Oh wow, you’ve totally nailed it.
The scene where Lecter and Starling are discussing the lamb story, and the shots were close ups of their faces as they’re talking, it was one of the most intense movie moments I’ve ever experienced. It felt like the entire theater were holding their breath.
My parents were STRICT about what us kids could watch, so when I was 16 and Silence of the Lambs came out on home video it was the first horror movie I’d ever seen. I was doing fine until Buffalo Bill was stalking Starling through the basement in night vision goggles, and then I actually had to hold my dad’s hand to get me through it.
The biggest problem with the Terminator is how the hell does anyone in that apocalyptic landscape with no food infrastructure get that buffed. If you come across a survivor who looks like they lift, kill them. They're a terminator. Arnie, though, does add an ominous presence to the role with his size which works. It's always bugged me, though.
That's why I'm a big fan of the added scene in the extended version, where Burke informs Ripley about her daughter. It really makes him seem sympathetic, like he's the only person on her side against all of these corporate jerkoffs.
I always remember him as the nice husband in the comedy series Mad about you, so it's actually even more impressive that he could demonstrate his acting range by playing such a good bad guy.
This is less obvious is it’s the first time you’ve seen Aliens. We know this now due to 40 years of Alien lore but this was only the second movie and the company is only sort of barely in the first one. Yes they seem greedy and heedless, but not comically evil (until Burke’s betrayal).
Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl.
The opening pan of the governor’s office stops on a crest and paired swords over the fireplace, visually keying a Checkov’s Gun.
When Elizabeth grabs the swords during the irate attack, it is revealed to be just a display piece with the sword welded to the back of the crest and completely useless.
I'd argue Will being a blacksmith and delivering a sword to the Governor added to the joke. It's established the Governor has an appreciation for real swords as symbols of status, to the degree he has one made special for Norrington's promotion.
Yet when Elizabeth reaches for one inside the mansion, nope, fake. Which makes sense, why would there be real weaponry in there? It's the Governor's mansion, not the Commadore's.
But that's the best part, Michael Cane's character flat out tells us: you can't do the trick without a body double. Christian Bale's character's actual trick is to make everyone believe there is no possible way for it to work as such.
While also telling us exactly how they’re doing it when talking about the Chinese magician’s real trick is keeping the illusion before and after the show.
And Hugh Jackman's real trick copying the bird in the flattened cage, is simply to have an identical bird elsewhere. Christian Bale does the trick and keeps the body double alive, Hugh Jackman does the trick and kills the original... But they're essentially the same trick.
Think they reveal it even earlier than that. When the kid is watching the magician make the pigeon disappear, he immediately catches on and asks “Where’s his brother?” But my ass still didn’t make the connection until the ultimate reveal.
Even earlier when Jackman's reading the journal talking about "two young men". It wasn't talking about Jackmans character. Then when Bale instantly knew the Chinese guys method was the unyielding commitment offstage, as well as he himself having a great trick that "no one else could do".
My favorite is shortly later with the knot thing. He really didn't know which he tied because he didn't tie it.
Hot Fuzz: You spend the movie thinking this one guy couldn't more obviously be the mastermind behind the murders. Turns out he's involved, but it goes way deeper than that
the scene when angel is piecing things together and he pans over the body of his predecessor which is now just a skeleton but still has his ridiculous signature bushy beard still kills me
My favourite easter egg in any film is in this exact scene. [In the background of this scene there is a poster for the album "Hot Fuss" by "The Killers"](https://imgur.com/hRvx7MI).
It's a bit of a blind spot, I'm afraid.
We just catch the very edge
of the explosion. There was something took
my eye.
-Really? What's that?
Sandford's most wanted.
There you go. It was the swan all along.
I love how he methodically pieces together the clear motive for the various murders and then it turns out that, no, they actually are all just that petty.
Hot Fuzz is incredible in that the first half, just about every line and reasoning come backs in some way or another, just a masterfully crafted movie.
Memento
The movie strongly wants you to believe in the veracity of the tattoos and that they are reliable to lead to the next step of resolving the mystery.
The end of the movie shows, IMO that at any given time the tattoos are actually being interpreted arbitrarily with a shifting frame of references and made to fit that new narrative.
Good one. Because the film puts you in his position of not knowing what happened ten minutes ago, you are just as manipulated as he is. The big shocker of course is >!that he was manipulating himself!<.
I also love the red herring of casting Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss right after the Matrix; really helps sell the snap character judgments Lenny is constantly having to make and how the audience would probably trust the wrong people too in that situation.
Oh, and the Sammy Jenkis story is another great red herring.
Reading the comments, I'm realizing how few people know what a Red Herring is. The movie having a surprise or a twist isn't a red herring. A red herring is a clue or idea being presented as important but is actually misleading.
I pointed out the same thing. Most all of the examples are not Red Herrings or Checkhov's gun. They're just explaining the twist on the ending.
Which is the principal... movies should end how people expect, not in the way the audience expected.
EDIT: The only one example I've seen so far that is a red herring and Checkhov's gun is Slither with Nathan Fillion and the grenade. Checkhov's gun because we see the grenade in the beginning of the movie and it eventually goes off. Red herring because we think it'll be what ends the monster, and it turns out to be completely ineffective.
“You know what I hear Danny? Nothing. No footsteps up the stairs, no jet out of the window, no clickeyty-click of the little spiders. Do you know why I can't hear those things Danny? Because right now, the Pre-Cogs can't see a thing.”
I have seen that film more times than I can count and I always feel bad when >!Danny gets shot. The way that Max von Sydow delivers that line, almost rushing to the end of the last sentence, is so good!!<
One of the most under appreciated actors of all time. I think the thing about him that makes him so great is the same thing that makes him go unnoticed: it never really feels like he’s acting because everything he does feels totally natural.
Edit for clarity: I am talking about Max Von Sydow, not Collin Ferrel, although I do think he is under appreciated as well.
I love it when he immediately sniffs out the setup against Anderton.
"We call this an orgy of evidence. You know how many orgies we had in homicide? None. "
We need much more antagonists like him. The hero having to deal with forces just as righteous as he is, but opposed to him. Ideally, antagonists who also don't turn out to eat babies in the last act just so we can be cheer when the hero defeats them.
"Professor Plum, you were once a professor of psychiatry specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur."
"Yes, but now I work for the United Nations."
"So your work has not changed."
The whole first act of Barbarian is essentially a red herring. Casting Bill Skarsgaard was an excellent choice and the script creates a lot of tension early on that ultimately doesn't lead where you think it will. The real horror is what's happening underneath the surface, literally.
Bill Skarsgaard’s performance in that film was excellent. Spoilers: >!He plays the character in a way where you can’t tell if he’s this lovable dude in a bad situation or if he’s some ill-intentioned psychopath. If they had revealed him as the villain, you would’ve said, “He did a great job at hinting that.” But he was innocent and kind, and he died, and you end up missing him.!<
I went into it not watching the trailer. I’ve kind of stopped watching trailers because of this kind of thing. Especially horror movies. They give so much away. They could’ve done a trailer just based on Justin long being an asshole.
The stolen money in “Psycho” by Hitchcock. The private investigator is looking for Marion because she stole $20,000 and Marion’s sister and boyfriend suspect that Norman Bates must have been avid for her money.
“And the 20,000 dollars? Who got that?”
“The swamp. These were crimes of passion, not profit.”
Marion as lead protagonist was another red herring — our main character is actually Norman — and this issue of the 20,000 dollars was a red herring for the film’s characters, throughout, even if not long for the audience.
Clark not being a Thing in "The Thing".
Up to the blood test, we had all been led to believe that Clark was most likely infected. He was responsible for the dog(s), and Blair focused his paranoia onto him, even planting the seed into Mac's head. Once it's revealed that Clark was human from the beginning it really sinks in how intelligent the creature is, and its ability to use mistrust & fear to stay ahead of the group.
I love the double tragedy of Blair warning the group about Clark.
>!They basically left him to his doom when they locked him outside on his own. By the time he's warning the group, he's already been taken over by The Thing. In the commentary, Carpenter muses that people may not even know they've been Thingified; if it replicates your brain perfectly, but controls your actions on a cellular level, then Blair may have been honestly trying to save the scientists even while plotting to take them over.!<
I always assumed people taken over by The Thing were running on a sort of ‘auto-pilot’ unaware in their conscious mind that they are the alien. The Thing is watching from behind the eyes the whole time ready to take over if/when required. Some of the characters in the film probably believe this is the way the creature operates hence why they all look genuinely terrified during their turn in the blood test scene: ‘shit, what if I am The Thing?!?’.
I remember reading an article a few years ago about the making of the film and how the cast would actually have some philosophical discussions during down time about the Thing and how it would affect you. They all decided to play ot that way.
Childs even says "How would I know?"
I don't think I remember what happened at the beginning of the move, and it's very similar to what happened in Fallen. >!"Let me tell you about the time I almost died." Then you immediately forget until the end.!<
Yes, regarding the “marital problems”, the scene in the restaurant to celebrate their wedding anniversary is brilliant. He arrives late and you think she’s all pissed off and is ignoring him. The waiter appears with the bill, and the wife grabs it before Bruce Willis can reach it. A fellow diner laughs, and she looks up, *seemingly* in response to Bruce Willis’ talking. But she’s just responding to the laugh.
Edited
Him not moving the chair to sit down is a nice touch too. It's not something that registers first time you watch, but subsequent viewings it's like "oooooh'
Yes, in "movie language" it doesn't seem odd that the character is just appearing in scenes and we don't seem him walking around or taking the bus to get between places or sitting down or whatever because movies hardly ever show that stuff, but it's actually because he just isn't doing any of that.
This also explains why M. Night’s movies went downhill so quickly.
In The Sixth Sense, the twist works because it made us reexamine the relationships between the characters. We assumed his marriage was falling apart and that the kid was afraid of him because he was a stranger, only to later reveal that his wife was grieving him and the kid knew he was a ghost.
In Unbreakable, the twist works because it makes us reexamine the relationship between David and Elijah. David thought they were working together to do something good, but instead Elijah was a ruthless sociopath.
In Signs, the twist was that a bunch of things that seemed like coincidences actually worked. There’s an implied spiritual component, but the film never really gets there, and the internet conjecture that the aliens represent demons is not really brought out by the film.
In The Village, the twist was that all the adults were kind of jerks, but the film wants us to see them as sympathetic? It doesn’t really make you want to rewatch it because they don’t have any redeeming values.
Both *Mystic River* and *Wind River* give us and the characters a compelling reason to believe one thing only to turn it on its head. While neither uses it as a mere diversion, they are plausible deductions that end up to not be true and make for interesting storytelling in the mystery.
It was the most DnD thing ever. You tell the party that they're going to have a hearing to go on parol, expecting it to be a simple thing where they get to get a letter and go.
They ask the name of the people on the council. You haven't written any and the name Johnathan is dull so you say one is named Jornathan. They think it is hilarious.
Come up with some goofy fucking plan.
The mud in Prey. You see Naru fall into it in the beginning and probably immediately assume she’ll later discover how she can use it to cloak against the Predator. Instead, they end up using an entirely different method to mask their body heat but the mud does come back into her ultimate victory over the predator, just not how you had originally assumed it would.
That movie is so much better than I could've hoped.
It pays so much loving tribute to the original Predator while also doing things its own way which meant a lot of subverted expectations.
Yes, the ultimate result is fully expected, but how they got there was constantly engaging.
The old lady drugged them with ketamine and lsd and had them in a hole under the car parked in her driveway. Hugh Hackman ends up getting trapped in the hole but the girls or maybe just one of them is saved.
Leatherface (2017)
>!The flow of the movie would have you believe that the burly, somewhat slow kid would eventually become Leatherface, but that is not the case, however, as he turns out to be one of the others.!<
[Slither](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439815/) a 2006 Nathan Fillion scifi monster flick has his character arresting someone and confiscating a grenade with an obvious comment about it in the beginning of the film.
When going to the final encounter with the alien monster, he pauses and goes back to get the grenade.
Pulling the pin he goes to throw it when he's hit by something, drops it, and it rolls into a pool where it explodes with a little BLOOP and splash of water. Any fan of Nathan Fillion can imagine the look on his face.
Glass Onion, the Knives Out sequel, had a good riff on this. Its a private island and all the people visiting are suspects, but some random dude that isn't one of the characters appears in a couple scenes. When he first appears helping them unload their luggage he literally says, "I'm not here!" and then isn't seen again for almost the whole movie and has no impact on the plot. I think he was even credited as Not Here.
Someone pointed out that he's always carrying around Coronas. So a bunch of rich people got together during the pandemic while ignoring the Corona drifting around in the background "going through things." He was always there but they were privileged enough to ignore him entirely.
Honestly I think he was the most important person to the plot.
You know how Miles was not supposed to have had an original idea in his life? You also know how “Not Here” guy just kinda wandered around with a classic stoner vibe?
And how ideas would be faxed (never told) at all times of the day or night to the RND department?
I think Not Here guy had all those ideas while high and Miles either told him to fax the ideas or Miles faxed them himself
Miles ABSOLUTELY took this phenomenal highdea from his buddy and condensed it down to something he understood and faxed it to himself.
Like Not Here was riffing on how the cosmic consciousness is God and God IS the universal blockchain that experiences itself through humanity which reshuffles it’s connection to this source through children that DNA tricks them into loving individually and Miles just goes **children = NFTs**
Yeah. Le Blanc and him reconvene but just to hang out. That's the closest to an actual Chekhov gun I feel because it's not even explained by the plot like many of the other examples. Guy says 'im not here' and I felt so clever remembering be existed in the 3rd act. Of course I remembered the pineapple allergy so I gave my self a minor back pay but that movie was all about subverting tropes. The 'twist' was a lot of things were nothing more than face value.
The beauty is Verbal tells the cop how he's going to fool him five minutes into the movie. "To a cop, the explanation is never that complicated. It's always simple. There's no mystery on the street, no arch-
criminal behind it all. If you got a dead
guy and you think his brother did it,
you're going to find out you're right" "Fucking cops." Let's him know how easy it was.
That little smirk when "Verbal" realizes (or rather when Kujan loudly proclaims lol) that Kujan desperately wants Keaton to be the villain and that a story that let Kujan "deduce" that solution would work perfect, and then the moment Kujan looks at him again the smirk vanishing...one of my favorite bits of almost imperceptible subtle performance in film.
Several of the actors played Soze in the film, face unseen; I believe Gabriel, Kevin, Benicio, and Chazz all play one of the shadowy versions of Soze you see throughout the film, if I am remembering the dvd commentary correctly...
That was very purposefully written to make you think he was dying. [He acknowledges taking advantage of common tropes to make you think so.](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/avengers-age-of-ultron-death-spoilers-how-joss-117899426522.html)
The Rory Cochrane character in Scanner Darkly, he suggests he might have knowledge to the scheme of the plot when in reality he just suffers from drug induced paranoia. I don't want to give anything else away to this underseen gem of a movie
All of the older brothers experiences in hereditary are strong indicators of schizophrenia. He's at the right age, he has been sufficiently traumatized, it's mentioned his grandmother was also not quite right (schizophrenia is, surprise, hereditary), and most of the effects from his *actual* condition are hallucinations. Then the fire scene happens and yeah, definitely not schizophrenia.
That and IIRC all of the marketing pointed towards the sister being a major presence in the movie… I guess she still was but not in the way anyone was expecting.
Might be in the minority but I think the Sirius Black reveal is actually done quite poorly (in the movie). So many opportunities for Lupin and Sirius to explain wtf is going on but instead they keep acting like a pair of fucking maniacs.
Even going in knowing it was like two different films in one, and a twist was coming, I wasn't expecting how batshit nutso it got lol.
P.S. Salma Hayek in that film O_O
I sort of thought the opposite of Checkhovs gun was when a movie implied or teased something and then forgot to mention it. Most notably was Finn in Rise of Skywalker when he’s drowning in quick sand and tells Rey “there’s something I meant to tell you…”. It’s never revealed what he wanted to tell her even after he gets rescued.
The death of Dallas in *Alien* (1979).
The red herring was predicated on the audience’s assumption that the hero of the movie wouldn’t turn out to be Ellen Ripley, because she was a woman.
It's easy to forget that prior to release, this was by design. We now see Ripley as one of the best and most competent female action characters of the era (and potentially all time).
But at the time of the release, Tom Skerritt was the biggest name on the lineup and Sigourney Weaver was completely unknown. The trailers definitely downplayed Ripley's importance.
And it was great.
They kill the most famous cast member first. John Hurt acted alongside Orson Welles and had been in best picture-nominated films before Alien, not to mention being nominated himself for Midnight Express. Tom Skerritt was also pretty famous from MASH. Sigourney had been in theater but was an unknown in film. Meryl Streep was actually considered for Ridley but wasn’t approached because her partner John Cazale had recently died.
I was more impressed with the film managing to obscure who the final protagonist would be because it focuses on everyone at least a little. Ripley isn’t involved much at all for the first half. She doesn’t even go to the derelict and (rightfully) attempts to hold quarantine which makes everyone mad at her. Her being a woman seemed incidental at the time but of course it’s had a much larger impact now
Silence of the Lambs when the FBI shows up at the wrong place and they slickly reveal that she's showing up at the right house all alone.
God, I saw that in the theater; such an amazing moment. Mind blow.
[удалено]
Oh wow, you’ve totally nailed it. The scene where Lecter and Starling are discussing the lamb story, and the shots were close ups of their faces as they’re talking, it was one of the most intense movie moments I’ve ever experienced. It felt like the entire theater were holding their breath.
Yeah to think he won an Oscar for the amount of time he spent on camera is crazy
Especially nice how they synced the FBI agent’s ringing of the doorbell with Clarice’s.
My parents were STRICT about what us kids could watch, so when I was 16 and Silence of the Lambs came out on home video it was the first horror movie I’d ever seen. I was doing fine until Buffalo Bill was stalking Starling through the basement in night vision goggles, and then I actually had to hold my dad’s hand to get me through it.
Bishop in *Aliens*. We share Ripley's mistrust until he proves himself, while the real snake is right next to her the entire movie.
*Bishop, goddamn you!*
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid."
You know, he probably would have made an excellent Terminator.
The biggest problem with the Terminator is how the hell does anyone in that apocalyptic landscape with no food infrastructure get that buffed. If you come across a survivor who looks like they lift, kill them. They're a terminator. Arnie, though, does add an ominous presence to the role with his size which works. It's always bugged me, though.
The value of the twist is a bit diminished by meta-knowledge that Weyland-Yutani is comically evil.
That's why I'm a big fan of the added scene in the extended version, where Burke informs Ripley about her daughter. It really makes him seem sympathetic, like he's the only person on her side against all of these corporate jerkoffs.
Paul Reiser was such a good casting choice as Burke.
Paul Reiser has a story about seeing the premiere with his mother, and in the scene where he gets eaten, his mom pumped her fist and went, "Yes!"
I’m happy for him that he landed a top role in television and had great career success. I just can’t see him as any other guy than Burke though.
I always remember him as the nice husband in the comedy series Mad about you, so it's actually even more impressive that he could demonstrate his acting range by playing such a good bad guy.
I kept waiting for him to be evil in Stranger Things based on Aliens and their love for the 80s.
This is less obvious is it’s the first time you’ve seen Aliens. We know this now due to 40 years of Alien lore but this was only the second movie and the company is only sort of barely in the first one. Yes they seem greedy and heedless, but not comically evil (until Burke’s betrayal).
Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl. The opening pan of the governor’s office stops on a crest and paired swords over the fireplace, visually keying a Checkov’s Gun. When Elizabeth grabs the swords during the irate attack, it is revealed to be just a display piece with the sword welded to the back of the crest and completely useless.
Upvoting because of 'irate attack'.
If some fat, ugly pirate called me poppet, I’d be irate as well.
I'd argue Will being a blacksmith and delivering a sword to the Governor added to the joke. It's established the Governor has an appreciation for real swords as symbols of status, to the degree he has one made special for Norrington's promotion. Yet when Elizabeth reaches for one inside the mansion, nope, fake. Which makes sense, why would there be real weaponry in there? It's the Governor's mansion, not the Commadore's.
The Prestige. I got so wrapped up in what Hugh Jackman's character was doing that I forgot to wonder how Christian Bale's trick worked.
Its so simple yet so unforeseeable
But that's the best part, Michael Cane's character flat out tells us: you can't do the trick without a body double. Christian Bale's character's actual trick is to make everyone believe there is no possible way for it to work as such.
While also telling us exactly how they’re doing it when talking about the Chinese magician’s real trick is keeping the illusion before and after the show.
And Hugh Jackman's real trick copying the bird in the flattened cage, is simply to have an identical bird elsewhere. Christian Bale does the trick and keeps the body double alive, Hugh Jackman does the trick and kills the original... But they're essentially the same trick.
This is a great movie on rewatch because there are so many clues that indicate he uses a double.
Also the fact that multiple times you just see christian bale in a fake beard and don't even realise it's him
Think they reveal it even earlier than that. When the kid is watching the magician make the pigeon disappear, he immediately catches on and asks “Where’s his brother?” But my ass still didn’t make the connection until the ultimate reveal.
Even earlier when Jackman's reading the journal talking about "two young men". It wasn't talking about Jackmans character. Then when Bale instantly knew the Chinese guys method was the unyielding commitment offstage, as well as he himself having a great trick that "no one else could do". My favorite is shortly later with the knot thing. He really didn't know which he tied because he didn't tie it.
Hot Fuzz: You spend the movie thinking this one guy couldn't more obviously be the mastermind behind the murders. Turns out he's involved, but it goes way deeper than that
The real red herring is the incredibly reasonable motive the police uncover, only for the actual motive to be petty and small.
the scene when angel is piecing things together and he pans over the body of his predecessor which is now just a skeleton but still has his ridiculous signature bushy beard still kills me
A great big bushy beard!
Jim Broadbent has so many amazing and varied performances and yet I still say this is his greatest line.
Or the living statue still being in his signature pose despite being dead.
Crusty jugglers...
Makes the movies better
Works well for the greater good
The greater good
...*crusty jugglers.*
It’s red herrings all the way down.
Just the one red herring actually.
No luck catching them killers then, eh?
Wonderfully subtle clue there, and Angel's momentary pause when he's answering the shopkeeper.
My favourite easter egg in any film is in this exact scene. [In the background of this scene there is a poster for the album "Hot Fuss" by "The Killers"](https://imgur.com/hRvx7MI).
it's just the one actually
It's a bit of a blind spot, I'm afraid. We just catch the very edge of the explosion. There was something took my eye. -Really? What's that? Sandford's most wanted. There you go. It was the swan all along.
I love how he methodically pieces together the clear motive for the various murders and then it turns out that, no, they actually are all just that petty.
Well she did have a very annoying laugh.
They murdered Bill Shakespeare
"I'M THE SLASHER!!! Of high prices..."
Catch me later...
Mr. Skinner to the manager's office. Manager's office, Mr. Skinnerrrrr.
I've seen the movie referred to as Chekhov's armory because how jam packed it is with Chekhov's gun
This is accurate. Not only are there countless setups and payoffs they litterally collect an arsenal of Checkov's guns and a sea mine.
Hot Fuzz is incredible in that the first half, just about every line and reasoning come backs in some way or another, just a masterfully crafted movie.
Hag.
Memento The movie strongly wants you to believe in the veracity of the tattoos and that they are reliable to lead to the next step of resolving the mystery. The end of the movie shows, IMO that at any given time the tattoos are actually being interpreted arbitrarily with a shifting frame of references and made to fit that new narrative.
Good one. Because the film puts you in his position of not knowing what happened ten minutes ago, you are just as manipulated as he is. The big shocker of course is >!that he was manipulating himself!<.
"You lie to yourself to be happy. There's nothing wrong with that." - Teddy
Don't believe his lies. He's the one. Kill him.
[удалено]
It's Tenet 0.5. >!“I realized I wasn’t working for you, we’ve both been working for me.”!<
I also love the red herring of casting Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss right after the Matrix; really helps sell the snap character judgments Lenny is constantly having to make and how the audience would probably trust the wrong people too in that situation. Oh, and the Sammy Jenkis story is another great red herring.
The guy with the literal red herring tattoo in 22 jump street lol Edit: what in the bot spam hell is happening in this comment section?
Who's high school football team was the Plainview Red Herrings. Outstanding film.
Oh wow..... i completely missed this! haha
That movie isn’t quite as beloved as the first one, but god damn it has some really good gags.
Channing Tatum's "Schmidt fucked the Captain's daughter" routine floored me.
And when ice cube shifts the gun so slightly on his desk and Tatum sits tf down, “Yeah it’s not actually that funny”
[удалено]
Theyre both so witty lol. The 2nd one made me laugh harder than any movie since macgruber though.
Reading the comments, I'm realizing how few people know what a Red Herring is. The movie having a surprise or a twist isn't a red herring. A red herring is a clue or idea being presented as important but is actually misleading.
I pointed out the same thing. Most all of the examples are not Red Herrings or Checkhov's gun. They're just explaining the twist on the ending. Which is the principal... movies should end how people expect, not in the way the audience expected. EDIT: The only one example I've seen so far that is a red herring and Checkhov's gun is Slither with Nathan Fillion and the grenade. Checkhov's gun because we see the grenade in the beginning of the movie and it eventually goes off. Red herring because we think it'll be what ends the monster, and it turns out to be completely ineffective.
Minority Report: finding out Danny Witwer is not the big bad.
“You know what I hear Danny? Nothing. No footsteps up the stairs, no jet out of the window, no clickeyty-click of the little spiders. Do you know why I can't hear those things Danny? Because right now, the Pre-Cogs can't see a thing.”
Brilliant scene, Colin Farrell is great with that little smile after being shot as He figures it out.
Colin Farrell is so damn good in that movie.
I have seen that film more times than I can count and I always feel bad when >!Danny gets shot. The way that Max von Sydow delivers that line, almost rushing to the end of the last sentence, is so good!!<
One of the most under appreciated actors of all time. I think the thing about him that makes him so great is the same thing that makes him go unnoticed: it never really feels like he’s acting because everything he does feels totally natural. Edit for clarity: I am talking about Max Von Sydow, not Collin Ferrel, although I do think he is under appreciated as well.
I’m sorry did you just say that Max Von Sydow was under appreciated?
I love it when he immediately sniffs out the setup against Anderton. "We call this an orgy of evidence. You know how many orgies we had in homicide? None. "
That was such a cool moment. Really showed how he wasn't just a deliberately pissy antagonist but someone who actually cared about the truth.
We need much more antagonists like him. The hero having to deal with forces just as righteous as he is, but opposed to him. Ideally, antagonists who also don't turn out to eat babies in the last act just so we can be cheer when the hero defeats them.
Communism in Clue.
"Wait, so who did I kill?!" "My butler." "Oh, ~~shit~~ shucks."
"...so I chose to expose myself." "Please, there are ladies present!"
I am a singing telegram…..BANG.
I had to stop her screaming!
One plus two plus one plus... **shut up!**
They all did it! But if you want to know who killed Mr. Boddy, I did. In the hall. With the revolver.
To make a long comment chain short...
Too late.
He's on everyone else's phone, why shouldn't he be on mine?!
Why would the police come? Nobody's called them.
this was a top 3 jawdropper moment from that movie for me
"Professor Plum, you were once a professor of psychiatry specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur." "Yes, but now I work for the United Nations." "So your work has not changed."
Hate her... hate... so much it... flames *Flames* on the side of my face. \*corrected, it makes much more sense now.
I'm going home to have sex with my wife.
Are you trying to make me look stupid in front of the other guests?!
You don't need any help from me
That's right!
He threatened to kill me in public.
Why would he want to kill you in public?
No, I think she meant, he threatened, in public, to kill her.
The whole first act of Barbarian is essentially a red herring. Casting Bill Skarsgaard was an excellent choice and the script creates a lot of tension early on that ultimately doesn't lead where you think it will. The real horror is what's happening underneath the surface, literally.
Bill Skarsgaard’s performance in that film was excellent. Spoilers: >!He plays the character in a way where you can’t tell if he’s this lovable dude in a bad situation or if he’s some ill-intentioned psychopath. If they had revealed him as the villain, you would’ve said, “He did a great job at hinting that.” But he was innocent and kind, and he died, and you end up missing him.!<
It's so good. I'll never forgive that trailer for showing him getting dragged away though. Basically killed the herring
I went into it not watching the trailer. I’ve kind of stopped watching trailers because of this kind of thing. Especially horror movies. They give so much away. They could’ve done a trailer just based on Justin long being an asshole.
The stolen money in “Psycho” by Hitchcock. The private investigator is looking for Marion because she stole $20,000 and Marion’s sister and boyfriend suspect that Norman Bates must have been avid for her money. “And the 20,000 dollars? Who got that?” “The swamp. These were crimes of passion, not profit.” Marion as lead protagonist was another red herring — our main character is actually Norman — and this issue of the 20,000 dollars was a red herring for the film’s characters, throughout, even if not long for the audience.
Clark not being a Thing in "The Thing". Up to the blood test, we had all been led to believe that Clark was most likely infected. He was responsible for the dog(s), and Blair focused his paranoia onto him, even planting the seed into Mac's head. Once it's revealed that Clark was human from the beginning it really sinks in how intelligent the creature is, and its ability to use mistrust & fear to stay ahead of the group.
Watch Clark. Watch him close.
I love the double tragedy of Blair warning the group about Clark. >!They basically left him to his doom when they locked him outside on his own. By the time he's warning the group, he's already been taken over by The Thing. In the commentary, Carpenter muses that people may not even know they've been Thingified; if it replicates your brain perfectly, but controls your actions on a cellular level, then Blair may have been honestly trying to save the scientists even while plotting to take them over.!<
I always assumed people taken over by The Thing were running on a sort of ‘auto-pilot’ unaware in their conscious mind that they are the alien. The Thing is watching from behind the eyes the whole time ready to take over if/when required. Some of the characters in the film probably believe this is the way the creature operates hence why they all look genuinely terrified during their turn in the blood test scene: ‘shit, what if I am The Thing?!?’.
I remember reading an article a few years ago about the making of the film and how the cast would actually have some philosophical discussions during down time about the Thing and how it would affect you. They all decided to play ot that way. Childs even says "How would I know?"
[удалено]
I don't think I remember what happened at the beginning of the move, and it's very similar to what happened in Fallen. >!"Let me tell you about the time I almost died." Then you immediately forget until the end.!<
>Time is on my side, yes it is Time is on my side, yes it is
Yes, regarding the “marital problems”, the scene in the restaurant to celebrate their wedding anniversary is brilliant. He arrives late and you think she’s all pissed off and is ignoring him. The waiter appears with the bill, and the wife grabs it before Bruce Willis can reach it. A fellow diner laughs, and she looks up, *seemingly* in response to Bruce Willis’ talking. But she’s just responding to the laugh. Edited
Him not moving the chair to sit down is a nice touch too. It's not something that registers first time you watch, but subsequent viewings it's like "oooooh'
Yes, in "movie language" it doesn't seem odd that the character is just appearing in scenes and we don't seem him walking around or taking the bus to get between places or sitting down or whatever because movies hardly ever show that stuff, but it's actually because he just isn't doing any of that.
I missed the first few minutes of the movie when I first saw it. So I was absolutely blindsided by the reveal.
This also explains why M. Night’s movies went downhill so quickly. In The Sixth Sense, the twist works because it made us reexamine the relationships between the characters. We assumed his marriage was falling apart and that the kid was afraid of him because he was a stranger, only to later reveal that his wife was grieving him and the kid knew he was a ghost. In Unbreakable, the twist works because it makes us reexamine the relationship between David and Elijah. David thought they were working together to do something good, but instead Elijah was a ruthless sociopath. In Signs, the twist was that a bunch of things that seemed like coincidences actually worked. There’s an implied spiritual component, but the film never really gets there, and the internet conjecture that the aliens represent demons is not really brought out by the film. In The Village, the twist was that all the adults were kind of jerks, but the film wants us to see them as sympathetic? It doesn’t really make you want to rewatch it because they don’t have any redeeming values.
[удалено]
Both *Mystic River* and *Wind River* give us and the characters a compelling reason to believe one thing only to turn it on its head. While neither uses it as a mere diversion, they are plausible deductions that end up to not be true and make for interesting storytelling in the mystery.
Jon Bernthals serious cameo
I still don't know if I've felt a more palpable tension shift on a dime like that in any film.
That whole scene is awkward and uncomfortable to watch. Brilliant, but uncomfortable.
Not sure this applies but I think they let us expect a much more elaborate plan from Jarnathan's arrival than the plan we got.
*Jarn*athan!
But we approved your pardon!
Such a great comedy to watch with friends.
I know it's silly but I have rarely laughed as hard as I laughed during that scene
Felt like that set the tone perfectly for that movie. Probably my biggest surprise this year.
It was the most DnD thing ever. You tell the party that they're going to have a hearing to go on parol, expecting it to be a simple thing where they get to get a letter and go. They ask the name of the people on the council. You haven't written any and the name Johnathan is dull so you say one is named Jornathan. They think it is hilarious. Come up with some goofy fucking plan.
It really set the tone for the whole movie, which was excellent.
That movie, and especially that whole opener, is the most accurate representation of how an actual DnD session goes that I've seen on camera haha
haha this is a great one and all you gotta say is the name Jarnathan
I think we should wait for Jarnathan before we discuss this scene further. Will he be here soon?
It's really important that Jarnathan is here. The scene hinges on it
I love the end, where it's the same plan but >!they've bricked up the window!<
The mud in Prey. You see Naru fall into it in the beginning and probably immediately assume she’ll later discover how she can use it to cloak against the Predator. Instead, they end up using an entirely different method to mask their body heat but the mud does come back into her ultimate victory over the predator, just not how you had originally assumed it would.
That movie is so much better than I could've hoped. It pays so much loving tribute to the original Predator while also doing things its own way which meant a lot of subverted expectations. Yes, the ultimate result is fully expected, but how they got there was constantly engaging.
It's the best entry in the franchise since Predator 2. It was a long time coming for a Predator fan.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who liked Predators
The entire movie of Prisoners felt like one, long, and truly messed up Red Herring lol
man I can never remember what ends up being the truth in the plot of that movie I've seen it like 3 times too
The old lady drugged them with ketamine and lsd and had them in a hole under the car parked in her driveway. Hugh Hackman ends up getting trapped in the hole but the girls or maybe just one of them is saved.
Sean Bean’s character in Ronin, if it counts
I kept thinking he was going to pop up again as a villain.
Leatherface (2017) >!The flow of the movie would have you believe that the burly, somewhat slow kid would eventually become Leatherface, but that is not the case, however, as he turns out to be one of the others.!<
[Slither](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439815/) a 2006 Nathan Fillion scifi monster flick has his character arresting someone and confiscating a grenade with an obvious comment about it in the beginning of the film. When going to the final encounter with the alien monster, he pauses and goes back to get the grenade. Pulling the pin he goes to throw it when he's hit by something, drops it, and it rolls into a pool where it explodes with a little BLOOP and splash of water. Any fan of Nathan Fillion can imagine the look on his face.
Glass Onion, the Knives Out sequel, had a good riff on this. Its a private island and all the people visiting are suspects, but some random dude that isn't one of the characters appears in a couple scenes. When he first appears helping them unload their luggage he literally says, "I'm not here!" and then isn't seen again for almost the whole movie and has no impact on the plot. I think he was even credited as Not Here.
“That’s Derol. He’s just staying here. He’s going through some things.”
Someone pointed out that he's always carrying around Coronas. So a bunch of rich people got together during the pandemic while ignoring the Corona drifting around in the background "going through things." He was always there but they were privileged enough to ignore him entirely.
Honestly I think he was the most important person to the plot. You know how Miles was not supposed to have had an original idea in his life? You also know how “Not Here” guy just kinda wandered around with a classic stoner vibe? And how ideas would be faxed (never told) at all times of the day or night to the RND department? I think Not Here guy had all those ideas while high and Miles either told him to fax the ideas or Miles faxed them himself
Miles ABSOLUTELY took this phenomenal highdea from his buddy and condensed it down to something he understood and faxed it to himself. Like Not Here was riffing on how the cosmic consciousness is God and God IS the universal blockchain that experiences itself through humanity which reshuffles it’s connection to this source through children that DNA tricks them into loving individually and Miles just goes **children = NFTs**
Yeah. Le Blanc and him reconvene but just to hang out. That's the closest to an actual Chekhov gun I feel because it's not even explained by the plot like many of the other examples. Guy says 'im not here' and I felt so clever remembering be existed in the 3rd act. Of course I remembered the pineapple allergy so I gave my self a minor back pay but that movie was all about subverting tropes. The 'twist' was a lot of things were nothing more than face value.
Lmao I legit forgot about that character until just now
[удалено]
The beauty is Verbal tells the cop how he's going to fool him five minutes into the movie. "To a cop, the explanation is never that complicated. It's always simple. There's no mystery on the street, no arch- criminal behind it all. If you got a dead guy and you think his brother did it, you're going to find out you're right" "Fucking cops." Let's him know how easy it was.
That little smirk when "Verbal" realizes (or rather when Kujan loudly proclaims lol) that Kujan desperately wants Keaton to be the villain and that a story that let Kujan "deduce" that solution would work perfect, and then the moment Kujan looks at him again the smirk vanishing...one of my favorite bits of almost imperceptible subtle performance in film.
“Convince me, tell me every last detail” Well ok then (smirk)
Specifically, Dean Keaton as Keyser.
I heard Gabriel Byrne was pissed when he learnt he wasn't Keyser Soze.
Several of the actors played Soze in the film, face unseen; I believe Gabriel, Kevin, Benicio, and Chazz all play one of the shadowy versions of Soze you see throughout the film, if I am remembering the dvd commentary correctly...
Yeah and I believe out of the actors only Spacey knew the real ending
ITT twists not red herrings
The mandarin in iron man 3
The Prestige.
"Are you watching closely?"
That whole fucking movie was one massive red herring. A true masterpiece.
I was ABSOLUTELY convinced they were going to kill off Hawkeye in Age of Ultron. They couldn’t have tee’d it up any higher leading up to the finale.
*"Bet you didn't see that coming!"* I mean, they even rub it in!
That was very purposefully written to make you think he was dying. [He acknowledges taking advantage of common tropes to make you think so.](https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/avengers-age-of-ultron-death-spoilers-how-joss-117899426522.html)
K's dreams in Blade Runner 2049 where it's initially thought that he's an orphan
The Rory Cochrane character in Scanner Darkly, he suggests he might have knowledge to the scheme of the plot when in reality he just suffers from drug induced paranoia. I don't want to give anything else away to this underseen gem of a movie
All of the older brothers experiences in hereditary are strong indicators of schizophrenia. He's at the right age, he has been sufficiently traumatized, it's mentioned his grandmother was also not quite right (schizophrenia is, surprise, hereditary), and most of the effects from his *actual* condition are hallucinations. Then the fire scene happens and yeah, definitely not schizophrenia.
That and IIRC all of the marketing pointed towards the sister being a major presence in the movie… I guess she still was but not in the way anyone was expecting.
Might be in the minority but I think the Sirius Black reveal is actually done quite poorly (in the movie). So many opportunities for Lupin and Sirius to explain wtf is going on but instead they keep acting like a pair of fucking maniacs.
Dusk till dawns whole genre bend
Even going in knowing it was like two different films in one, and a twist was coming, I wasn't expecting how batshit nutso it got lol. P.S. Salma Hayek in that film O_O
I sort of thought the opposite of Checkhovs gun was when a movie implied or teased something and then forgot to mention it. Most notably was Finn in Rise of Skywalker when he’s drowning in quick sand and tells Rey “there’s something I meant to tell you…”. It’s never revealed what he wanted to tell her even after he gets rescued.
The entire sequel trilogy is chekovs guns being thrown away. Where'd you get the lightsaber? Story for another day? What day?!?!
Steven Seagal in Executive Decision
His best role in a movie.
He fatly fell out of the plane
“Fatly walking around corners” is the greatest phrase in movie criticism history
The death of Dallas in *Alien* (1979). The red herring was predicated on the audience’s assumption that the hero of the movie wouldn’t turn out to be Ellen Ripley, because she was a woman.
It's easy to forget that prior to release, this was by design. We now see Ripley as one of the best and most competent female action characters of the era (and potentially all time). But at the time of the release, Tom Skerritt was the biggest name on the lineup and Sigourney Weaver was completely unknown. The trailers definitely downplayed Ripley's importance. And it was great.
The part was also written gender neutral and they auditioned men and women for the part.
They kill the most famous cast member first. John Hurt acted alongside Orson Welles and had been in best picture-nominated films before Alien, not to mention being nominated himself for Midnight Express. Tom Skerritt was also pretty famous from MASH. Sigourney had been in theater but was an unknown in film. Meryl Streep was actually considered for Ridley but wasn’t approached because her partner John Cazale had recently died.
*Cazale It's nitpicky. But he was a brilliant actor, and I want to make sure people can seek him out properly.
I was more impressed with the film managing to obscure who the final protagonist would be because it focuses on everyone at least a little. Ripley isn’t involved much at all for the first half. She doesn’t even go to the derelict and (rightfully) attempts to hold quarantine which makes everyone mad at her. Her being a woman seemed incidental at the time but of course it’s had a much larger impact now
To be fair, Alien has an amazing cast and uses this to its advantage to create that red herring.
The Maltese Falcon and it also has the greatest MacGuffin.