Movies that BLEW YOUR MIND (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gardiner]

Still more:

VIDEODROME
DEAD RINGERS
CRASH

also WAKING LIFE

and the stop-motion animated short from Germany (called BALANCE?) with the 4 figures on an abstract plane, fighting over a music box.

and Fassbinder's WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK?

 

[KyleK]

THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR is the latest film to blow my mind and rock my world. Ebert said that the film was "one astonishement after another," and I have to agree wholeheartedly. Don't miss this one if you get the chance!

Kyle

 

[Chris]

I watched Shawshank Redemption again today, thanks to TNTHD, and every time I watch this movie, I am stunned at how beautiful it is done. The backstory of the characters, that there are no "wooden" or superflous characters impresses me. Everyone is so well fleshed out.

This film grows on me everytime I watch it, and I am more and more impressed at it's underlying messages of redemption and sorrow; of finding small joy in hopeless causes.

The subcharacters throw on some of the best moments in movie history. There are very few moments in any film that touch me as much as the sequence involving Brooks Hatlen leaving Prison to work at the food mart; and his desire to "go home". That sequence is one one of the first "wow" moments in this film that has so many.

It is as touching as it is sad; this is one of those films that I think twenty years from now, I will appreciate even more then I do now.

 

[Jason Bosch]

The movies that were the most mind blowing for me (in no particular order) are:

The Matrix - The was simply one of the most superbly made films I ever saw. From beginning to end my jaw was on the floor

The Shawshank Redemption - Overall one of the best movies ever made. The ending always brings a smile to my face.

Braveheart - Arguably the best film ever made. My personal favorite film of any genre. The end was the only movie moment to ever get a tear out of my eye.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Probably the freshest and most unique movie I've seen in a long time. Watching it was just mind boggling.

Vanilla Sky - Another of my favorite movies. Very well done, and the ending threw me for a loop.

Frailty - One incredibly twisted movie, with a fantastic ending.

The Sixth Sense - The ending was so mind blowing on first viewing. It took me a few moments just to grasp what it was telling me.

Matchstick Men - The best con man movie I've seen. Never saw the ending coming.

Stir of Echoes - Just because from beginning to end it is just super twisted.

The Devil's Advocate - Fantastic movie. Gotta love the rant, and the free will scene.

LOTR: All 3 - Simply perfect movies. Never expected these to be so good.

The Iron Monkey - The first wire-fu movie I saw. The whole robin hood like plot and comedy made it a joy to watch

Pulp Fiction: My first Quentin Tarantino experience. The fantastic dialogs and shocking scenes of violence and the gimp make it one of a kind.

 

[Kevin M]

I didn't see it mentioned (I scanned the thread so I could have missed it) but Takashi Miike's film Audition was one well crafted "mind blower"....I love the way he kept the pace of the film at subtle quiet "romantic movie" level for half the film then he just pounces on you in that scene with the telephone and the bag...wow, you could have knocked me over with a feather when it took the turn into one of the darkest films I have seen in recent years.

Fantastic disturbing film.

I did see that one person mentioned Catherine Breillat's film Fat Girl, I went in not knowing a thing about it except that it apparently contained some rather controversial scenes but I didn't know exactly what... Oh absolutely, Al Pacino has a way of yelling his performances in that is easy to criticize but this scene is but one of his shout fests where I didn't mind and indeed felt it was rather proper considering the circumstances...best scene of the film..well..the nude scenes of Charlize Theron weren't bad either.

 

[Ernest Rister]

Another one just occurred to me, remembering at the time...
Disney's Sleeping Beauty where there's that section in the middle where you have the heroine sleep-walking through the castle behind the green light for about 2 minutes.

Two whole minutes of animation and music; no dialog.

It was sort of a revealation of what Disney could do if they put their minds to it.
-- Leo Kerr

Have you seen, oh, I don't know...what was that movie...that two hour movie Disney did, made up of animation and no dialog. Something "tasia". Starts with an "F". Refers to music. Funktasia, I think. It's no Lion King, but it's pretty good.

 

[Ian_H]

The movies that stick out for me are:

John Woo's THE KILLER and Peter Jackson's DEAD ALIVE.

THE KILLER was the first Hong Kong gangster film I had ever seen and the one scene in the beginning with Chow storming the card game had me hitting the rewind button several times. I never knew that gun movies could be as brutal and amazing as that.

DEAD ALIVE I missed seeing in the theater by one day when I lived in Seattle. I only knew about Peter Jackson via a magazine article about Meet The Feebles. I had wanted to see that for the longest time so when DA came out I knew I had to check it out based on what I had read about Feebles. Since I missed the theatrical run I rented it the day it hit VHS. It was the unrated version and as soon as it was done I hit rewind and watched it again. I never did that before.
DEAD ALIVE is what prompted me to get a laser disc player. I somehow managed to convince my wife that in order to buy this movie for $40 for the LD vs. spending $100 on the rental priced cassette that we needed to buy a $500 LD player. Thankfully she relented and a new addiction was born.

--Ian

 

[Will_B]

To fill the requirement of "blow your mind," I'm only naming films which moved me to look at life or human experience more intensely than expected:

American Beauty
Apocalypse Now
Exotica
The Sweet Hereafter
Wings of Desire
Until the End of the World

and I'll include a smaller film that blew me away for its ability to pack a huge impact into a really small film:

Last Night

And I'll edit my post to add something which in retrospect isn't as mind-blowing, but was still quite decent in its attempt: the original tv movie version of

The Lathe of Heaven

which sadly doesn't exist in good quality anymore, the film having been lost and only backup tapes remaining.

 

[richardWI]

Movies that blew my mind:

The Brood (creepy movie with a creepy pay off)
Kill Bill Vol. 1
The Matrix
"F" for fake (Welles as an editing god!)
Touch of Evil (not the "restored" version)
Sixth sense
The Passion of The Christ
The Good the bad and the ugly (theatrical cut)
Fitzcarraldo
Burden of Dreams
South Park, bigger, better.. (My chest hurt from laughing so hard!)
Audition
Suspiria
Mulholland Drive
Twin Peaks: FWWM
Neon Genesis: End of Evangelion
Seven (C'mon, what's in the box??)
Fight Club
The Wild Bunch
The Thing (Carpenter)
Pulp Fiction
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Star Wars (Holy Trilogy)
Bridge on the River Kwai
Santa Sangre
El Topo
2001
Freaks

 

[Raasean Asaad]

This was said way back on page one by Seth Paxton :



My thoughts exactly..

 

[Brandon_T]

For me, say in the last ten years, it isn't even close...

HEAT

That movie was so much more than just a cops and robbers movies. I really love the character interaction, especially between Pacino and DeNiro. Also, I think the Waynegrow character is one of the funnier characters in such a serious movie. "Want some pie?"

No other movie has made me think of doing something so wrong as what Heat did.

Brandon

 

[JoshGivens]

Primal Fear has a pretty freaky twist to it.

Just Cause is also a similar movie.

 

[Leo Kerr]

Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 were pretty good in their own rights, but neither of them really had a scene of 'greatness.'

Although the crocodiles in Dance of the Hours were pretty inspired...


I finally did get a chance to see the butchered pan-n-scan My Neighbor Totoro. I don't think it qualifies as 'mind blowing,' although had it been the first Miazaki film I had seen, it may very well have been. Loved the sequence at the bus-stop... leisurely taking his time to show all those 'classic waiting shots' that in animation take forever to do, just to help set up the arrival of Totoro. And I really wonder, how close to the original are the english lyrics to the final credit song?

Leo Kerr

 

[John_Lee]

Saving Private Ryan - just the thought of the drone of the PT boat motor as it took all those young men to their deaths, with the baleful looks on their faces and the vomiting. My paternal grandfather landed on Omaha that day, and I remember the day, in 1987, when he decked my then teenage cousin reflexively for stupidly coming up behind him and saying addressing him in German. That's about all the insight into the experience any of us got from him.

Kids - what an eye opener. The voyeuristic style, the frankness. I'd seen and hung out with some 'bad elements' in my day, but that was a whole other level.

Pulp Fiction - neurons popping on every level. I had never before laughed out loud while being simultaneously horrified, revulsed, and . . . a little. . . turned on.

Mullholland Drive - for the longest I respected and was intrigued by what David Lynch was trying to do, but always [IMO only] came up short, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway. Each were innovative, but came up short, or stayed obstinately confusing, or petered out it's initial promise. And this was the movie where I felt he had gotten it picture perfect. Logically sound, yet totally fantastical. Lynch's Mona Lisa.

Star Wars, ANH - what can you say about a 5 year old seeing for the first time a movie that told a story that he both understood and loved? Again, entirely fantastical, yet entirely plausible. I was too young to know that sci-fi movies hadn't always been this good. And few have been as good since.

Raiders of the Lost Ark - again, a product of the age at which I saw it. Actually made me buckle down in school, so I could one day be a professor and spend my life tracking down pricelss artifacts and fight bad guys. Took me years to realize that archeology is not a swashbuckling profession.

Silence of the Lambs - this movie came out right after I had taken a pair of courses on serial killers and abnormal psychology in university, including a lecture series by Robert Ressler, and it was captivating to see such a well constructed and techncally sound Hollywood treatment of what I had been learning in the starched confines of the classroom.

Raising Arizona - had never before, and have never since, experienced a movie that maintains a low grade rumble of incessent humor throughout the movie. From the first frames on the screen, though the ending montage, I was either laughing at what was happening, chuckling over remebrances of what had already happened, or anticipating the humor of what might happen next. And you can't always put your finger on what is so dang funny, it just is, and is, and is.

Glengarry Glenn Ross - The perfect meld of A list writing and A list acting that doesn't rely on elaborate sets, or special effects to have an emotional impact. To this day, anyone who says they are contemplating a job in sales gets my admonition to watch this movie first.

 

[Kevin M]

.......umm.....Ok, everyone is entitled to their opinion of course but IMO the entirety of Fantasia is a thing of "greatness".

 

[Frank Ha]

"Have you seen, oh, I don't know...what was that movie...that two hour movie Disney did, made up of animation and no dialog. Something "tasia". Starts with an "F". Refers to music. Funktasia, I think. It's no Lion King, but it's pretty good. " - That was good, Ernest. You made me laugh.

OK, Greatest Wow Movies:
(Except for Star Wars they are in no particular order)

Star Wars: A New Hope - Saw this on my day off in Brunswick, Ga. I had heard it was a good sf movie, but otherwise had no clue what I was in for. I had never seen anything like this before. Did you see the episode of "That 70's Show" A New Hope? Their reaction in that episode as they watch Star Wars comes pretty close to describing my reaction in Brunswick oh so many years ago.

L.A. Confidential - Not revolutionary like Star Wars, but still very much a "wow" movie. I remember sitting almost alone in the theatre here in Honduras, thinking, "I've never seen anything like this before". I came out of the theatre thinking that something very special had just happened. I also thought that Titanic had just lost it chance for Best Picture at the academy Awards. That movie got me interested in Film Noir.

Vertigo - Bought the dvd when it was released several years ago and watched this on a 27" TV at home with my family. I never saw the ending coming. It was just incredible experience. Even my teenage (at the time) kids loved it. By the way, does anyone know if there is an anamorphic version planned for DVD?

Psycho - Saw this with my brother when the Student Union showed it at my college. I wanted to go see it since I had always heard of it. However, my brother didn't want to see it because he thought it would be to scary like the movie "Halloween", which was playing at theatres at the time. I convinced him that it wouldn't be scary or intense since it was an old black and white picture. I actually thought it would be like an old Frankenstein movie from the 30's (I'm not knocking Frankenstein movies. I like them. They just never were scary to me). Well, all I can say is I lost all credibility with him after that night That is absolutely the scariest, most intense movie I have ever seen. Everyone should see it for the first time on a big screen in the dark with other people.

Amelie - Saw this movie at the Enzian Theatre in Orlando, Fl with my wife. We were both mesmerized by Amelie. One of the best dates we've ever been on. amelie was unique, fresh, beautiful, and funny. I was disappointed it didn't win best foreign film.

Other "Wow" movies:

Jaws (we're gonna need a bigger boat)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Saving Private Ryan
All About Eve
My Man Godfrey
Gone With The Wind
Casablanca (my favorite movie)

This is just a scene, not the whole movie, but the sword fight at the end of Scaramouche is a big "wow" moment for me. I understand that they did this scene in one take and that blows my mind.

 

[David Galindo]

Shawshank Redemption and Dark City...two films that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Coming in close were the films The American President and the Naked Gun series...as well as Finding Nemo and Total Recall.

Eh, my taste may be mainstream, but I like it that way

 

[Yousaf]

I know I'm forgetting many, but here goes:

-Requiem for a Dream: I'm surprised that only one other person has mentioned this...by the ending, I felt like someone had ripped something out of me.

-Braveheart: Pretty much the perfect movie. And the ending...

-Cowboy Bebop (the series): When Spike dies at the end, and I knew that there was going to be no season 2 I felt so crushed. Also, that one scene in episode 5 (I think) where they had the choir-type music with the shootout and the grenade...just awesome.


-American Beauty

-The Fox and the Hound: the old lady driving the fox away was just one of the saddest things I have seen, and one of the few films that had me leaking a bit

Actually, I might as well stop there as I can see the trend developing...I think what effects me most is successfully building up the characters to where I truly care about them, and then wrenching them away...

 

[AlexCremers]

Over the years I only saw three movies that really(!) blew my mind (to the extend that they almost felt like a religious experience).


Star Wars (1977)

Alien (1979)

Blade Runner (1982)


We're now a gazillion movies later and I'm still waiting for it to happen again (something tells me it won't).

------------
Alex Cremers

 

[Ruz-El]

I can't disagree with many of the above, but there is only one movie that I saw recently that I can say was honestly "mind blowing" to me.

Singing In The Rain

I was one of those guys who basically grew up lumping all things musical into the big "pussy" pile (except Animation of course!) I liked horror, and gore damnit! I don't want to see a bunch of goofs prancing around! I finally decided to break down and check out Singing In The Rain after being blown away by "Dancer In The Dark' by Lars Van Treirs (A must see, and a close second in mind blowingness.) Watching SITR for the first time was like a movie watching epiphany, from the color, the joy, the athleticism, the performances, everything working together to bring a film about love and joy to the screen. I was absolutly glued to the edge of my seat, and have not had such an overpowering experiance watching a film since. It's now one of my favorite DVD's, and had resulted in me picking up very many more musicals to add to my collection of drama, comedy, suspence, thriller, war, SCi-Fi, Gonzo, Horror, splatter etc collection.