| I saw Memento yesterday at Loews Broadway/19th. It's about ten minutes too long but quite good. As you may have read, it's about a man who's lost his short-term memory, but keeps himself up-to-date on his own investigation of his wife's murder by tattooing messages on his body and carrying polaroids in his pockets. The story is told in reverse chronological order, so each time he "wakes up" to a new, memory-wiped reality, the audience knows about as much as he does. Reviews have been smartass, comparing it to Groundhog Day and Harold Pinter's Betrayal, but I'd say it's closer to Tarantino (minus the pop-culture irony) and Dark City (minus the aliens). Stephen Tobolowsky, who played the accountant who kept recognizing Bill Murray on the street in Groundhog Day 
is heartbreaking in a parallel tale of another short-term-memory-losser named Sammy Jankis, who remembers how to give his wife her insulin shot but can't retain the plot of the TV show he's watching. One of the ironies of Memento is that the audience has to hold a lot of info in RAM (i.e., short term memory) in order to make sense of the plot.
I'm looking forward to this one, heard about it from a friend who really liked it too.
just returned from 19th st and wish i was $10 richer and a lot drier!! it ok yes good yes very good??, but i'm aware that i know little of film, one of my favorite movies of all time is Mr Hollands Opus!!!!
I saw it the other night and enjoyed it. It's nice to see a Whodunnit with an ending so open to interpretation without it seeming like a cop out.
To me the comparisons have to include that Twilight Zone episode that has the guy in a bar who is vaguely aware that he is reliving experiences and he keeps hearing that noise which turns out to be typing which turns out to be the frustrated writer who is writing the story, balling up and starting over, etc. When the theme came up in Groundhog Day with the bonus of Bill Murray I said hurray. This lead guy in Memento was not my favorite actor even though he did his part well enough. But as a presentation of the theme which plays with the concept of idenity, redundancy, reality, and selective memory, Memento rocks. Great story, average presentation, great suspense, and to say again, great idea. The five people who caught the first elevator out with me hated it.
best film ever. the philosophy of the film is even greater. in the end i almost cried. we all need mirrors to remember who we are. we all need pictures to remember facts, the only difference between the character and us is that the character can not remember pictures from the past. but he has much more spirituality than the other characters. the big question that the film leaves for us is: Who am I?
Ask it for yourself. Tuff question, isn't it?
i easily undestood the film because i have always asked those questions.
Another beautiful thing is that his wife's efforts to make him remember her were sucessful (she killed herself). he remembered her after the memory loss with a virtual history he created in his mind (sammy jankis).
People must not concern to remember images and facts, the world is much more simple than we think, the material facts and things only make sense when we give a sense to it. we create our own problems and then we don't remember that we have created them. People must concern to find out who they are and what they want to become.
best film ever.
.
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is heartbreaking in a parallel tale of another short-term-memory-losser named Sammy Jankis, who remembers how to give his wife her insulin shot but can't retain the plot of the TV show he's watching. One of the ironies of Memento is that the audience has to hold a lot of info in RAM (i.e., short term memory) in order to make sense of the plot.
- Tom Moody 3-21-2001 6:32 pm
I'm looking forward to this one, heard about it from a friend who really liked it too.
- steve 3-21-2001 11:54 pm [add a comment]
just returned from 19th st and wish i was $10 richer and a lot drier!! it ok yes good yes very good??, but i'm aware that i know little of film, one of my favorite movies of all time is Mr Hollands Opus!!!!
- Skinny 3-22-2001 2:56 am [add a comment]
I saw it the other night and enjoyed it. It's nice to see a Whodunnit with an ending so open to interpretation without it seeming like a cop out.
- steve 3-29-2001 12:59 am [add a comment]
To me the comparisons have to include that Twilight Zone episode that has the guy in a bar who is vaguely aware that he is reliving experiences and he keeps hearing that noise which turns out to be typing which turns out to be the frustrated writer who is writing the story, balling up and starting over, etc. When the theme came up in Groundhog Day with the bonus of Bill Murray I said hurray. This lead guy in Memento was not my favorite actor even though he did his part well enough. But as a presentation of the theme which plays with the concept of idenity, redundancy, reality, and selective memory, Memento rocks. Great story, average presentation, great suspense, and to say again, great idea. The five people who caught the first elevator out with me hated it.
- jimlouis 4-16-2001 2:41 am [add a comment]
Yeah, but they'll remember it.
- Tom Moody 4-16-2001 9:12 am [add a comment]
best film ever. the philosophy of the film is even greater. in the end i almost cried. we all need mirrors to remember who we are. we all need pictures to remember facts, the only difference between the character and us is that the character can not remember pictures from the past. but he has much more spirituality than the other characters. the big question that the film leaves for us is: Who am I? Ask it for yourself. Tuff question, isn't it? i easily undestood the film because i have always asked those questions. Another beautiful thing is that his wife's efforts to make him remember her were sucessful (she killed herself). he remembered her after the memory loss with a virtual history he created in his mind (sammy jankis). People must not concern to remember images and facts, the world is much more simple than we think, the material facts and things only make sense when we give a sense to it. we create our own problems and then we don't remember that we have created them. People must concern to find out who they are and what they want to become. best film ever. .
- Gus (guest) 9-30-2002 7:28 am [add a comment]