Basement Movie Club Week #1: The Usual Suspects

[fightinfrenchman]

WARNING: This thread will contain spoilers for The Usual Suspects. If you haven't seen it yet, please watch it before reading or participating in the discussion!

Note: the poll for the next movie will be posted in a separate thread shortly.
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Personally, this is one of my favorite movies. It's a great example of a crime/"heist" movie and Kevin Spacey is one of the best working actors.

Some questions to get the discussion started:

- Were you made aware of the twist (or the fact that there was a twist) before watching the movie? Do you feel that influenced how you watched the movie?

- The movie is famous for its twist, but this was over 20 years ago, and filmmaking has changed. Does the twist still hold up?

- Do you consider the ending ambiguous at all? How much of Verbal's story do you think is "real"?

[Laurence Drake]

I thought it was a good twist.

[XeeleeFlower]

I watched this movie some years ago, but didn't rewatch this week. Keyser Soze is my favorite mastermind as I already stated in the intro thread so it should be pretty clear that I have a lot of love for this movie.

- Were you made aware of the twist (or the fact that there was a twist) before watching the movie? Do you feel that influenced how you watched the movie?

I was not aware that there was any twist. I was simply told that I needed to watch the movie. I didn't want to watch it because I thought it was going to be just another mobster/action type of movie, which I'm not into, so I was pleasantly surprised.

- The movie is famous for its twist, but this was over 20 years ago, and filmmaking has changed. Does the twist still hold up?

I think that it still holds up quite well.

- Do you consider the ending ambiguous at all? How much of Verbal's story do you think is "real"?

The ending is fairly ambiguous. I could argue either way that the story is real or not real. The only way to know for sure would be to ask the writer.

The final scenes of that movie is so great! I literally get chills when he limps away and then slowly resumes a normal gait. So fucking good!

[gustavusadolphus]

The ear told me there was a twist before I watched the movie so it certainly influenced it.

The twist holds up in my opinion but having verbal be the narrator kinda gave things away for me. Keaton just did not seem like much of a character compared to verbal.

I think details of the ending like places and names of people may have been fake but the overall plot of it was real. verbal just needed to cover his tracks so he used fake details in my opinion.

[pecelot]

The ear told me there was a twist before I watched the movie so it certainly influenced it.

same

[noissance]

Couldn't watch due to business.

[JakeyBoyTH]

I was elsewhere or otherwise engaged sorry

[Goodspeed]

The ear told me there was a twist before I watched the movie

For shame!

I don't think the movie is famous for its twist alone. It's an excellent end to an overall excellent movie. Great writing, great acting, awesome plot. It even has Spacey in it which is (one of) my favourite actor(s). No complaints here.

9.9/10 subtracted .1 just because it's not Pulp Fiction.

[pecelot]

Do you imply then that Pulp Fiction is the best movie ever?

[fightinfrenchman]

The ear told me there was a twist before I watched the movie

For shame!

I don't think the movie is famous for its twist alone. It's an excellent end to an overall excellent movie. Great writing, great acting, awesome plot. It even has Spacey in it which is (one of) my favourite actor(s). No complaints here.

9.9/10 subtracted .1 just because it's not Pulp Fiction.

Thish is actually untrue another friend of ours stated there was a twist before we started to watch!

[Goodspeed]

Do you imply then that Pulp Fiction is the best movie ever?

As much as I love to state opinions as if they are objective truth to trigger a discussion, no. "Best" is rather a subjective term after all. I suppose the closest to objective measurement we have is profit, which would make idk avatar? the best movie. Or maybe imdb ratings, which would point towards Shawshank.

But to answer your question, Pulp Fiction is indeed my favourite movie.

[fightinfrenchman]

Well this thread didn't age well

[deleted_user]

@Goodspeed needs to become more active in off topic again!

[HUMMAN]

As i hear from people, film was really cool when it pop out since there was no twist films that area. After it in 2000s many film copied this idea fight club, shutter island, a beautiful mind. All these films are good but once you watch a film first,.others get less exciting since you already had that emotion. First is always best, and later the twist twist films like who am i, now you seem me is just less exciting.

[Laurence Drake]

I think it's time for week #2 of the movie club!!!!!!!