Inglourious Basterds is a great example of the latter. Begins with an incredibly suspenseful and emotionally heart-wrenching scene with the French guy having to point out the Jews he was hiding under his floor boards to the Nazis. Remains an incredibly suspenseful and violent film, until… the final chapter in the movie theater. (The absurd scene between the 3 basterds pretending to be Italian and Landa was one of the funniest scenes I’d ever seen).
Nothing But Trouble changed from… well something… into… ummm, something else. Not sure what, but I did love the movie.
The People Under the Stairs - anyone remember this one? This was a strange one. Most of the movie was a sorta bizarre, surreal, mysterious thriller… and it ended as a black neighborhood empowerment thing. I most certainly did not see that coming.
Fight Club doesn’t change in tone quite so much as meaning – it starts out saying, “this is awesome!” and ends saying, “man, that was a terrible idea.” The transition is more explicit in the book, which is why a lot of folks who’ve only seen the movie seem to think it’s actually promoting the “fight club” concept.
Also, trying desperately to avoid spoilers, Gregg Araki’s film Kaboom! has a twist towards the end that aggressively recolors the whole thing. It’s not exactly darker or lighter, but…different.
The underappreciated French horror film Martyrs is a great example of this. You know from the opening moments that it’s horror, but it works intelligently with conventions of the genre to bring it all around to a very different emotional atmosphere by the end. Highly recommended (but not for the faint-hearted).
Operation Endgame stars the great comedy actors Zack Galifianakis, Rob Corddry, Adam Scott, Bob Odenkirk, and Tim Bagley, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Hitchcock and Ellen Barkin in funny roles. You could make a damn fine comedy with those folks.
Corddry is hilarious right off the bat and his scenes with Hitchcock and Bagley, and Barkin will have you rolling. The rest, not a single joke, and the movie turns into something else entirely about 15 minutes in.
The Shape of Things. Talk about pulling the rug out from under you! In case anyone wants to watch it, I’ll spoiler: Most of the movie plays like a romance. IIRC, there’s a bit of drama, but mostly it’s pretty light: a romance where the girl gives the guy a makeover and turns him into someone much more suave and confident. And then we find out that it was all a fucked up project of hers, and she has their whole relationship and his change on display in a kind of art installation, and he’s completely publicly humiliated. She’s a total sociopath. It’s one of the more disturbing movies I’ve seen.
I watched Barton Fink recently. I’m not sure if it changes in tone so much as follow its tone to its natural conclusion. It seemed to be a lot like a Sam Shepard play; it starts out a little strange, gradually gets weirder, and then winds up so surreal that it doesn’t even bother being a coherent story anymore. The weirdening process is pretty steady throughout the movie, though.
adds votes for “the devil’s advocate” and “from dusk till dawn”, both of which i was watching with no idea of the plot, etc. freaked the hell out of me in a good way.
the french film ‘a ma soeur’ also had an ending that shocked me, possibly more than i had ever been shocked by a film - it seemed so unexpected. it had been a very vocal film about two young girls and their attitudes towards relationships and sex, and, then, whammo
speaking of shocking endings, i would also suggest takashi miike’s “dead or alive”, but i guess i’m getting towards a different thread here…
one movie that may come under this or may just be that i watched it with the wrong idea of the type of film it was is “the swimmer”
all i knew of this was that an old levi jeans advert was based on it, where a guy went through a load of people’s back yards and swimming pools (to the tune of dinah washington singing mad about the boy, i think). i had nothing else to do, the film had only been on a couple of minutes, and i watched it, knowing nothing else about it. it started off all sunny, and he was talking with his mates about how he could get home by swimming through all his friends’ swimming pools. i was NOT prepared for what happened. what a traumatic couple of hours considering i wasn’t ready for it. i love that film, but might not have if i had been prepared for what happened.
Being John Malkovich comes to mind. Also W. (Dubya) started out like a series of skits from Saturday Night Live and gradually ended on a serious (and yawn inducing) note as well.
in a good way.