So I just got done watching ""Vanilla Sky" for the first time and regretting that I have never seen it before tonight. It spurred my thought processes and made me think of a lot of other complete brain jobs I have been given over the years with movies that mess with your mind.

Here is a short list:

Vanilla Sky
Momento
Jacob's Ladder
Dark City
Total Recall
Altered States

After each of these movies I had that feeling of "What the hell was that?!?"
Other side-effects include staying up all night thinking about the afore mentioned question and repeating to yourself other various big questions about innerspace and the human mind.

So the question that I want to open up to you is:
What other movies do this to you and why do they have that effect?

I think this is suitable for Sci-fi section because all the examples I could come up with were some form of Science Fiction or another, maybe not Sci-fi by definition but certainly not just plain 'fiction'. Take for example Momento, not intelligent person can say that that is any kind of normal movie. It plays with the ways a story is told.

Let me know what you think

-ZERO MASS

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory

The human right violations and FDA rules he was breaking boogled my mind. Didn't any government agency take notice of this man's atrocious buissness practices?

The Matrix

For obvious reasons

ExistanZ, Strange Days, and Cube.

ExistanZ and Strange Days both deal with virtual reality.

Cube has 6 strangers trapped inside a giant cube made of tiny cubes and they have to escape. Each member possess a unique strength or ability that they must figure out. Razor wire booby traps keep things interesting.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotelss Mind is a great mind bender. It isn't classified as science fiction but it definately has a scientific/futuristic technology aspect to it. It's one of my favourite movies of all time. You have to see this movie especially if you like the "what the hell was that" kind of thing. He script is really thought provoking too.

Cube has 6 strangers trapped inside a giant cube made of tiny cubes and they have to escape. Each member possess a unique strength or ability that they must figure out. Razor wire booby traps keep things interesting.


Oh..good one. I remember watching that movie and wondering "what the hell". The concept of a giant trap being made for no apparent purpose because the beuracracy funding it is so big that no one in particular noticed anything about it either was strange and frieghtening.

Wierd concept and even wierder the reason it was made (SPOILER***...there was no reason it was made....it just existed)


Akira

I have watched this movie 4 times and have yet to grasp the concept.

Ghost in the shell

Deus ex machina baby. Very interesting concept, scarier: how it could come true.

Johnny Nmemonic

Purely because it was shite and I didn't get it at all.

Note: Sarge, what didn't you get about Akira, I may be able to help fill you in.

Thor

Well for starters.....what is it about?

Was Akira a real boy with powers? Those blue kid/old things...what are they?
What did the government keep in that frozen lab underground? Remnants of Akira?
What is Akira to begin with...a god? or entropy in form of a human boy?
Why does Tetsuo become what he does? What happens to him in the end? What happens to all of them in the end? Does a new Universe start? What the fuck is Akira?

Akira was infact a real boy. He was a friend of Kanedes and Tetsuo when they were younger (or so I have read).
The government kept old genetic experiments in the lab. I believe the whole project was called 'Akira'.

I'm a bit hazy on the last bits so I'm gonna go watch the movie again to find out for you. What I said above was what I read a while back in various akira novels and graphic novels.

Brazil and Naked Lunch. Watch at your own peril.

Naked Lunch is a David Lynch movie right? He's a f*cking psycho, none of his movies made any sense!

mine are
Un chien andalou (not really sci-fi)
Nirvana (beats Matrix ten fold)
Clockwork Orange (total control of a human)
White Dwarf (anyone knows where I can get it? I'm desperate!)
Stargate

Naked Lunch is a David Lynch movie right? He's a f*cking psycho, none of his movies made any sense!
No, David Cronenberg.

Clockwork Orange really wasn't much of a mind bender, it was just a kid beating up people, then they make him stop, then they let him beat people up again. Whoop-dee-doo.

Avatar, if you liked Un chien Andalou, you should check out "Debaser," a song by the Pixies (if you haven't already).

"Slicin' up eyeballs!"

Identity i think it's called. About a group of people stuck in a motel for the night, turns out they're a multiple identity of one single person

Mulholland Drive

Another movie that makes no sense whatsoever.

Headfiddling movies, yeah, my faves;

Memento
Vanilla Sky
Adaptation
Being John Malkovich
Tetsuo
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Donnie Darko
Sixth Sense
Fight Club
12 Monkeys
The Others
Blue Velvet
The Doors

... the last two make the cut, not because of any revelation that screws with your perspective of what you've just watched, just because the whoe ride was surreal.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotelss Mind is a great mind bender. It isn't classified as science fiction but it definately has a scientific/futuristic technology aspect to it. It's one of my favourite movies of all time. You have to see this movie especially if you like the "what the hell was that" kind of thing. He script is really thought provoking too.

I agree. The movie was very well made. --Experiences inside a desperate man's mind while he's trying preserve memories which are in the process of being erased. -- A great, unique idea!

Donnie Darko & Fight Club are 2 of my favourite films, they are serious mind fucks.
Fight Club has SO much philosophy and psychology that you're like "what the hell just happened?!?!?"
And Donnie Darko is just so........weird!
Another movie that isn't so much a mind screw but VERY controversial and does leave you feeling affected in some way....SCUM. Set in a borstal, it is SO violent and really really extreme, i am NEVER going to break a law ever after seeing that :D

mindhunters, creepy and intrueging

I am going to go out on a limb and just say that Donny Darko and Fight Club were horrible. As well as every movie ever made by M. Night Shamalan, they are all horrid.

Movies that make me really angry end with an "it was all a dream" type of situation, exceptions include Vanilla Sky. I really hate fight Club because of the terrible adaption of the book, and Darko because of the acting/plot/direction triple combo.

good mind-fuck movie: The Thing. While this is much more horror/suspense, it had completely blown my mind by the end of it

-ZERO MASS

Movies that make me really angry end with an "it was all a dream" type of situation, exceptions include Vanilla Sky.

It wasn’t a dream. If you pay attention to the ending, you can see no bed covers around him, and the voice that says "Wake up," is not that of Cameron Diaz or that chick with the huge nose. He is waking up, but in the future. They cloned him a new body and he got up out of the cloning chamber and found himself in the future, not the present.

There is no way in hell it was a dream.

M.Night Shyamalan has escaped from the Hollywood Machine; his movies are different, i wouldn't say controversial but definately a breath of fresh air. And yes i must admit the adaptation of the Fight Club book was a bit poor but considering the actual plot line and complexity of the book they did a great job. Besides the books ending was.......bloody weird, i'm glad they ditched it in the movie.
As for Donnie Darko they had a very limited budget, i thought the acting was pretty good. It is one of those movies you either love or hate though.

Clockwork Orange (controlling the human mind)
The abyss (human pychosis and underwater E.T.s)
Its a wonderful life (Is it?)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (This is your brain on drugs)
The good, the bad and the ugly (Greed)
Me, myself and Iren (Schizophrenia, presented in a comical fasion to boot)

and 2 movies I think are just way messed
Wizard of oz
and the Rocky Horror picture show

:D

Rocky Horror Picture Show is funny! :D


p.s. I hate(d) "Fight Club".

K-pax...nothing mind #$%^ about it but the movie amazed me...the killer soundtrack doesn't hurt either.

It wasn’t a dream. If you pay attention to the ending, you can see no bed covers around him, and the voice that says "Wake up," is not that of Cameron Diaz or that chick with the huge nose. He is waking up, but in the future. They cloned him a new body and he got up out of the cloning chamber and found himself in the future, not the present.

There is no way in hell it was a dream.

Well, like I said I thought that ending was okay given the premise of the movie. but there are lots of movies that I hate that use that deus ex machina to just wrap up a weak plot and say that everything is okay.

The reason why that ending is allowed in Vanilla Sky is because at the end of the movies we still cared about the characters, even though some of their actions and the events were fictitious. My least favortie movie where they do this is "Identity". all around it was just a horrible film, but when you find out that every character in the film is just in some guy's head, well, you lose all interest in them. Who cares if one of the MPs is killed off? They don't exist? Why should the viewer fell any remorse for the death of an imaginary character?
In vanilla sky the ending is tolerable because one) it was a sci-fi movie and two) it drew the audience in and made them care about Cruise's character. You could really care about the mental state of Cruise, that is one of the reasons I really enjoyed it. Also, as a writer myself I am always inspired when there comes about a new way to tell the love story (arguably the most cliche story ever told, and difficult to retell originally) and Vanilla sky did that, as well as eternal sunshine and others.

Has anybody ever played Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty? That game messed with my mind. For one, the whole secret society thing freaks me out, and there were so many references that took you out of character and reminded you that you were holding a controler in your hands and playing a video game. At one part the game said "turn off the onsole and go outside"
I love that game, I'm going to go play it.

-ZERO MASS

that game is intense, it actually has a plot and it really is seriously warped! one cut scene is about 20 minutes long though!

[QUOTE=Avatar]Rocky Horror Picture Show is funny! :D
QUOTE]


Dance to the time warp baby! ;)

I'll have to agree with the already mentioned movies of...

Donnie Darko (great movie about time travel, and all the other messed up stuff that goes along with that, and is really hard to follow unless you actually research the movie.)

Fight Club (really deep movie, also another one you don't get right away)

Requiem For A Dream (although it isn't a scifi one or anything like that, it is still a mindfuck in itself...definitely leaves you with a feeling of never wanting to ever take drugs)

Identity (someone mentioned this, and I'd have to agree, it's not a total mindfuck but in the end it does leave you with an..."ohh" kind of feeling)

Eternal Sunshune... (that was the worst mindfuck ever, I couldnt even finish the movie...it literally hurt my head)

And I know there are so many more but they aren't coming to me right now, and it's pissing me off. Good choices so far by people...

Lost Highway??

Neon Genisis Evangelion?

Serial experiemnts Lain (I hate BTW)

Donnie Darko
Run Lola Run (German flick about a young woman who has to get her boyfriend $100,000 in 20 minutes or he'll be shot by the mob boss he's working for. Interesting part is they show this same scenario 3 times, but each time she enters the scenario with a different attitude and they all end up turning out completely different).
Transambient 2 (very trippy movie, combines electronica music with VJing, uses a lot of looping video (very well looped though) and patterns and such)
Pi was pretty good too.
The Life Aquatic (this movie is all about the characters, I just love the characters. One of those movies you'll either love or hate)

Sphere

It doesn't leave you sore in the morning, but its a great 8$#@.

Johnny Nmemonic

Purely because it was shite and I didn't get it at all.


In the 21st century, information is the ultimate commodity. In a world where cyberspace is a workaday reality and outlaw hackers thrive, the most valuable information must sometimes be transported by mnemonic couriers -- professionals like Johnny (Keanu Reeves) who offer the ultimate in security and confidentiality. Johnny guarantees delivery, for the right price, but he's paid a price of his own -- a heavy one -- for his chip-enhanced data-storage capacity; he's dumped his own memories to make room for the programs he smuggles for shadowy corporate clients. Now, he wants those memories back, and it's going to be expensive -- so expensive that he'll have to make one last run to pay for it.

http://movieweb.com/movie/johnnym/



I'd say the original Manchurian Candidate movie.

During the Korean War of the 1950s, a platoon of American soldiers are snared and taken away for three days, where they are apparently brainwashed with ideas and instructions they have but the vaguest recollection of. Flash forward to the United States ten years later, where these men have bad dreams about the experience, some of which included the deaths of two of the men at the hands of Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Harvey), acting on orders while under hypnosis. Shaw, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroic deeds his men were conditioned to think happen, is also the stepson of a prominent Senator (Gregory) who just might be the next Vice-Presidential candidate, and while the surviving men know something happened in Korea that led to Shaw's murders, they can't seem to get him to remember. It seems the Communists still have Shaw under their power, with big plans for something to get their foot in the door of power in the United States, and it's up to Major Marco (Sinatra, The First Deadly Sin) to find out what nefarious plot is about to happen, and how he can stop it before it's too late.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000408I?v=glance

Mulholland Drive

Another movie that makes no sense whatsoever.

the first time i saw that i just left the cinema annoyed.after the first twist i was still with it but then the second one left me stranded.have seen it two more times and think i get most of it now,feckin good film.lynch stated there are 10 significant objects to watch out for in the film as they are important.dont really get why 8 of them are but nevermind.,
event horizon is a very very good film.
the second and third matrix made me want to kill the wachowski brothers,they ruined their own trilogy,although apparently the first one was copied from a manga,true?i know A LOT of the shots were stolen.
apple seed - just saw it recently and it raises quite big questions.

Clockwork Orange really wasn't much of a mind bender, it was just a kid beating up people, then they make him stop, then they let him beat people up again. Whoop-dee-doo.

Avatar, if you liked Un chien Andalou, you should check out "Debaser," a song by the Pixies (if you haven't already).

"Slicin' up eyeballs!"

A Clockwork Orange was a brilliant movie. obviously you can't see it, but it is a great piece of work. The fact that they could brainwash somebody so they could not be violent anymore, and that they would feel extremely sick and terrible, just blows my mind. It is one of my favorite movies of all time