Memento

Rating:
Summary: Dust off unused brain cells and watch this gem!!!!
Review: This movie will make you work, but that's not a bad thing. Hollywood has catered to laziness for too long, and it was past time that someone gave us a movie that we actually had to think to enjoy! "Memento" does that and rewards efforts with the most mind blowing experience I've had in a while. That part of my brain that I use to watch movies had become stagnant because every movie I've seen seems to follow the same story line and have a predictable ending. Nothing prepared me for the truth about the focus of this movie, "Leonard Shelby" that was revealed at the ending. Like "Leonard", the man in this movie who can't make new memories, I was clueless as to what happened before each scene, so I felt the same frenzied "what is going on??" that Leonard Shelby feels as he tries to find the man who raped his wife and left her to die, and also damaged his brain in the process. Like Leonard, I had to concentrate on details and clues that I normally wouldn't even notice in most movies. It was very exhilarating to do so. Guy Pearce did a wonderful job as Leonard Shelby, and Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss are great too. I recommend this movie wholeheartedly.

Rating:
Summary: Forward and Back
Review: The film, as you know by now, tells the story of the protagonist by presenting his events backwards in time. Simultaneously, the film tells a forward moving parallel story of a similarly affected person. The hero of the piece is a puppet without his awareness and you wish that he never knows the extent of his manipulation by the good folk that populate his world. Never ever boring and occasionally gripping, this movie is a movie lover's movie. It is an essential to any discriminating viewer's personal catalog. Group viewing is best for the conversation that the movie compels.

Rating:
Summary: Technically Brilliant
Review: Technically brilliant but for me it lacks the style and emotion of a movie like Mulholland Drive so I give it only 4 stars. Still a must see for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Messing You Up
Review: Most people I know were messed up by this movie. I was no exception, but while it seemed to be the plot that messed other people up, it was the theme that got me. I won't divulge just what the theme of the movie is. You can't miss it, since the protagonist pretty much spells it out near the end. Suffice it to say that the theme reduces to a direct question that Leonard asks of himself. And by the end of the film, we have come to identify with Leonard just enough to find ourselves asking ourselves the same question. And it's neither a pretty nor comforting question. But it's definitely one worth asking.

Rating:
Summary: It works on two levels.
Review: I won't belabor much over what the other positive reviewers have said, except to say that it felt much like reading a mystery novel starting with the last chapter, and proceeding backwards from there. The suspense lingers even more, as the biggest foil for Leonard to solving the mystery of who raped and killed his wife is his "condition". Moreover, by reversing the order of the presentation of events, the movie, then, is essentially shot as a reconstruction of memories leading backward to the pivotal moment that sets the events in motion, which is precisely what Leonard is lacking. If this were the same story, with the same character, but with the scenes portrayed in normal order, this would have been a completely different movie.

But even beyond the mystery element of the story, the movie is also a character profile, of a man seeking revenge for the rape and murder of his wife, yet in all likelihood won't remember the satisfaction of getting that revenge. As the viewer is taken back closer and closer to the beginning, we get a better idea of how and why the messages on the photos and Leonard's body were put there. The suprises here, again, only could be revealed if the movie started at the end and went backwards.

I don't watch movies much any more. But I'm glad I saw this one.

Rating:
Summary: Have I told you about my condition?
Review: See, I can't form new memories. We've probably already had this conversation before. I seem to recall seeing this movie, but memories are unreliable. Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts. The fact is, this movie works on many levels. The writing is tack sharp. The acting is superb. It's a classic noir thriller and a variation on the con-game genre of film. But it's also a metaphysical examination of the nature of memory. And I can't remember to forget it.

Now, where was I?

Rating:
Summary: PIECE OF GARBAGE
Review: Only people thinking they are "erudits", ïntelligent"people, who does not like Hollywood old cliches, will say they loved this piece of junk. THis movie is so indulgent, so cruel, sos tasteless, that in the middle of it you simply don't care about the fate of that mess of a character interpreted by Guy Pearce. I idsliked this movie from beggining to end. No, I had absolutely none difficult to follow the falshbacks all the time, that's not the point. The point is that the history is awful, bad tasted, ridiculous, a disgrace to motion picture. But director and cast can rest assured they made something "unique" in thtehistory of the movies: one of the worst wastes of time ever !

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Staggering -- for the wrong reasons though.
Review: You are about to read 'The Mother' of all reviews on this one!

First off, I've taken the time to read all of the others posted on this site, and only one stands out as being a shining beacon in a sea of blackness. And that's one from a Herbie Shrocksberry. The irrepressible Herbie calls it as how he sees it and without stealing his thunder, herewith, is a sampling of Herbie's thoughts expressed in his less-than-eloquent but nonetheless inimitable style:

"Jeez, what's goin' on here, is this thing going backwards or forwards? Is this right side up or upside down, or is they all goin' round in circles or what? Is the guy a chaser or is he the chasee? Gee, I dunno what's goin' on here, I've seen this movie 9 or 10 times -- or is it 10 or 9 times? And I still don't gets it!"

You see folks, Herbie probably reviews in the same way he reads: slowly, tracing the words with his index finger as he takes it in and mouthing silently each word in the process. Herbie's not one to exit the theatre after seeing a Bergman film, dazed and misty-eyed, uttering so all around him can hear his saying, "...what a film, it transcends all my past experiences, elevating me to a new ethereal plane of of consciousness and enlightment. The director's lyricism and artistry has left me in heavenly rapture, I'm just so overcome, I'm simply speechless. Translation: I didn't understand a damn thing -- but I don't what to appear ignorant.

Herbie's come to the conclusion that the director of Memento, rather than being the latest auteur hotshot, actually in a different life was one of the tailors that fitted out The Emperor in his 'new clothes', and Herbie quite fortuitously was the young boy who dared to speak up in the crowd saying, "But the Emperor's buck naked!

Yep, that's it! But for all those who don't get Herbie's point of view, word has it the director of Memento is about to release a new movie consisting of nothing else but spiralling cicles titled, The Vortex, I can't wait for the rave reviews that's sure to appear from all the pseudo intellectual movie-goers.

Rating:
Summary: what a mess
Review: Where am I? And why am I watching this movie? What happened in this scene? And what happened in that scene? If not being able to follow what happens to the narrator qualifies as unique moviemaking, then it is one of a kind. But that doesn't mean its great. I walked out in the middle. And I never looked back.

Rating:
Summary: Hate to be a drag
Review: If this film is "stunning", etc., I missed out. But it does present an ingenious way to make a movie on the cheap, namely,
1) You film 6 or 7 complete scenes,
2) you show the last few minutes of each scene,
3) you continue showing rounds of the 6 or 7 scenes, with each round adding a few more minutes to the beginning of each scene, showing what occurred before the the point the scene began in the previous round.
If my explanation is more complicated than the plot, I apologize.