Jacob's Ladder

i love the bit in Jacob's Ladder when they're having a big party and 'Lady Marmalade' is really blowing up...its the only feelgood moment in the whole film!

We were shown this film in high school. This site presents the short story and seems to give an analysis (haven't read it).
Owl Creek Bridge

Always thought it was cool how "the present day" still had all the trappings of the early 70s, since a guy projecting an alternate life back then wouldn't think about push-button phones or remote-controlled TVs.

There was a half-hour cable doc that explained what was going on. Is it on the DVD?

not a fan of adrian lyne or tim robbins but i'll watch any movie with elizabeth pena

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v48/w1nt3rmut3/GarfieldJacobsLadder.gif

i love the bit in Jacob's Ladder when they're having a big party and 'Lady Marmalade' is really blowing up...its the only feelgood moment in the whole film!

― blueski, Monday, October 7, 2002 4:21 AM (6 years ago)

This is wrong! See the scene where he walks by the girls on the street and they start singing "Please Mr. Postman," Tim Robbins's smile is one of the sincerest in movie history. It's such a beautiful moment.

this movie is fun but really it does not make any goddamn sense at all

Dude's caught somewhere between life and death, that's all I read into it.

ACh! It was all a dream.

I love this film as well, I remember watching it late one night and it seemed a lot more powerful and effective than the Sixth Sense (which I had seen in the cinema the week previously). The problem is, it isn't really explained why they go through all that "experiment with chemical weapons" stuff in such detail, and then end the film with a different explanation altogether.

The Region 1 DVD has these deleted scenes:

right but how does dude know he was experimented on with top-secret govt drug? who is Tony Aiello? (a figment of his imagination who knows things he does not, like the writings of 14th century mystics?) etc.

x-post

why don't you ask dan perry, he was "the only person out of a group of ten who worked out what was going on," which was "confirmed by the director"

Tony Aiello is just one of the many angels and demons communicating with Singer.

The entire story was a Purgatory hallucination because dude was dying from wounds received in Vietnam and he wasn't ready to go yet. The military drug testing stuff was a meta-smokescreen; the filmmakers were making a point by including it but, in the narrative, Jacob has no idea about any of that stuff and basically it's all just part of his nightmare experience because he isn't ready to die.

I... guess that makes sense

Could it be that the reason he wasn't ready to die was because he saw one of his own men kill him (remember?), and held on due to pure self denial of the incident. The whole military drug 'thought' was his interpretation for the team-killing? Hence after discovering this fact, things settled down in his head a bit.

if yer follow.

When I first watched this, aged 16, it made perfect sense. Two subsequent viewings haven't quite captured that apparent clarity.

You never really see who stabs him with the bayonet.

yes you do, and he has that confused look on his face just before they show it's his buddy. i can't remember whereabouts in the film though.

how did he manage to hallucinate Lady Marmalade three years before it was recorded?

yes you do, and he has that confused look on his face just before they show it's his buddy. i can't remember whereabouts in the film though.

Yeah, it happens maybe around 2/3rds of the way through; what isn't wholly clear is whether that's a true memory of what happened or a Purgatory flashback (works either way as it could have fueled the paranoid setting of his Purgatory nightmare).

xp: He was also a frustrated songwriter.

The first time they showed his get stabbed you don't see it. The only reason I revived this thread is because it was on Encore the other night, and I finally got to rewatch this thing in context, 18 years after freaking myself out in a movie theater.

Also Shakey, if you've ever seen "Moulin Rouge", you'd know that "Lady Marmalade" was originally written in 1899.

Along with "Roxanne" and "Like a Virgin".

"Golden Years" and "We Will Rock You," meanwhile, were written back in 1420 or so.

this one is def. due for a rescreen. i saw it in the theater and loved it.

the subway shakey(sic)-headed dude is def. up there in the supercreepfactor moments in cinematic history.

the post office lady he shacks up with is hot

http://tbn0.google.com/hosted/images/c?q=84afc7ff7302d59a_landing

Oh, good, a remake is coming

http://www.avclub.com/article/jacobs-ladder-remake-casts-new-guy-transcendentall-234139

what a great idea for a movie whose only point is the "surprise" ending

I dunno. In the right hands this could work.

Disagree that its only point is the twist. As far as subtle psychological/body horror films go, I think it had an impact on a whole load of later stuff, from Silent Hill to Kill List.

...pretty much anything that had fast shaky heads, too.

Yep. Saw it only the other day in 'Goodnight Mommy' which is a fantastic psychological horror that almost certainly traces a line from Jacob's Ladder

Did you know... Robbins' buddy Tony is played by Kyle Gass, now more famous as Jack Black's partner in Tenacious D?

https://i.imgur.com/aPNteHQ.jpg

I never knew that!

Just saw this again a few days ago for the first time in over a decade. I've always counted it as one of my favorite movies but it's not an easy watch.

wow I learned something!

I know that Kyle Gass appears in this film, briefly, but that's not him. That's Pruitt Taylor Vince.

I was gonna say, that is not Kyle's face

google images lied to me.

AI has some ways to go...

one of the best horror movies ever, and also largely inspired silent hill