But even if you knew what the “secret” was, the way it was revealed was still shockingly in-your-face, with Dil’s penis suddenly right in front of Fergus when he was expecting something else, and Fergus then hitting her and getting sick. Showing male genitals, especially close up, was very rare in those days, and shocking in and of itself. And while movies had shown female full-frontal, and occasionally male full-frontal, I don’t think any mainstream movie had shown a transgender individual like that.
Mine would be in Bridge to Terabithia when Leslie dies.
I was like ‘no, wait a minute…’
I didn’t think the movie was going to be like that.
Well, I’m a woman so getting surprise dicks shoved in my face isn’t nearly as shocking as it might be to some. 
For me, this just wasn’t an especially jarring reveal.
Oh, man. My husband and I watched Bridge to Terabethia while on a relaxing cruise. We were expecting whimsical fantasy. Instead we got devestating reality.
and 98 percent of it was true …all they did was change the names …
Rather like The Hunt for Red October where the crew of the boat spoke subtitled Russian for a few minutes, then switched to Russian-accented English for the rest of the movie.
There’s often a moment of transition to make the switch to English less jarring in such movies, like when the Colombian drug lord whacked a baseball in Clear and Present Danger.
Truth be told, neither Connery’s nor Neill’s Russian was really worth dragging out.
One of the worst things about the mini-series Ameяika was Neill’s faltering attempts to speak Russian. They were really painful to the ear.
I’m not sure if it was used in The Hunt for Red October, but there’s a cinematic device for alerting the audience that the filmmakers are turning on the “universal translator”. They slowly zoom into the foreign language speaker’s mouth and as soon as they zoom out, he’s speaking English.
I actually rewatch the movie often whenever I catch it on TV. But I have to look away during that scene, every time.
Ooh! Just made me remember the scene where the guy gets curb stomped in American History X. That totally shocked me.
They use exactly that technique while a Soviet officer is reading a religious passage out loud and use the word “Armageddon” as the switch since it’s the same in both languages.
I was under the impression that THfRO invented that technique, but I’m probably wrong.
I liked what they did in Jackie Chan’s ‘Rumble in the Bronx’ when the uncle picks him up at the airport - they start talking in chinese and the uncle says “We’re in america - we should talk in english now”
Planet of the Apes was ruined for me when one of my friends blabbed the twist ending. But it probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway. Analytical me, even at that age, would’ve been saying “That doesn’t make any sense…”
Psycho was also spoiled for me. I probably would’ve liked that one.
I think the best shocks were from movies with real twists in them. I had no idea what was coming when I first saw The Sting, which had several such mini-twists, and at least two major ones.
Similarly, The Last of Sheila had multiple little twists, followed by two big ones.
And I was also taken in, pleasantly, by The Sixth Sense. Although, unfortunately, not by any of Shyamalan’s later films.
Charade was filled with multiple reversals, and one big reveal at the end. I also give credit to Body Heat and The Flight of the Phoenix for their twists.
In 36 Hours, Rod Taylor gets himself (and all the other Nazis) out of having to speak German by insisting they stay in character and speak only English.
Mel Brooks did it in To Be or Not to Be several years earlier: Brooks and Bancroft sing “Sweet Georgia Brown” in Polish and after they’re done a narrator says they’re going to switch to English to avoid driving the audience mad.
[quote=“terentii, post:142, topic:920807”]
How this was possible after having had no contact with Earth for 100 years was not explained. Neither was how the rest of the Romulan crew apparently knew English as well.
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As we all know, television signals from Earth are transmitted throughout the galaxy. The Romulans, Klingons, etc., learned English by watching old American TV reruns. Easy peasy.
Ahh - the ‘historical documents’ - those poor people.
Which is why when a Klingon superior officer banishes a subordinate from a combat role he snarls:
“vavlI’ Qu’ vIDelmeH jIghoSchoHmo’!”
Which is a loose translation of:
“Now Lucy, you can’t be in my show, and that’s final!”
Judgment at Nuremburg (1961) did something like that while Maximilian Schell was speaking German. When they zoomed back out, everyone in the film was speaking English.