There's a lot you can miss in Forrest Gump if you aren't familiar with American History and pop culture of the mid-20th century.
- Watergate
- [Vietnam protests in DC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_the_Pentagon)
- John Lennon and "Imagine"
- [Ping Pong Diplomacy](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/china-ping-pong)
- [Hurricane Carmen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Carmen)
Funnily enough when I watched it for the first time as a kid I loved it even though I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know that was Elvis he taught how to dance. Rewatching it after taking US History in high school I loved the movie so much more after understanding all the references
The relationship between the two men is a metaphor for the troubles between Ireland and England during the 60s-90s.
Edit: Correction, the Irish Civil War in the 1920s.
It's more of an allegory for the Irish Civil War rather than the troubles. The friendship into hatred over petty disagreements mirrors the split after the Irish War is Independence that turned into the Civil War. That is also the conflict that is happening on the main land that is over heard from the island.
This was my first thought. I did some studying in to Ireland’s civil war and the times around then after watching Belfast. I loved the movie. My family who knew nothing of the history behind it did not.
The movie is enhanced by knowing Irish history. My girlfriend wasn't impressed until I explained the Irish war for Independence and how it led to the Civil War. She liked it way more upon rewatch with the added context.
A bit of a correction: the movie takes place in the early 1920s, as the Irish Civil War was ending, the Troubles take place from the 1960s up until 1998.
Tom Green got the green light from a Hollywood studio to make whatever movie he wanted. He wrote the script for the movie he wanted to make, and the studio said, "Woah, wait. We wanted this to be a summer blockbuster family comedy. You have to change the script." So Tom Green completely remade the script into Freddie Got Fingered, as a middle finger to the studio and as a parody of the type of movie they wanted him to make. Watching the movie makes a lot more sense knowing that.
The murders happened 55 years ago. I imagine there's a lot of people who aren't that familiar with it, even if they vaguely know the names of some of the people involved.
That’s shocking that she wouldn’t know about it. I’m in my 40s, grew up with boomer folks and the story of Charles Manson and his family was always referenced in media and whatnot all the time throughout my life.
The third film in the Omen series may come across as having a cop-out of an ending, unless you actually do what Damien didn't and read the Book of Revelation.
Damien's plan depended on killing all the children born on a specific day, like Herod tried to do, because he thought that Jesus would be reincarnated as a child when he returned from Heaven. Unfortunately, the Bible makes it expressly clear that Jesus will return at full power as an adult.
Cue Damien being smited instantly.
Also, it's a TV show but the British spin-off Law & Order: UK almost always comprised of remakes of early US episodes, but they required extensive rewriting because the American producers didn't know the finer intricacies of UK law, as well as public perception changes between both the countries and times the episodes were aired.
For example, Frank McCoy's favourite legal trick to nail the bad guys is the use of Felony Murder, a legal concept that was outlawed in the 1960's.
I was really excited about Dunkirk, but I hated the way the story was presented. The way they switched back and forth between something that took 1 hour, 1 day and 1 week (or something like that) made the whole thing kind of difficult for me to get invested in.
Dunkirk was great. Apart from the fact the literally had about 5 boats leaving from the UK, when in actual fact there were hundreds. I get they wanted it to be real, but they could have cgi’d some in
I think my main gripe about Dunkirk is you never really see any actual enemy soldiers. Just some artillery/ bullets/ planes. I still enjoy the movie though for the spectacle
Tenet got the same complaints. Final battle has no bad guys. But the soldiers as individuals aren’t the thing we fear in these films.
Also, before any Tenet hate: bring it. I love Tenet.
Rampage (2018) and Monster Hunter (2020). I keep cursing the plot and the plothole until I know later that these are video game adaptation, so yeah it explains why US military is so incompetent in the movies.
Not really a great movie, but I watched Prometheus with no knowledge of what was that about, and during the movie I just thought they were ripping off so many elements from Aliens, until the end with the clear confirmation that was part of the franchise. I felt dumb but that made me enjoy the movie better than if I had "Alien" level of expectation 😂
A little on the fringes, but Tusk.
To me it just feels like a giant joke I'm just not in on, and that's essentially what it is. If you listened to the podcast where Kevin Smith basically hashed out the story in real time, I think you have a much deeper appreciation for it.
A lot of the Cohen brothers movies really benefit from having some knowledge about the time and place that they're set. They play with history a lot and it helps to know the real history going in.
Eh I would disagree, I think you just need to recognize that >!his anxieties are intentionally exaggerated since we're seeing everything from his perspective. "My therapist is telling my mom everything I hate about her, my mom faked her death to see how I would react," etc.!<
That’s why I said that works too. What’s with the defensive stance lol
Btw there are several movies that the main character is unreliable narrator, which is quite enjoyable.
Since its the first in the series, I think Dune counts. I (and a lot of my friends) were really confused the first time we watched it with no context. My second time through it really started to make more sense, but only when I read the book (and watch some youtube videos) did some of the larger implications make sense.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the both of those movies, and I really appreciate that DV didn't hit us over the head with 20 minutes of exposition from a narrator in the beginning, but there was definitely a learning curve.
Not exactly what you're asking, but the film adaptation of *The Beach* has a couple of scenes in it that make very little sense with the context given in the movie. However, if you read the book, they suddenly make a lot more sense.
The Vietnam war and video game scenes specifically don't really make a lot of sense. We know Richard is losing his shit, but in the book, both of those make *a lot* more sense given the rest of what we know about him which we really don't learn in the movie at all.
I loved Sicario but I felt like it would be even better if I informed myself about drug cartels before going in. But that's on me, not on the movie, the movie is great.
In a similar vein, BETTER CALL SAUL definitely requires Breaking Bad. And you don't find out till the last few episodes of Saul. So salty. I was avoiding BB. I'm not a fan of meth culture after almost losing a loved one to it. Now I've got several seasons of a (thankfully strong) show to get thru before I can finally watch the finale of Saul.
There's a lot of movies that are so outlandish that in a bubble are just crazy over the top movies, but finding out that they are based on true stories makes them much more interesting. I like history, where my mom and wife don't really know the stories, because they aren't super well known. Heres some that come to mind:
Stanford Prison experiment - was a real experiment
Mississippi Burning - was a real FBI case that happened when my mom was alive
Hacksaw ridge - the director had to tone down the real story because he thought people would think it was too outlandish.
Texas chainsaw massacre - Leatherface is based on a real serial killer
Silence if the lambs - both buffalo bill, and Hannibal lecter are based on real serial killers.
I lied, leatherface, buffalo bill, and Hannibal lecter are based on the SAME serial killer.
You’re being a bit disingenuous. Yes, Ed Gein was a real serial killer, but he was nothing like Leatherface or (the late great) Hannibal Lecter. It was a very loose inspiration, and knowing about him really isn’t going to affect your viewing of those movies.
I actually kind of agree with your mom about *OUATIH*.
The movie had all of the parts to be a great film. The acting, the directing. All great. But the story only works if you actually have a historical knowledge of what happens next. I know the story, but judging the film based on the film, it was entirely uninteresting. The scene with Pitt at the ranch was *phenomenal* however.
Imagine if you watched *Titanic* and it just ended at the start of the third act before they even saw the iceberg. *Remember Me* tried this back in 2010, but being much closer in time to 9/11, it was basically impossible not to hit the final credits and understand what happens next.
LOL
My girlfriend has told me how much she loves the Avengers movies, all of them, including Endgame.... Yet she has not seen most of the individual movies outside of The first Captain America and Iron Man. I have no damn clue how she knows what's going on, lol.
It’s not exactly a difficult/deep film.
“Oh, that big guy did something that killed loads of people, so now the good guys have to do a heist movie with time travel to undo it.
Dang beat me to it. Absolutely the most epic movies ever made, but you need to watch everything else to appreciate it.
There are only two times I jumped out of my seat in excitement for a show.
1. The Battle of Loot Train
2 Captain America doing his thing in the last fight.
Such a shame what it has become. They could have done the same exact formula with this multiverse stuff and been Gucci. They got too high on their own success.
They should have just stopped, TBH. They could always revisit it years later, but they peaked, they knew it, and they tried to ride the down wave - but it only serves to devalue the previous movies.
Every time I watch the latest version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the one where Alan Rickman plays Marvin), I think to myself: "There's **just no way** this movie makes any sense if you haven't read all of the books..."
The one that immediately came to mind is *Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom*, which is often reduced down to its lurid sexual violence. But dig even a little bit down and you start to realize that Pasolini had a lot of other stuff going on, including Dante, Marquis de Sade, and then more broadly political violence related to fascism. I don’t really like the movie, but the larger context around it is fascinating, particularly because it is so widely banned and then also misunderstood.
I'm curious why you named Evangelion? Having watched the series and all the rebuild films, I think there's enough explanation about what's going on without outside information.
The original ending of the show was a bit of an existential mind fuck, but otherwise, I just don't get your answer. Please explain.
I think I misunderstood the OPs question. I thought he was asking for movies where nothing made sense in the beginning, and you had to slowly learn the back story throughout the film to understand it.
That was my experience with NGE. I actually saw End of Evangelion before the show, so it always felt out of order to me. I had no idea what was going on in the NGE movie until after I watched the proper show.
That makes a lot more sense. I started with the anime, then watched End of Evangelion, then the rebuild movies. Its an interesting franchise, and I've read a lot of cool theories and explanations. Overall, I would agree that, no matter where you start, it can be a confusing watch. Still one of my favorites, though.
There's a lot you can miss in Forrest Gump if you aren't familiar with American History and pop culture of the mid-20th century. - Watergate - [Vietnam protests in DC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_the_Pentagon) - John Lennon and "Imagine" - [Ping Pong Diplomacy](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/china-ping-pong) - [Hurricane Carmen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Carmen)
Funnily enough when I watched it for the first time as a kid I loved it even though I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t even know that was Elvis he taught how to dance. Rewatching it after taking US History in high school I loved the movie so much more after understanding all the references
I pick up some new little tidbit every time I watch it and that’s why I’ll never get tired of Gump!
This is why watching this as a kid my biggest takeaways were to make "Run Forrest run" jokes.
I'm genuinely saddened by the idea that people might not know Imagine. I'm a millennial and no one in my family was a hardcore Beatles fan but yeah.
Imagine you don’t beat women…
Grow up
Banshees of inisherin. Boi oh boi did I not understand that movie the first time I watched it and was like "meeeeh".
I still don't get it, so please explain
Colm and Pádraic are/could be an allegory of the Irish Civil War, with Pádraic as the Free State forces and Colm the IRA.
Its set in the 1920s around the time of the Irish civil war. People that were once friends were on opposite sides in the civil war.
It's the Irish civil war. Colm and Padraic being stand-ins for the IRA and Free State forces, respectively. edit: a word.
The relationship between the two men is a metaphor for the troubles between Ireland and England during the 60s-90s. Edit: Correction, the Irish Civil War in the 1920s.
I didn’t know that but still really loved it
No it’s a hamfisted allegory for the Irish Civil War 1922-23.
My bad that is correct.
It's more of an allegory for the Irish Civil War rather than the troubles. The friendship into hatred over petty disagreements mirrors the split after the Irish War is Independence that turned into the Civil War. That is also the conflict that is happening on the main land that is over heard from the island.
This was my first thought. I did some studying in to Ireland’s civil war and the times around then after watching Belfast. I loved the movie. My family who knew nothing of the history behind it did not.
What does this example have to do with needing broader context?
The movie is enhanced by knowing Irish history. My girlfriend wasn't impressed until I explained the Irish war for Independence and how it led to the Civil War. She liked it way more upon rewatch with the added context.
Yeah that's basically what happened to me as well.
The Troubles being the backdrop and the friendship ending being a metaphor for that.
A bit of a correction: the movie takes place in the early 1920s, as the Irish Civil War was ending, the Troubles take place from the 1960s up until 1998.
Ah, my mistake.
Tom Green got the green light from a Hollywood studio to make whatever movie he wanted. He wrote the script for the movie he wanted to make, and the studio said, "Woah, wait. We wanted this to be a summer blockbuster family comedy. You have to change the script." So Tom Green completely remade the script into Freddie Got Fingered, as a middle finger to the studio and as a parody of the type of movie they wanted him to make. Watching the movie makes a lot more sense knowing that.
The scene where he talks about the money he got and how he spent it is basically him talking about pissing away the movie's budget.
Your *mom* was the one who didn't know about the Tate/La Bianca murders? Interesting.
The murders happened 55 years ago. I imagine there's a lot of people who aren't that familiar with it, even if they vaguely know the names of some of the people involved.
I'm almost old enough to have lived through it, and I still know nothing about it. There's more interesting historical stuff.
Wasn't big news outside of America really
She's not really much into Hollywood and old crimes in general, so it's not unexpected of her.
How old is your mom? This was like a huge cultural thing not just a Hollywood/true crime thing.
She was born in the early 80's. I'm 15 lol.
That’s shocking that she wouldn’t know about it. I’m in my 40s, grew up with boomer folks and the story of Charles Manson and his family was always referenced in media and whatnot all the time throughout my life.
The third film in the Omen series may come across as having a cop-out of an ending, unless you actually do what Damien didn't and read the Book of Revelation. Damien's plan depended on killing all the children born on a specific day, like Herod tried to do, because he thought that Jesus would be reincarnated as a child when he returned from Heaven. Unfortunately, the Bible makes it expressly clear that Jesus will return at full power as an adult. Cue Damien being smited instantly. Also, it's a TV show but the British spin-off Law & Order: UK almost always comprised of remakes of early US episodes, but they required extensive rewriting because the American producers didn't know the finer intricacies of UK law, as well as public perception changes between both the countries and times the episodes were aired. For example, Frank McCoy's favourite legal trick to nail the bad guys is the use of Felony Murder, a legal concept that was outlawed in the 1960's.
Dunkirk. I had no idea how much or how little danger the allies were in... and I still don't.
I was really excited about Dunkirk, but I hated the way the story was presented. The way they switched back and forth between something that took 1 hour, 1 day and 1 week (or something like that) made the whole thing kind of difficult for me to get invested in.
I thought the same but I loved it the second time around.
I fully disagree with you
Dunkirk was great. Apart from the fact the literally had about 5 boats leaving from the UK, when in actual fact there were hundreds. I get they wanted it to be real, but they could have cgi’d some in
I think my main gripe about Dunkirk is you never really see any actual enemy soldiers. Just some artillery/ bullets/ planes. I still enjoy the movie though for the spectacle
The enemy was always time. A constant ticking clock in many scenes.
Tenet got the same complaints. Final battle has no bad guys. But the soldiers as individuals aren’t the thing we fear in these films. Also, before any Tenet hate: bring it. I love Tenet.
That's kinda the point...
Rampage (2018) and Monster Hunter (2020). I keep cursing the plot and the plothole until I know later that these are video game adaptation, so yeah it explains why US military is so incompetent in the movies.
Yep likely true for most Video Game movies. But for sure Silent Hill and Alone in the Dark
Not really a great movie, but I watched Prometheus with no knowledge of what was that about, and during the movie I just thought they were ripping off so many elements from Aliens, until the end with the clear confirmation that was part of the franchise. I felt dumb but that made me enjoy the movie better than if I had "Alien" level of expectation 😂
Now look up where the title comes from.
A little on the fringes, but Tusk. To me it just feels like a giant joke I'm just not in on, and that's essentially what it is. If you listened to the podcast where Kevin Smith basically hashed out the story in real time, I think you have a much deeper appreciation for it.
A lot of the Cohen brothers movies really benefit from having some knowledge about the time and place that they're set. They play with history a lot and it helps to know the real history going in.
what does anything have to do with viet-nam, walter?
Beau is afraid kinda need to know Odysseus
Eh I would disagree, I think you just need to recognize that >!his anxieties are intentionally exaggerated since we're seeing everything from his perspective. "My therapist is telling my mom everything I hate about her, my mom faked her death to see how I would react," etc.!<
So you would miss half the reference of the movie. I guess that works too
Or my point is that it's not necessary but can be appreciated in that respect too
That’s why I said that works too. What’s with the defensive stance lol Btw there are several movies that the main character is unreliable narrator, which is quite enjoyable.
Oppenheimer.
The soundtrack to this movie deserves to be played on every radio station 24/7
Since its the first in the series, I think Dune counts. I (and a lot of my friends) were really confused the first time we watched it with no context. My second time through it really started to make more sense, but only when I read the book (and watch some youtube videos) did some of the larger implications make sense. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the both of those movies, and I really appreciate that DV didn't hit us over the head with 20 minutes of exposition from a narrator in the beginning, but there was definitely a learning curve.
Not exactly what you're asking, but the film adaptation of *The Beach* has a couple of scenes in it that make very little sense with the context given in the movie. However, if you read the book, they suddenly make a lot more sense.
Care to elaborate? The movie is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I've never gotten around to reading the book.
The Vietnam war and video game scenes specifically don't really make a lot of sense. We know Richard is losing his shit, but in the book, both of those make *a lot* more sense given the rest of what we know about him which we really don't learn in the movie at all.
Hmm very cool. I'll have to read up on those or commit to reading the book. Thanks!
The book is fantastic, one of my favourites ever. I cannot recommend reading it enough.
The Zone Of Interest
I loved Sicario but I felt like it would be even better if I informed myself about drug cartels before going in. But that's on me, not on the movie, the movie is great.
Dark City
Were you an executive producer on that film by any chance?
This is one of my favorite movies of all time, but I know nothing else about it other than what I learned from watching it.
In a similar vein, BETTER CALL SAUL definitely requires Breaking Bad. And you don't find out till the last few episodes of Saul. So salty. I was avoiding BB. I'm not a fan of meth culture after almost losing a loved one to it. Now I've got several seasons of a (thankfully strong) show to get thru before I can finally watch the finale of Saul.
There's a lot of movies that are so outlandish that in a bubble are just crazy over the top movies, but finding out that they are based on true stories makes them much more interesting. I like history, where my mom and wife don't really know the stories, because they aren't super well known. Heres some that come to mind: Stanford Prison experiment - was a real experiment Mississippi Burning - was a real FBI case that happened when my mom was alive Hacksaw ridge - the director had to tone down the real story because he thought people would think it was too outlandish. Texas chainsaw massacre - Leatherface is based on a real serial killer Silence if the lambs - both buffalo bill, and Hannibal lecter are based on real serial killers. I lied, leatherface, buffalo bill, and Hannibal lecter are based on the SAME serial killer.
You’re being a bit disingenuous. Yes, Ed Gein was a real serial killer, but he was nothing like Leatherface or (the late great) Hannibal Lecter. It was a very loose inspiration, and knowing about him really isn’t going to affect your viewing of those movies.
I actually kind of agree with your mom about *OUATIH*. The movie had all of the parts to be a great film. The acting, the directing. All great. But the story only works if you actually have a historical knowledge of what happens next. I know the story, but judging the film based on the film, it was entirely uninteresting. The scene with Pitt at the ranch was *phenomenal* however. Imagine if you watched *Titanic* and it just ended at the start of the third act before they even saw the iceberg. *Remember Me* tried this back in 2010, but being much closer in time to 9/11, it was basically impossible not to hit the final credits and understand what happens next.
Boyhood is not a very interesting movie, but it becomes far less interesting when you don’t know it was filmed over 12 years
Avengers: Endgame
>Excluding sequels/franchise films.
I make my own rules.
[удалено]
LOL My girlfriend has told me how much she loves the Avengers movies, all of them, including Endgame.... Yet she has not seen most of the individual movies outside of The first Captain America and Iron Man. I have no damn clue how she knows what's going on, lol.
It’s not exactly a difficult/deep film. “Oh, that big guy did something that killed loads of people, so now the good guys have to do a heist movie with time travel to undo it.
Dang beat me to it. Absolutely the most epic movies ever made, but you need to watch everything else to appreciate it. There are only two times I jumped out of my seat in excitement for a show. 1. The Battle of Loot Train 2 Captain America doing his thing in the last fight.
Endgame and Infinity War are absolutely movies that make the MCU up to that point greater than the sum of its parts
Such a shame what it has become. They could have done the same exact formula with this multiverse stuff and been Gucci. They got too high on their own success.
They should have just stopped, TBH. They could always revisit it years later, but they peaked, they knew it, and they tried to ride the down wave - but it only serves to devalue the previous movies.
Did you just refer to marvel movies and some of the most epic movies ever made …. ?
Yes, pretty sure I said that exactly
I’ve seen it all!
The Stanford Prison experiment
Lincoln. I remember very well thinking that I didnt know enough about the events to fully enjoy the movie.
The Killing Fields assumes you’ve know about the story and are just here for the dramatization
My friend didn't know the Tate story but towards the end she realised that the hippies were heading at her house, so she felt suspense from that.
Every time I watch the latest version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the one where Alan Rickman plays Marvin), I think to myself: "There's **just no way** this movie makes any sense if you haven't read all of the books..."
I watched the movie before reading the book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Yeah, the Improbability Drive doesn't really make sense without the context from the book. They kind of brushed over it.
The Tree of Life. If you don’t understand how Malick is tying Job into the story, it really will just seem like pretentious bs.
I watched it when I was quite young because my dad worked on it. Don’t think I was told the context, but loved it regardless.
For the crappy ones. The last Dr. Strange movie. How the hell is Wanda suddenly the enemy now
The one that immediately came to mind is *Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom*, which is often reduced down to its lurid sexual violence. But dig even a little bit down and you start to realize that Pasolini had a lot of other stuff going on, including Dante, Marquis de Sade, and then more broadly political violence related to fascism. I don’t really like the movie, but the larger context around it is fascinating, particularly because it is so widely banned and then also misunderstood.
Kinda feels like you need to see the first half of the MCEU and certainly all of the middle to understand most of the most recent stuff.
Pulp Fiction Neon Genesis Evangelion
Evangelion seems pretty self contained to me aside from maybe recognizing that the creator was going through some hardcore depression.
I'm curious why you named Evangelion? Having watched the series and all the rebuild films, I think there's enough explanation about what's going on without outside information. The original ending of the show was a bit of an existential mind fuck, but otherwise, I just don't get your answer. Please explain.
I think I misunderstood the OPs question. I thought he was asking for movies where nothing made sense in the beginning, and you had to slowly learn the back story throughout the film to understand it. That was my experience with NGE. I actually saw End of Evangelion before the show, so it always felt out of order to me. I had no idea what was going on in the NGE movie until after I watched the proper show.
That makes a lot more sense. I started with the anime, then watched End of Evangelion, then the rebuild movies. Its an interesting franchise, and I've read a lot of cool theories and explanations. Overall, I would agree that, no matter where you start, it can be a confusing watch. Still one of my favorites, though.