The What the F*ck? Thread

Sometimes you watch a movie and it's so odd and freakish that you just have to say, "What the f*ck??" This doesn't mean you didn't enjoy the flick, but it does mean that it was just so bizarre that you have the feeling that you didn't quite get it, or, if you think you did get it, you're not sure why.

I got to thinking about this while watching Akira again the other day, which reminded me of a Japanese film I watched about a year ago called Tetsuo: The Iron Man. I had fun watching it--it's intensity in ten cities, if you know what I mean--but I have the feeling the deeper meaning behind it all just went sailing straight over my head. I think it has something to do with the mechanization of society, but...

Anyway, a few of my choices, to get it started:

The aforementioned Tetsuo
Begotten

Those two I actually enjoyed, in terms of the look and feel of the flick, although Begotten got pretty damn boring about a half-hour into it. One that I didn't enjoy:

Gummo

I cannot say enough about what a piece of sh*t this movie was. I didn't get the purpose of it, and I didn't really care either way.

I realize this topic could harken back to previous threads, but I don't think we've had one that dealt with the subject in this particular way, so, here you go.

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The ending of Planet of the Apes left me whirling in a cloud of confused whatthefukkisms.

I hear ya MaryLo.

I really did enjoy POTA until the ending... the whole Aperaham Lincoln thing really threw me and I've yet to engage with anyone who can explain it.

Master Toose is right on. That was definitely a "WHAT THE F*CK?" kinda flick. I've seen people TRY to explain the ending numerous times, but it never makes any sense.

Just a scene, not a whole movie:

When thoses frogs hit home in glorious 5.1,smack damn in the middle of Magnolia, my Home cinema visually yelped "What the F**k?"...as did I.

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I'd have to say the first, second, and maybe well into the third viewing of Mulholland Drive. The ending of The Ninth Gate. I remember watching the ending to Naked Lunch and saying to myself, "WTF!!!". I had asked myself the same question while watching Resident Evil in the theater, except it was more like, "WTF??? I paid money to see this *****???!!!".

I'm sure there are others...

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hey, i'm actually up in the air about which of those two movies are wierder...though i guess i'd to give tetsuo a slight edge on account of it's wierd 'erotic' scenes, hmmm....it's good to hear someone else out there enjoyed (has seen?) 'the iron man'. did you by any chance see the nifty sequel: tetsuo 2: body hammer?

a few of the better ones that've effectively made me ask, 'wtf?!' (in a good way):
branded to kill
beautiful dreamer
liquid sky
being john malcovitch
male games
spirited away
lawrence of arabia (shonen ai, except neither japanese, nor animated, and starring peter otoole: wtf?!)
chronopolis
the 5,000 fingers of dr. t ("it's not atomic, is it?")

"The Game" was incredibly like that. And far better than Fight Club, in my opinion (which was also a wtf film)

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Although not as intellectual as the other movies within this thread, Grease is my choice for WTF.

I can take it as a musical; people bursting into song on a whim.

I can take it as a teenage, pop-culture icon that mildly taps into the angst of the 50's Zeitgeist.

I can even take it as a fantasy picture; good-girl must change into alter-ego to attain boys affections.

But, why-oh-why, did the car "Greased Lightening" change into a candy apple red convertable at the end, and fly off into the clouds while everybody watched from the carnival below? WTF indeed!

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r66-The member who always asks WHY?

I forgot to mention David Lynch, whose films (like Mullholland Dr.) invariably give the WTF? vibe. But in a good way.

My feelings on the ending of Burton's POTA were much the same as Toose's, although I have to say that, "What the f*ck?" was my initial reaction to finding out that Burton was directing the thing in the first place.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is another one, in that you have to say, "WTF? How can it be a Halloween sequel with no Michael Myers??"

I haven't seen it yet. I'm thinking it'll be a let-down, and I don't want to be let down.

"What the f*uck"?!......is what I was thinking when my husband came home with
One Night at McCool's. Dark comedies aren't my cup of tea...I have to admit there were a few gigglable moments, but the ending was definately a huge "what the f*uck"?!
Why did you rent this?!



I agree with you.

Also Xanadu is a big WTF. They tried to do to many "creative" things. I think it's the only movie I've ever walked out of.

Gummo is one of my favourtie films. *lol*. I think it's like nothing else out there. What it's about you can argue about for ages. White Trash perhaps... Apathy... People that don't give a damn about anything... Harmony Korine is one of the very very few true independent filmmakers nowadays.

About Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes, I think it was a big pile of crap and nothing close to the original movie. And I think that not even Burton knows what the hell the ending is supposed to mean. To try and top the ending in the original movie with the Statue of Liberty is an impossible thing to do. He had to do something really unexpected without copying the original, and the result was rediculous, and to tell you the truth, not really that unexpected - it just didn't make any sense. They should have left that holy cow alone...

A big WTF for me is Lost Highway by David Lynch, but that doesn't really count since he deliberately makes movies without a traditional and comprehendable narrative. It's really no point in seeing it for the fourth time, feeling a little dumb because you still don't get it (yes, I'm referring to myself) when you realize that there is no thread to follow. Damned Lynch!

A movie that really pissed me off though and made me scream "WHAT THE F*CK!!!" was A Time To Kill by Joel Schumacher. Not that it was difficult to follow but because it was appearing as a human and/or civil rights kind of movie when it was nothing less than a celebration and gloryfication of the middle-upper class W.A.S.P.'s superiority over the rest of society. Made me wanna puke....

The Reflecting Skin, with a young Viggo Mortensen in a main role.

Eraserhead WTF?!?!?!? still liked it tho'

I read the first post, and thought "what about every single thing David Lynch has done??" and then noticed three or so down someone said it. His main offender in the What the f*ck claim to fame would definately have to be Eraserhead, closely followed by Twin Peaks. WHOAH! I was only 10 or so when it was on TV, but I remember it vividly.

"From Dusk till Dawn" is also another on my WTF list. I went into the cinema thinking it was your standard tarantino gangster flick, and it was, until the last 30 minutes. And what a brilliant 30 minutes!

"The Shining" - the Stanley Kubrick version. Why was Jack Torrence in the photo at the end? What was the relevence of the Cook travelling halfway across the world to walk through a door and get axed? And what the hell is wrong with Shelley Duvalls eyes? I've never read the book, but apparently Kubricks adaption was way different anyway. In fact most movies by Kubrick fall into my WTF category, especially Clockwork Orange.

"Apocalypse Now"- I'm probably not looking very deeply into these movies, as the kind of movies I really enjoy are those high fantasy/adventure flicks (Indiana Jones being a perfect example), but ANow was just wierd. And way too long. I've seen the redux version, and my friend told me the original cut was much better, as it gets rid of the dull frenchy scene, as well as the second encounter with the playboy bunnies.

"The end of the new Planet of the Apes starring Marky Mark and not the funky bunch" - I'll attempt to explain this. You see.. at the start, he goes forward in time, to after that monkey crash landed on earth, and went nuts and basically ownzored everyone. So, at the end, when he goes back in time.. he goes back to his time, when.. WTF?? Why are the apes here?? It's like that Back to the Future error.. when the old Biff gives the sports almanac to himself in the past, he would go back to the future of that time, and therefore Marty and Doc would never get back from 2015 because the DeLorian would be in an alternate 2015 and this would cause a major time paradox in that spacetime continuum thingo. And that's bad. Apparently.

Apocalypse Now! (one of my favourite movies) is actually more weird than the Redux version, which is way too long, I agree. But I liked the air of mystery and strangeness in the original cut while in the Redux version everything is spelled out for you. I think the original version depicts in a better way the hoplessness and apathy that (I suppose) the soldiers in Vietnam felt facing their assignment.

"The French scene" is pretty pointless, yes, but not entirely. It's a failing attempt to explain the whole problem with external interference in Vietnam in 15 mins or so. But I have to say that that scene is something of the most beautiful I have ever scene on the screen, cinematograpically speaking. The romantic scene with the french woman however didn't contribute anything at all though.

I agree with most of the movies listed here. I would like to add Natural Born Killers, eXistenZ and El Topo. WOAH. Very freaky.

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Okay...A WTF?!? good movie:

Heavy Traffic - directed by Ralph Bakshi. It's animated, but then it's not, then characters who die somehow end up back alive at the end, and the whole film is in amazingly poor taste. So I loved it. especially the part about the last woman on earth, and the giant trash heap that everyone worshipped (and had sex with...don't ask.)

A WTF?!? bad movie:

I think it was called Ghosts of Mississippi or something like that, but it was a movie about the murder of a black civil rights activist, but the only black person we see for almost the entire movie is Whoopi Goldberg, and the film focuses almost exclusively on it's white cast members for the duration. It was a seriously misguided movie.

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Good point... It's similar to my WTF "A Time To Kill". (It's on this topic somewhere...)

Warning: If you haven't seen Hart's War do not read any further because despite my nomination for a WTF movie it is rather enjoyable.


The premise for Hart's War is that a United States officer is captured by the German's in WW2, and sent to a concentration camp, where a murder takes place. The US officer, in his civilian life, is a failed lawyer who decides to defend the black POW accused of the murder by holding a mock trial within the camp.

The Nazi camp commander agrees to let them hold the American-style trial( WTF ), and is ultimately put on the stand to testify he wasn't part of the murder( WTF ). Meanwhile Bruce Willis, the captured American General in charge of captured US soldiers, has dug a mile-length tunnel under the camp( WTF ), complete with support beams(WTF ) and lighting(WTF ).

Battlefield Earth. Why release something so bad?

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Alex DeLarge

what I do I do because I like to do