I meant "hip" and pop culture elements as one and the same. Now, I'm one of the biggest fans here for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so I didn't have a problem with the non-linear story or the "chapter"/transitions.The Original BJ wrote:Oh, I quite liked the score and song choices (though I could see how someone who didn't like the "hip" elements, as you call them, would find the music a lot more of the same.)Penelope wrote:Maybe I just couldn't get past that horrid, obnoxious soundtrack. It really, really turned me off. And those pop culture references were a bit "old" for young twenty-somethings, dontcha think?
Regarding the pop culture references: I'm a number of years younger than the characters, and I got all three of those jokes. Maybe that's what I liked about them -- the film wasn't afraid to go over the heads of some of its viewers. Obviously, everyone HERE will get the references, but you've got to be relatively well-versed in world cinema to really be in on the joke.
But it rang rather dissonant for me that Tom and Summer's pop culture references weren't just foreign films from the 50s and 60s but also music from before they were born. A particularly blatant error occurs when the narrator mentions that Tom was adversely affected by British pop music videos, which is highly unlikely to have actually happened: Tom is, let's guess, about 26 or 27, which means he was 1 or 2 when these songs were in heavy rotation on MTV, yet it shows him as at least 9 or 10 years old--in reality, he would've been more affected by the grunge music of the early 90s. Now, had this film been released in 1999 rather than 2009, I'd believe it; but, now, I just don't--it struck me as a script reflecting the creator's influences stamped onto a much younger character. Took me right out of the film.