Interpreting movies

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I have a really hard time following movies from the perspective I'm supposed to. It's difficult for me to determine intent or recognize the difference between people who look similar. But mostly, I notice EVERYTHING and I can't stop noticing things that don't matter to the plot. I spent my whole life building up these social rules in my head and this ability to quickly put myself in someone else's shoes to guess what they might be feeling (since I couldn't do it naturally or instinctively), and so I do that with every single character regardless of who that character is supposed to be. For instance, during chase scenes, I expect the good guy to later be prosecuted for the minivan he ran off the road in the first 10 seconds that no one else ever noticed, and it frustrates me that he got away with it, "good guy" status be da**ed.

You?

I always have to ask people what the meaning of a movie was, especially the ending, because it's hard to follow everything that's going on. It's mostly movies with lots of action that are difficult.

This.

I think my biggest problem with movies is that I never know what is going to happen, so when I watch it with other people who seem to know what is about to happen I can't imagine how they could be so good at guessing. So movies that are too suspenseful make me really anxious. I think this is why I like to rewatch the same movies over and over because then I don't have to worry about what will happen.

I often have a trouble recognizing characters (if they're played by actors I don't recognize) and their names. But other than that, no. I'm actually fairly good at following the movies (or novels): the plot, the character motivations, etc. I like movies and I like writing movie reviews.

In a way, it's much easier to figure people's motivations and feelings in a movie than in real life.

I keep noticing unimportant things.

I have a tendency to construct elaborate interpretations based on unimportant-in-hindsight details but there's always some kind of discrepency, and then I ask someone else about the meaning of a particular event, and then the lightbulb goes off.

This doesn't happen with every movie, it's mostly the more complex "fantasy" type of movies.

This.

And I can't seem to get the whole big picture of the many plots and sub plots. I used to watch such movies with friends until they got tired of all the questions I was asking.

So now I watch movies by myself and have to watch them over and over again. Lately it's been Inception. I had to watch it over 15 times to finally understand about 75% of it.

I notice very small details. I have no trouble at all understaning the plot or people's emotions. I think it is much easier than understanding people in real life.
I enjoy movies because I feel more of an emotioanal connection with the characters than I can with actual humans.

When I first saw Star Wars when I was 9 I didn't even realize that moves had plots. I spent the whole time getting chills from watching the costumes and the cool set design stuff in the background. I.e. wondering/imagining what each of the buttons on Darth Vader's chest were for.

I can now usually figure out the plot of a film after 3 or more viewings, but my tendency is still to end up understanding only isolated parts and having trouble figuring out how they fit together. I think part of it is, like others have mentioned, trouble distinguishing similar-looking actors from each other. But there is another part that seems cognitive. When I had neuropsych testing, there was a test where I was read a story, and then I had to summarize and explain the story back. It was really freakin' hard, and was one of my lowest scores.

Inception is an overrated mess (my opinion, of course, but it... well, is). Nobody understands it because it's purposely made to be confusing in order to appear "deep".

Chris Nolan wrote the movie and he is very wordy with his movies. I am used to his style. Just as I watched mememto and the Prestige so many times to get those movies too.

Inception isn't nearly as deep and confusing as the media makes it out to be. It's actually rather cut and dried. This article from Cracked rightfully lambasted people for overthinking the ending.

I notice all the small details too, I have a hard time keeping track of the plot most of the time but I try my best to stop noticing all the unimportant things.

I can sort of relate. Like when I'm watching a movie where a place is set to self-destruct, and the automated voice says "3 minutes to detonation" but when the good guys are escaping one of them dies and the other good guys mourn their friends' death in a conversation that easily lasts longer than three minutes. Using a stopwatch at home, it occurs to me how unrealistic those scenarios are.

I always look at the wikipedia page of a movie after I watch it so I understand what was going on.