Ever see a movie (or read a book) that you weren't sure you liked 'til the end?

Cafe Society
1

Have you ever seen a movie or read a book which you weren’t sure you liked but stuck it out until the end and then you just loved? My Dinner With Andre was like this for me and my Dad. We watched it and we weren’t sure why we kept watching it. We had a sneaking suspicion it was a bad movie, but we kept at it. Finally, at the very end, we discovered we really loved it.

What are your experiences?

2

I was iffy about “What Dreams May Come” right up until the end and now it’s one of my favorite movies. Now I can watch the movie over and over being excited just to see the ending again.

3

I read Silas Marner in school. Thought it was the most boring book until about halfway through when Eppie shows up. Then it started to get intriguing. Now it’s one of my favorites.

4

When I was reading Bastard Out of Carolina, I was extremely lukewarm about it until the second to last page. Nothing like that has every happened to me before (geez, this sounds like a Penthouse Forum letter), I was going along thinking “ho hum” and then I read one paragraph and WOW my entire view of the book changed completely.

5

My mother had been badgering me for years to watch A Face in the Crowd, starring Andy Griffith.

Andy Griffith?! I shrieked.

Yep, good old Sherriff Andy.

I finally rented it one night. Took me a while to get into the mode of Andy Griffith NOT playing Sherriff Andy Taylor. Hey. No danger there. This character was straight out of the Anti-Mayberry.

But I didn’t think I liked it. Until the very end.

Major meltdown. I think it probably coined the phrase, “God, did he ever have that coming!”

It was a fabulous movie. It just took me over two hours to decide how great it really was. Also to discover how diverse Andy Griffith is as an actor.

Yes…Andy Griffith!!

[sub]I was later told that it was based on the career of Arthur Godfrey, but don’t have a cite to back it up.[/sub]

6

Re: Godfrey: here’s a cite: Gene Lees, The Singer and the Song II, Oxford UP, 1998: the essay on Julius La Rosa:

7

I had my doubts about Swimming With Sharks for much of the movie. But then it got to the ending, which really surprised me and tied up a lot of the themes of the movie. In particular, Kevin Spacey’s closing speech:

“…because life is not a movie. Everyone lies. Good guys lose. And love…does not conquer all.”

8

Well, it wasn’t one of my all-time faves, but Shining Through comes to mind.