Yes, don't all "real men" enjoy Arnold movies?
I think I left that one behind somewhere around the 10th grade.
And yet you watch Sci-Fi movies? So I guess this means that Al Bundy is not your hero? Ok, enough kidding. Life doesn't always have to be serious, especially entertainment. Not that Arnold movies are my favorites, but they are entertaining to me. After reading newspapers, and watching the news, real life in general, I like to take a fun break from this stuff, and this includes watching some less than brilliant movies that just have a fun factor, or good special effects. I rarely go to the movies, most of what we (wife and I) watch are rental DVD's, but we do go see some movies, mostly where the big screen contributes to the movie.
As previously mentioned, I've always like Three Days of the Condor, it was well written, and for once a really smart character was likeable. If you've never seen this one it's definitely worth it. If you like Sci-Fi, Capricorn One is an OK movie with a bit of a twist, some of the scenes are a bit over the top, but the cast includes some of the top actors of the time, and over all it's a descent movie.
I've watched and enjoyed many of the movies in that top 250 list, although my list would be significantly different.
If I watch the Sixth Sense, or Memento, I just get annoyed at the inconsistencies and contrived situations it took in an effort to support a bad premise.
Well, the fact that you feel the premises were flawed suggests that you were predisposed to dislike the movies.
I didn't feel the premises were flawed until after watching the movies. Perhaps with better and more consistent screenplay, the premises could have been made more believable, but as is, there were too many flaws and/or coincidences.
In Memento, the main characters memory retention kept adjusting so that it fit the script, which was annoying to me. One thing is the main character is able to drive from the cave into town and later back again, even though he'd never been there before. In other cases, like when the girl fights with him, leaves and returns in a few minutes, his memory retention is very short, in spite of his efforts to prevent it.
In the Sixth Sense, the premise is introduced by the child, that ghosts don't know they're dead, can't see other ghosts, and only see what they want to see (until some problem is resolved). However the ghost / grandmother is aware she is dead and just wants to stay with the family. The 3 ghosts in the courthouse scene all appear at the same time, which seems very unlikely if they aren't aware of each other. Not obvious from the movie itself, but from the directors comments is the fact that everything "bad" or a "conflict" is red. The doorknob to the basement has a red tint, OK, but the mother of the dead child wears flourescent red to a funeral, which was beyond believable. Then there are the scenes meant to throw off the audience. The main character just happens to be in the kids house with the mom, waiting for the kid to come home. Later, the mom seem oblivious when the kid talks to the main character. In the diner scene, the chair just happens to be already pulled out when the main character sits down, and the wife grabs the check just before he does. Another thing never explained is how do the ghosts recognize who can see and hear them out of the millions of people in a city? How do they find this kid? Anyway, enough ranting about this one movie. I only watched it twice on DVD, first without and then with the directors comments. The second time was to trying to figure out what the director had in mind, but even he makes it clear that some scenes were just meant to throw off the audience, and the "red" thing just seemed uneeded. For that matter the main character didn't need a special twist for the movie to be good.
got it...
She missed the whole point of the movie! The guy was suffering from short term memory and the movie was filmed to give the audience the sense of disconnection that the character suffered. That is why it was filmed in reverse order in ten minute segments. It was fascinating to watch the sequence of events unwind and each segment could give you an entirely different perception of who was good, who was bad, who you could trust, which was the character's dilema.
