I DON’T GET IT
                                                              Part 2

In September of 2016 I ran an article titled “I Don’t Get It”. It featured movies I liked but did not understand (at all!) Many readers were stunned that Mr. Movie didn’t understand these. Well, as promised way back then, there are more!
The most recent is the oddly-titled The Last Black Man In San Francisco (2019). Jimmie and his best friend Mont work on the house built by Jimmie’s grandfather although someone else lives there. This awkward scenario continues until the tenants move out. Jimmie moves in, squatting in the house until someone else buys it. He resumes living with Mont and his grandfather. He is last seen rowing a boat toward Golden Gate bridge. I don’t get it!
Birdman (2014) is hardly obscure. It won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. It stars Michael Keaton (as the Birdman) and features Amy Ryan, Zach Galifianakis and Edward Norton. The title character was a famous superhero, played by Mr. Keaton. He hears Birdman as an inner voice. He wants to mount a play based on a Raymond Carver short story. He fantasizes flying through the city as Birdman. At the end of his play, he shoots himself before a live audience. I don’t get it!
In Her (2013) Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly, a lonely guy who falls in love over the phone with his artificial intelligence virtual assistant.  The contact, Samantha, is voiced by Scarlett Johannson. Those who know Theodore, including his ex-wife, are uncomfortable with his attachment to a computer voice. He tries and fails to form attachments to real persons, and is heartbroken when Samantha tells him she is leaving the computer service. Spike Jonze (yep, that’s his name!) won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Good for him. I don’t get it!
I greatly admire the work of director Sofia Coppola (Somewhere, Marie Antoinette, Lost In Translation). Her very first effort was The Virgin Suicides (1999) and I really liked it. Don’t ask why. The five Lisbon sisters are tightly controlled and watched by their extremely protective parents played well by James Woods and Kathleen Turner. The movie has some young men in the town reflect back on these girls and how they loved them from afar. Eventually all five girls commit suicide. I don’t get it!
I’m not sure you’re supposed to understand Holy Motors (2012), a French-German collaboration. I’m not sure either spoke the other’s language! Anyway, it is a series of unconnected vignettes, most of which are intriguing. In the first one, a man wakes up and goes through a secret door in his apartment. He is then in a crowded theater where a young child and a giant dog wander up and down the aisles. After that, it gets weird! I really don’t get it. But I really liked it!
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups