Memento

[JCBaggee]

[color=darkred][font=verdana][size=1]An OB thread search revealed no one has started a thread on the film "Memento"! The blasphemy!

Anyways. Memento is the story of Leonard Shelby(Guy Pearce), an insurance agent who apparently lost his wife several years earlier when a man broke into their house. His wife was killed, and his brain was permanently damaged, resulting in his inability to create new memories. The film, which is told in reverse, has numerous twists and turns to the storyline that its going to take several watchings to really understand the beauty of the story. With fantastic performances by Matrix alums Carrie Anne-Moss and Joe Pantoliano, this is a great film for anyone who enjoys a great mystery movie with a hint of action.

The films was by far one of the most unique I've ever seen, especially with the hints that Leonard [spoiler]may have created the Sammy Jenkis character in his head. Jenkis never existed and Leonard's wife, a diabetic, was killed when she did a similar test to him. The implications are there![/spoiler]

--Chris[/color][/size][/font]

[Mykul]

i didnt see the entire movie, just caught the last half. i would say the action was up to par and the screenshots were very abstract and creative. i didnt, however, see why he needed to sic himself on Teddy at the end.

[JCBaggee]

[color=darkred][size=1][font=verdana]Mehr, its because....

[spoiler]...Teddy betrayed him. Teddy was using his disability (the supposed inability to create new memories) against him, pointing him in the directions of people who weren't really the John. G that Leonard thought was guilty of murdering his wife, then convincing Leonard that they were the killer by dropping false clues. Leoonard was killing someone who probably didn't even exist, and for a crime that was probably never really committed. Because Teddy used him, Leonard turned the tables by leaving himself clues that implied Teddy was John G., then slamming on the brakes at a tatoo parlor to distract himself and force him to forget everything Teddy had told him.[/spoiler]

--Chris[/color][/size][/font]

[Mykul]

that makes sense i suppose. like i said, i only saw the last half. i never have problems interpreting movies that i actually watch. thanks for the explanation.

[Shinmaru]

I saw Memento today, and I really liked it a lot. The story is told in a very interesting way, with the main scenes being shown in 'reverse' order, and the black and white flashbacks that Leonard has being shown in chronological order. As a whole the story is not very complex at all (once you know all of the details, anyway), but it's told in an extremely compelling manner.

Most of the major twists come from [spoiler]how everyone double-crosses Leonard because of his memory condition.[/spoiler] With the way that the story is told, you feel just as confused as Leonard is, because all you have to go on are the same disjointed 'memories' that Leonard has. I don't think that this movie's story would have worked any other way besides the way it was actually told.

I actually correctly guessed the ending of the movie in the middle of it, but it was more of a tentative [spoiler]"So...maybe Leonard killed his wife...?"[/spoiler] rather than a confident [spoiler]"Yeah, Leonard killed his wife!"[/spoiler] And right after I guessed the ending, about a million more little plot twists were introduced that made me abandon the idea lol. Imagine how embarrassed I was to find out that I had been right in the first place, haha.

What was nice about the plot twists, though, is that they weren't just randomly inserted into the story for the sake of having a plot that was hard to follow. Each aspect of the story served a particular purpose, whether it was establishing character motive, instilling suspicion in particular characters, or whatever else. One of my big pet peeves is when something happens during a movie to make you suspicious, and then it's not built on [i]at all[/i]; like it was just put in there to be there.

If I have one complaint about the film it would be that the characters seem a bit '****' happy in their dialogue lol. I don't have any issue at all with cursing in movies, but when Carrie-Anne Moss' characters says '****' about 15-20 times in the span of five minutes, then I think that's going a bit overboard. I'd rather that cursing be a bit more impactful; it was more of a novelty here. Maybe it's just me, though.

Overall, though, I liked the movie a lot. I was impressed with Carrie-Anne Moss, especially since I found her acting so awful in the last two Matrix films (and somewhat bad in the first Matrix). Joe Pantoliano is always cool, and Guy Pearce was very impressive, as well.

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]I saw Memento a few weeks back and I have to admit it was one of the most confusing films I have seen in a long time. The first time I watched the film, I was left wondering exactly what the heck I had just seen, although subsequent viewings did make it a lot more clearer.

Overall though I did very much enjoy the film, the story itself was top-notch, and the way it was told in reverse was a very interesting choice. [spoiler]The way that everyone was using Leonard's disability against him, as to further the plotline was also great. You'd think you had someone figured out and then BAM !!, something would happen and you wouldn't have any idea what was going on.[/spoiler]

I have to admit though that until now I wasn't really sure whether or not Leonard has made up the [spoiler]Sammy Jenkin's character, and whether or not it had been Leonard who's wife had been the diabetic and subsequently died as a test to see if Leonard was really unable to make new memories.[/spoiler] Although I only had the film for one night and was still only semi-sure about what I thought was going on, though I guess that's just the impact of the film.[/SIZE]