind for me would be the frogs scene in Magnolia.That was a bit out there ,:D but there were supposedly Biblical references throughout that film

madrab

johnny_ultimate wrote:

Great musical number, i thought.
And speaking of product placement, think about that scene in Mac & Me - itself awful, but featuring a full blown singing and dancing interlude in mcdonalds which is litreally cringe inducing.

yeah, mac & me was a glorified pepsi add