Top Five Movies That Make Absolutely No Sense…

I know it may be shocking because I’m so smart and handsome, but occasionally I just don’t understand some movies. Now, I hate to feel stupid, so often times I just pretend to get them and nod my head rhythmically when intelligent professor types are talking. If they ever call me out on my ignorance, I simply grab their wrists and demand that they “stop hitting themselves.” It’s this type of spontaneous wit and craftiness that makes me a valuable asset in life threatening situations….

Oh…and yeah…the following movies make absolutely no sense.

Southland Tales
Filling the number five spot on this list is none other than Richard Kelly’s over-long, “I’m so smart” wankfest known as Southland Tales. If you’re not familiar with Southland Tales, let me briefly bring you up to speed. You see, it takes place in the near future where a porn star and action hero team up to stop the apocalypse from occurring in L.A. by writing a life changing screenplay while also traveling backwards in time to stop the messiah from closing a wormhole that might end the planet in a nefarious sea of political and military deception. Oh, and it’s also a musical. Makes perfect sense…

Richard Kelly is the dude who wrote and directed Donnie Darko. And, since that movie became a cultural phenomenon for cutters and kids who hate their parents, he thought he would amp up the crazy to 11 with Southland Tales. Well, let’s just say that his little experiment didn’t turn out so well. It’s an incomprehensible piece of pretentious dreck that has more plot-lines and characters than Angelina Jolie has babies. This movie has it all—and I don’t mean that in a good way. The cast includes (but isn’t limited to) The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake, Cheri Oteri, Sean William Scott, Christopher Lambert, Kevin Smith, Wallace “Inconceivable” Shawn, Mandy Moore, Jon Lovitz, Bai Ling, Amy Poehler, and Janeane Garofalo. That’s the type of C-list celebrity talent you might find at a bad New Jersey Bar Mitzvah. If all this doesn’t sound nutty enough, there’s a part in the movie where two cars start having sex with one another. Seriously, folks, you can’t make this stuff up…

Persona
Persona is the type of movie that film school professors nerdgasm over. It’s Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman at his most stylistic and introspective. Plus, since it came out in 1966, it’s got all sorts of moody black and white imagery. The story centers around a nurse who is put in charge of a mute actress (played by vintage hottie Liv Ullmann). Making things super weird, over time, the actress’ persona begins to meld with the nurse’s, thus creating a sort of double-being. It’s creepy, it’s confusing, it’s artistic, and, surprisingly, it’s pretty good.

Just so I can feel smarter than everybody else, I like to occasionally reference obscure Bergman movies like this one in everyday conversations. I mean, you should see the reactions I get while talking about Persona in line at the Sizzler Salad Bar. I don’t mean to brag, but that woman in the blue sweatpants and unicorn shirt was freaking impressed!

*Cleans off monocle. Skips away*

Primer
I’m one of the few people who saw the sci-fi indie Primer when it hit theaters in 2004. After it ended and the lights came back up, my brain hurt…as in it felt like there was a physical problem with my neural synapses. This is without a doubt the most confusing movie I’ve ever seen. To put it simply, Primer is a movie about time travel. But, this isn’t your Grandpa’s time travel flick with the over simplification and the De Loreans and the flux capacitors. No, Primer is for hardcore time travel nerds like me—the type of film that is as infuriating as it is engrossing (much like anime porn).

Seriously, if you haven’t seen this flick you probably should check it out. Just be sure to pull out your number two pencil and take lots of extensive notes. To clarify, watching Primer is a lot like trying to take off a girl’s bra for the first time in high school: it’s really clumsy, hard, and confusing, but the rewards are oh so wonderful.

2001: A Space Odyssey
Yeah…I know this is one of the most famous and revered movies of all time; but it still doesn’t make a lick of sense. Well, let me rephrase that…the last act of this film makes absolutely no sense. Up until that point, it’s a really cool, eerily prophetic sci-fi thriller about human evolution and our inherent dependence on technology. Then, it seems that Kubrick just throws up his hands and says “Ah…what the hell…it’s time to get CRAZY!” What results is a 20 minute psychadelic screen-saver that would make the Window’s flying toasters blush. This is then followed by a giant fetus in space. I’m sure there is some symbolic significance to that but I’m too easily distracted to try and figure it out. Hey, look…cookies!

Anything Ever Made by David Lynch
In my short time on this earth I’ve made two very important intellectual observations: 1.) Beer before liquor, never been sicker. 2.) David Lynch is batshit insane.

With the sole exception of The Straight Story (and possibly Dune), David Lynch’s career reads like the incoherent musings of a crazy homeless person—you know, the type that smells funny and has an imaginary friend named Mr. Mistoffelees. Just peruse his filmography: Lost Highway, Mullholand Dr., Eraserhead, Inland Empire, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart. It’s clear that the man’s got issues.

Now, before the cinephiles start to bitch and moan, I’m not saying he isn’t talented. I think that Mullholand Dr. is incredibly entertaining and really cool. That being said, I’m not going to pretend for a second that I have any inkling what’s happening in that movie. One moment you’ve got Billy Ray Cyrus dancing around a kitchen and the next you have a hot lesbian sex scene between Naomi Watts and Laura Harring. It’s what I like to imagine Nick Cage’s life is like….

So, when it comes to movies that make absolutely no sense, David Lynch is incontrovertibly the master. By just looking at his piercing stare and swooping bouffant you can tell that the dude’s just nuts. To illustrate this point, once when David Lynch walked into some random celebrity party, Gary Busey turned to the people at his table and whispered “Damn…I didn’t know they were gonna invite the crazy guy…”

Ivan Kander is the handsome and debonair cohost of his very own video podcast. Check it out at www.lucky9studios.com/worstmovieever. He once dropped acid in the woods and then spent the rest of the night looking for it…