Yeah--a commenter on John's blog said:

The first... say... 2/3? of The Bourne Ultimatum actually takes place - temporally speaking - during the last (rough guess) 15 minutes of The Bourne Supremacy.

I just need a more granular breakdown.

I fell asleep watching Buffalo '66. I wasn't digging it. Is there any reason why I should go back and watch the ending?

Well, there's always the chance that watching it means you'll be the one to snap and put an end to Vincent Gallo's filmmaking career...

I'm not sure the Bourne thing gets one anywhere. It's a neat trick, but then what? I'm going to see the movie again in a few weeks when Bob comes home, maybe I'll figure it out then.

For some reason I thought Buffalo '66 originated as a Steppenwolf play. If this is typical of Gallo's work I guess I can knock Brown Bunny off the queue too.

I guess what I want to know is if it's a trick, or if it is solid through and through. For which I'd need to watch #2 again, and actually have been looking at the screen at the relevant points of #3. Which, NSM.

if it's a trick, or if it is solid through and through.

I think it's an unhappily-mashed timeline, i.e. you had WHAT happen all in six weeks? but the timeline is consistent. The scenes are verbatim the same, although shot differently. (The thing I was noticing was that, in #2, it's winter in Russia, but the coda in #2 was shot on a sunny/no-snow day in New York. The same scene in #3 reveals that it is, in fact, also winter in New York, as it would be only six weeks later than #2.)

Is there something specific you're looking for that would reveal it as a trick? To my eye, it appeared solid, or moreso than I expected out of a major motion picture.

I love when something plays out like they knew they were going for this the whole time--I kinda liked #2, and will be happy to watch it again.

I just got out of Bourne Ultimatum--liked it a lot, more than the second film (even though that one did have Karl Urban), almost as much as the second (that one did have more heart than this one).

ita, about the plot point you're referrring to, I was waiting for that moment from about the time he was in Madrid. I just had a feeling it would pop up again, because I couldn't figure out when else he would have gone to NYC for that final scene in Supremacy. Sure enough, as soon as he was looking at her through the monocular across the street, I knew he'd be calling. I thought that Straitharn was great (as usual), and Julia Stiles was definitely improved over the past two films. But having Albert Finney pop up at the end was a bit disconcerting--in that photo with the Madrid station chief, he looked a lot like Brian Cox .

I love Straitharn.

I love Straitharn.

Oh, yes. Me, too!