Hacker Cinema
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2004 · Film · 108 min
Directed by Michel Gondry
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
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22 comments on Hacker News
> Other movies of the era (e.g. Being John Malkovich) didn’t telegraph stuff. That movie didn't win any Oscars and sold roughly 10x fewer tickets.
1999 was a bumper year for film in general. There were too many good picks that many had to be passed over. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind came out in 2004 to acclaim, and covered similar themes, so it can be done. The casting of Being John Malkovich also made it a long shot for awards, as all of the actors in it are fantastic, but there aren’t any standout roles because everyone in it is so good already, and none of the characters are redeeming in any way, so it’s a hard watch for most folks.
Spike Jonze did get an Oscar nomination for Being John Malkovich, and it was his feature film directing debut. The writer, also in his respective feature film debut (for writing), Charlie Kaufman, also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Ticket sales are the wrong metric for artsy stuff like that, imo.
Ebert said it best:
> Roger Ebert awarded the film a full four stars, writing: "What an endlessly inventive movie this is! Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich, supplies a dazzling stream of inventions, twists, and wicked paradoxes. And the director, Spike Jonze, doesn't pounce on each one like fresh prey, but unveils it slyly, as if there's more where that came from... The movie has ideas enough for half a dozen films, but Jonze and his cast handle them so surely that we never feel hard-pressed; we're enchanted by one development after the next". He concluded: "Every once in a long, long while a movie comes along that is unlike any other. A movie that creates a new world for us and uses it to produce wonderful things. Forrest Gump was a movie like that, and so in different ways were M*A*S*H, This Is Spinal Tap, After Hours, Babe and There's Something About Mary. What do such films have in common? Nothing. That's the point. Each one stakes out a completely new place and colonizes it with limitless imagination. Either Being John Malkovich gets nominated for best picture, or the members of the Academy need portals into their brains."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich
Out of that list, The Science of Sleep stands out to me. It is a film by Michel Gondry who also directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It is kind of an indie pretentious movie, but if you are into that kind of thing it is a decent one.
Some of my favorites (no particular order):
- The Martian
- Arrival
- Snowpiercer
- Annihilation (a bit scary in some parts, but not really horror overall)
- The Congress
- Ex Machina
- Her
- Children of Men
- Blade Runner & the new Blade Runner
- Gattaca
- District 9
- Edge of Tomorrow
- Elysium
- Terminator 1 & 2
- Upgrade
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Mad Max (new one) and Fury Road
On the cheesier side:
- Demolition Man
- Judge Dredd (both the original and the new one)
- Terminator 3 and beyond
- Matrix movies
Grand vistas but slow and sometimes boring, and often haughty / overbearing:
- The new Dune movies
- 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel (some other number, like 2010 or something, can't remember)
- Interstellar
- Inception
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Of all of those, my top 3 would be the first three (Martian, Arrival, Snowpiercer).
I agree with all of this.
>I actually dislike the antsy "what happens next" feeling
This part is especially true for content that is supposed to be.. cringe.. embarrassing.. sort of? Like imagine things like a comedy or drama that is supposed to evoke those feelings. I can't take it. It physically hurts. Sometimes I have to pause or stop watching. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was such a movie, I just couldn't finish it. I read about the story instead and figured out what was going to happen and then I could watch it, no problem.
the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" made me feel that way.
> I was never too much into Carrey acting on comedic roles, but I really like his dramatic ones.
I enjoy dumb movies toe but, like you, I prefer him in the "not totally dumb" movies.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie I like a lot too.
Some classify Truman Show as sci fi.
And depends on what you mean by "supernatural". There are many many movies without magic, but with possible future inventions. The category of hard scifi.
Europa report, primer, deep impact, robocop, starship troopers, blade runner, matrix, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, total recall, arrival, Jurassic Park, the man from earth, ...
But yeah, Gattaca is still my favourite movie.
They missed Gattaca [1], one of my favorites.
It's also weird that "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is part of the sci-fi genre, kind of odd as it's mostly focused on the romance.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(do no further research before watching this movie, you will thank me)
They WON'T have regulations or treaties though - not any that mean a damn, anyway. Putting aside the obvious issues of doing this against someone's will, let's have a quick look at some extremes that could be done with someone's full consent:
What if someone WANTED a memory implanted of raping someone, so they could get off to it? The consensual BDSM sphere is huge. Obviously pedophilic false memories would be outlawed immediately, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't exist.
What if someone wanted to self-identify as a robot, or a sex slave, or just plain simple property. Could they have elective surgery for blank-memory-removal to assist with their transition?
Say we went nope, full blanket-banning of the technology as a whole, it's just too legally messy to allow. What if someone has experienced severe emotional trauma from real-life events, and needs them dulled or removed to function in society? It instantly becomes a politically-charged pro-life/pro-choice ticket issue that gets carted out every time the government wants to make some noise.
What if someone is the victim of such a procedure (done illegally) - is it okay to have some governmental arm "anti-hack" their brain.
Also, <insert the whole plot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind>. Also, <insert plots of various Ghost In the Shell TV series>.
If the technology ever genuinely bears fruit, then only two things are certain to happen: it will be used illegally, and it will be used by governments in secret. Sometimes both of these at once :-)
see also: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was written by Charlie Kaufman, who is definitely a Dickhead. He wrote a screenplay of Scanner Darkly that went unproduced after the Linklater version came out. And of course, he wrote my favorite PKD movie not based on a PKD book, Being John Malkovich.
Not trying to be snarky, but what's complex about Inception? Once you're past the two premises (you can infiltrate dreams; you can dream recursively) this is just a heist movie without any significant plot twist, by which I mean there is no world-changing or premise-questioning event, and only one apect of said premises (the altered length of "lived time") is explored.
To use other Nolan movies as a point of comparison, Memento and The Prestige are much more accomplished in terms of fully exploiting their concepts. And within the domain of movies exploring the theme of "your lived experience is a dream/illusion", there are much more effective and/or complex examples[1].
I have a feeling that Inception is kind of like Interstellar in terms of public perception: people are psyched by the initial concept, so they don't pay attention to the fact that its underlying narrative structure is pretty run-of-the-mill.
I guess I sound like a buzzkill! If I've missed any deep concept within Inception, I'd be glad to be schooled/enlightened, since I like understanding what makes a movie tick. Also, I don't think it's a bad movie at all, just that it's not that complicated once we're past the initial disorientation.
[1] Before anybody asks, in no particular orders: In The Mouth Of Madness, Mulholland Drive, Paprika, Written By. In a different vein: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Hell, even Total Recall (1990 version) and The Matrix probably apply.
"The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is [SPOILER ALERT] a movie about erasing the memories of a past lover, a very similar idea.
Even just the top 4 of your list include "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Memento". If those don't count as fabulous concept movies, I don't know what does.
The Shining
Dead Poets Society
It's a Wonderful Life
TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard
Memento
(M) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
And what about you? What are you favourite movies?
Wikipedia on Charlie Kaufman [1]. His film work includes Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, Adaptation., Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kaufman
Actually, I managed to change my girlfriend a bit in that respect. I think the biggest problem of SciFi is that its mostly associated with Star Wars and Star Trek, the first is a geekfest for nerds and the second is a very special facet (both not bad, but hey) and also associated as "boy things" already.
We actually watched more thoughtful things like Blade Runner and discussed the film afterwards. Half-SciFIs like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which have a more subtle use of SciFI-topics are also good. Its best if you can say "hey, you just watched a SciFI movie" without her realizing that at first. Firefly is also good, because there is not spaceship-shooting-at-things stuff. As my girlfriend is a suspense fan, Alien will be up next :).
And yes, I know half of the story of DA because my girlfriend is far ahead of me :).
This reminded me of a really good movie about a guy (Jim Carey) who gets a painful memory erased and how he regrets it afterward. It's called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind if anyone is interested.
You think that you are being so extreme that it is ridiculous.
Well, lawyers already went there: http://www.plotpatents.com/
"A Plot or Storyline Patent application seeks to patent the underlying novel and nonobvious storyline of a fictional story. Such protection is to be contrasted from the copyright protection of one of millions of possible expressions of an underlying storyline. The field of possible applications is broad, and may tentatively be split into an entertainment-advertisement dichotomy. The epitome of an entertainment application is an original, thought-provoking, often shockingly unique movie plot. Several potentially patentable features may have been found in the plots of, Memento, The Thirteenth Floor, Being John Malkovich, Butterfly Effect, The Game, Fight Club, The Matrix, Total Recall, The Truman Show, Minority Report, The Village, Groundhog Day, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a few. The epitome of an advertisement application is one of the many thoughtfully hilarious Super Bowl commercials."
- I Heart Huckabees - You, Me And Everyone We Know - Juno - The Straight Story - My Neighbour Totoro
Are all straight forward feel good movies.
- Caché - The Lives Of Others - The White Ribbon - The Fountain - Amores Perros - City Of God - Fargo - Dune - Castle In The Sky - Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Festen
Make you feel good simply by the presence of their across the board brilliance.
There's a radiolab episode that touches on this: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/08
You're right, it's really not too far of a stretch to say we're talking about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind here...