10 Movies That Mock You For Paying Attention
The movies that made you freeze frame one moment, only to laugh at you the next...
There's nothing more satisfying for invested (read: obsessive) film fans than when a film rewards the viewer for paying close attention.
By close attention, this article is of course referring to super-intense and forensic dissection.
Whether it's an Edgar Wright comedy, the latest MCU instalment, or a byzantine thriller from plot-thickener extraordinaire Christopher Nolan, some films are designed to reward patient repeat viewers. These are the movies that take a leaf from the books of meticulous planners such as David Fincher, filling the screen with minute detail which never even fazes first time viewers but takes re-watchers by surprise with its careful foreshadowing and hinting detail.
And there are the cheeky films on this list.
These are the movies that flip a middle finger at any audience members who make the unforgivable error or taking things seriously and paying close attention.
The smart ass to a more serious movie's bookworm, these playful and irreverent films threw in small subtle details not to reward repeat viewers but to poke fun at them for their obsession over-investment, In the era of Easter eggs, nitpickers, and plot hole excavators these sort of light-hearted p***takes are more necessary than ever, so with that in mind let's take a look at ten films which mock you the viewer for paying attention.
10. Apocalypto
After the surprise blockbuster success of 2004's extremely dark, gritty religious epic The Passion of the Christ, all eyes were on Lethal Weapon star Mel Gibson's next move as a director. The controversial actor had already seen serious success with his debut the Oscar winning epic Braveheart, so where does one go from here?
The answer, of course, was further back in time and into territory that was even less likely to succeed than a film entirely in Aramaic.
2007's gory, kinetic Apocalypto was a stripped down, uber-intense chase movie following a lone heroic mesoamerican farmer through the lethal journey to save his tribe from becoming Mayan human sacrifices. Violent, propulsive, and raw, the film proved that Gibson was unconcerned with mainstream approval despite his blockbuster past.
Never was the director's uncaring approach made clearer, though, than in one gag he decided to slip inside the film for more canny viewers.
Freeze frame this sombre, deathly serious film as the camera pans over a mass grave over Mayan corpses, and if you time it just right you'll see...
Yep, there's Waldo of Where's Waldo fame, just chilling in an ancient Mayan temple's burial ground for the director's own amusement.