Robert Redford’s early movie, “The Hot Rock”. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, but IIRC, it was a fun-ish heist movie with light comic tones, really a nice vehicle for a young charismatic Redford. Then, near the end of the movie, they hit a snag. There was one part of the plan they just could not advance from, no matter how hard they thought on it. Their solution? They remembered an old friend, one we hadn’t met yet, that could quickly and easily hypnotize people. They just called the friend, had her hypnotize the manager(?) into opening up for them so they could get the item, and to forget about it afterwards. It’s rare to see such a clumsy deus ex machina in a major release.
This is written through a fuzzy memory filter, but the deus ex and the hypnotizing are pretty definitely right. Almost rolled my eyes out of my head.
Casino Royale was a wildly psychedelic hysterical parody, but then, I saw it on a Cinerama sized screen when I was seventeen. As for the ending, I remember going into sensory overload, whatever those Japanese kids get with their weird cartoons, as I was watching. And, it was way before my dope days. You don’t like slapstick, you don’t like slapstick. It was the perfect way to end that beautiful mess. By the way, there is a specific reason it came out that way. Different thread.
As for the ending Blazing Saddles, this comes up every now and then. You didn’t understand what you were watching. It wasn’t a funny western. It was an enormously funny satirical take down of Hollywood culture and American prejudice. What, Duke Ellington’s band in the desert was funny, but the gay dancers in tuxedos weren’t? Did you think he actually saved that town. The Nazi soldiers worked, but Dom Deluise didn’t? Sorry guys, Blazing Saddles is one of the most perfect movies ever.
“Vanilla Sky”. I’m still annoyed by this one. It was all a dream? Fuck you Cameron Crowe.
Dude, all movies are fictional. You want to tell the story of anew egotistical jerks who gets disfigured? Go right ahead. You want the story to be about how he has to learn to deal with that, forever? Sure. Or maybe he gets his disfigurement cured? He maybe learns a lesson, or doesn’t? Go ahead.
But saying half this story didn’t actually happen? None of it happened, it was Acting. It’s all fiction, that you made up. So don’t tell me half the movie was just a dream, because that’s fucking ridiculous.
I just saw Bedazzled again recently, and I find the ending of that to be rather unsatisfying. George has collected 100,000,000,000 souls with a few to spare, and he gives Stanley’s back. So George visits heaven to apply for readmission, as had apparently been agreed upon with God. But it’s some massive transgression to do something magnanimous and then have the gall to feel good about it, so God reneges, kicks George out again, and then laughs at him. George was something of a shit through the whole movie, but God turns out the be an utter bastard.
Actually, the stupid part was when the old lady threw the necklace in the ocean. She could have given it to her daughter so that they might have some financial security but nope, just throw it overboard.
I expressed my [del] blind rage[/del] disappointment over this movie in another thread but I still have plenty of hate left to share in this one.
I don’t know why I was surprised it ended the way it did. After all, the rest of the movie was utter shite so I don’t know what I was expecting. Out of courtesy I will put the rest in a spoiler box but there really isn’t anything there to spoil.
It just stops. I don’t mean it fades to black after some profound last words; it just ends at some seemingly random spot .
That was foreshadowed by the character’s interest in facial care and moisturization. And it seemed more like a another bit of mockumentary weirdness, rather than an “ending” — although it did come at the end. Also, one of the interesting things about real-life gender switching is the unexpectedness, so the film’s small bit of foreshadowing was the right amount.
About a month ago, I had the opportunity to see a presentation of Holy Grail on the big screen, followed by a talk with John Cleese. He mentioned how much he hated the ending, but mostly because of how Gilliam just dragged it out. He showed the ending from the part where they are on the steps of the castle getting shit dumped on them, describing how each part of the scene just goes on and on and on. Then he showed his edited version, which was much shorter and tighter (mostly skipping the whole army buildup sequence). There is still the non-sequitur ending, but the ending was vastly improved.
I really dislike endings like in Wild Things where you’re presented with a mystery but then the credits are “Here’s all the stuff you didn’t know so there’s no way you could have solved the riddle; aren’t we so clever?” There was some comedy-caper movie Employee of the Month that did the same thing. Probably others that don’t spring to mind. It never felt clever to me, more like someone being smug that they pulled a couple chapters out of a book so now they know more than you.
I will spoil the ending of Life, a somewhat enjoyable but progressively stupid as it went along recent Sci-Fi movie. One escape pod goes back to Earth; the other with the alien in it is headed into space to keep it from reaching Earth, with Jake Gyllenhal sacrificing himself. The two ships collide as they escape. Cut to one, cut to the other. Show the one landing in the Ocean, deploy parachutes. Medium shot.
Fishing boats see it, then slowly drive out to it. Dock. Walk up to the window…and its the alien ship! ::cue dramatic music::. Then go to black and play Spirit In The Sky. Wow. I’ve never seen a “surprise” telegraphed so ineptly. I barely had time to recover about how it was the worst edited and filmed “surprise” in recent memory before they outdid themselves by picking the fucking worst possible song to play over the end credits in that situation. Spirit in the Sky? Incredible.
Going back a way to one of my favorite movies, a perfect masterpiece right up to the final few seconds: Hell In The Pacific (1968; Lee Marvin, Toshiro Mifune).
The appropriate ending (can be seen on the DVD) was replaced with a dumbed-down metaphoric visual statement.
I’ve mentioned before how much I dislike the ending of The Caine Mutiny. After Queeg breaks down at Lt. Maryk’s court martial, Maryk and the other officers of the Caine are celebrating his acquittal. Lt. Greenwald (Maryk’s attorney) comes in and starts berating them for working against Queeg rather than helping him more when he needed it. The thing is, everyone did try to help Queeg. When the ship was towing a target for gunnery practice, someone told Queeg they were about the pass over their own tow rope. Someone told him the ship was outrunning the boats it was supposed to be escorting, and turned away too soon. Someone told him what happened to his precious strawberries. Queeg couldn’t accept that kind of help, couldn’t admit he was wrong, and couldn’t change.
Describing the incident that precipitated the mutiny, Greenwald says:
“You didn’t approve of his conduct as an officer. He wasn’t worthy of your loyalty. So you turned on him. You ragged him. You made up songs about him. If you’d given Queeg the loyalty he needed, do you suppose the whole issue would have come up in the typhoon? You’re an honest man, Steve, I’m asking you. You think it would’ve been necessary for you to take over?”
Maryk says it probably wouldn’t, but I want to scream “yes”. Queeg would have gotten the ship into that storm, and all the loyalty in the world wouldn’t have gotten it out.
As a Naval Officer, I can’t disagree with you more.
The Commanding Officer can’t do it alone, especially one like Queeg. The ship as a fighting weapon demands your best, unselfish effort. The men on this ship, deserve your unselfish effort. The Navy demands your best, unselfish effort.
I had a CO similar to him. And the XO was the upmost professional, and no matter how the CO treated him, he acted with respect and professionalism. And the XO would accept none of that public (among the Officers) criticism of the CO. And as a JO I responded to that, and frankly the confidence that we in turn showed the CO made him better.
