Wild Things is worth watching for the twisting bodies if nothing else (someone had to say it)
The ending to Kissed really surprised me. I saw it on IFC and the description was something along the lines of: “A young woman’s boyfriend helps her overcome her necrophilia.”
Since one and only one character in the film was told “They don’t see each other.” One cannot logically jump to the conclusion that this in any way affects other characters. One person was told one fact that is utterly useless in the “twist” version but explains entirely a key aspect of the “no twist” version.
When a major character provides key pieces of information, they are not killing screen time. It means something. Brain cells start operating.
Short Guy’s statement in fact pretty much exemplifies the kind of reasoning I’m seeing here. You’re going to have to go a couple of order of magnitude better than that to demonstrate your cases.
Here’s Yet Another Obvious Thing that anyone watching T6thS couldn’t help but notice:
BW goes into his home and his widow is chilled suddenly (and gets an afghan). Gee, that’s just like when the ghosts show up in HJO’s home! What an amazing coincidence! You’re telling me that there are people who didn’t notice this???
About other movies and such:
SWEP5:TESB and “Luke, I am your father.”:
This is not a twist for “Empire” but is one for “Jedi”. In “Last Hope” and “Empire” the setup is that Vader is the clone of Luke’s father and that Vader killed Luke’s father in the Clone Wars. Hence, claiming to be Luke’s father is just a disengiuous ploy on Vader’s part. That “Jedi” throws this out and takes it literally is a twist. (And the beginning of the decline of the SW franchise.)
One of my favorite films of a year ago was “Adaptation”. It contains surprises and twists. (In fact, I consider the whole movie one extended plot twist.) Here’s an example of one of each from “Adaption”.
When Chris Cooper is backing out of the driveway and wham, there’s a big accident. Takes your breath away. Now we were told his mother had died and his wife divorced him and that this was part of the tale as to how those things came about. But that big wham was surprise.
A plot twist was that CC and Meryl Streep actually did find the Ghost Orchid, etc.
Now, I don’t want anybody to tell me either about twists or surprises ahead of time. But telling me a surprise only ruins that moment of the film. Telling me about a twist ruins a good size chunk, if not all, of the film. (But many people seem to think any surprise is a plot twist.)
Telling people about what’s up with BW in T6thS doesn’t ruin the film. It’s still a very enjoyable film. It was clearly designed to be enjoyed at that level.
As to what people think is an attitude problem on my part, let’s return to WoOz. I seriously doubt most adults first seeing this film wouldn’t realize that Oz is all part of a hallucination after Dorothy’s concussion. Shoot, most kids should be smart enough to catch it right away as well. I have no idea how young I was when I first saw it, but I could tell nightmares from reality.
If someone says there is no twist regarding this in the WoOz, are they insulting the ones who think there is? Hardly. But the ones who argue the twist point have some major explaining to do.
ftg,
I for one am still interested in hearing your definition of “plot twist”. I’m not trying to start an argument, honest, I’m just curious as to how you define that term.
The twist was that the killer (played by Kevin Spacey) had murdered the younger detective’s wife and had mailed her head in a box to the deserted area where he said he’d show them everything. In doing so, he was able to complete his plan of acting out and punishing the 7 deadly sins (the detective felt wrath because Spacey, who was envious of the detective’s seemingly perfect life, killed his wife).
Although I expected that
The box would contain the baby his wife was carrying.
What? Nobody mentioned Pulp Fiction yet?
Now that’s a film like a roller coaster ride. You think you know what’s going to happen in the next scene and then Bam! something comes in out of left field. In many places.
I only skimmed to see if anyone had mentioned it.
Kill Bill Volume 1 isn’t on DVD/VHS yet, but go to the theatre to see it if you can. It’s pretty linear all the way through, up until the last few lines of the movie, and then you’re just blown away by the new information given to you.
God I loved that ending 
it just made me squirm for the sequel!
Try Traces of Red, with Jim Belushi (it’s not a comedy).
Art
The David Mamet movie Homicide has a pretty good twist in it.
I’ll second the recommendation of Sleuth - the movie has enough twists in it to make a challah.
Well, M. Night Shyamalan’s movies are all about the twists, and his upcoming film The Village, I hear, is no exception. But, it sounds like the ending will feature what is possibly the worst plot twist in the history of filmmaking, an ending so stupid that it makes you angry.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that the film is about a small village of people living in rural Pennsylvania in 1896. Mysterious creatures dwell in the woods surrounding the village, making strange noises. The people of the village never leave, and no danger ever comes to the village, so they are safe, until the creatures start to enter the village and cause trouble. Why is this happening, you might ask?
Well, here’s the big secret, according to various places on the 'net, and I encourage you to read it so that you can avoid this movie as well and not feel ripped off by the ridiculous “twist”:
The big reveal is, it’s not 1896, it’s 2004, and the noises are caused by heavy logging equipment nearby. The people of the village are basically very isolated Amish people. The “mysterious markings” and “safe/danger colors” are just the marks that loggers put on trees to designate which to cut; yellow means don’t cut, red means cut. The loggers think the village is abandoned because the people of the village hide whenever they come near, so they plan to tear it down.
Two points-- one, I don’t know why people are slamming this twist already; there’s nothing remotely stupid about it, and if done well (as Shyamalan has proved he can do, to wit the corny twist in Unbreakable) it could feasibly score big.
Two, just found out the spolier tag doesn’t translate into the new, include-message-in-notification-email system here. Good thing I’d already known The Village’s twist when Max’s message just came through.
Good for Max, I should say. 
I’m not sure that it fits the strict form of “There is [an] underlying assumption that is turned on its ear at the end of the movie.” but Das Boot has an ending that left me slack-jawed.
After seeing them clawing and fighting to survive, to live, and then to make it back home, the straffing run that kills pretty much everyone just as the arrive in port and wipes away the struggle of the last few hours just blew me away.
Hey, don’t blame me for stuff that’s beyond my control. Stuff that’s beyond my control includes: putting unboxed spoilers in email notifications (board admins), psychically knowing who gets email notifications (you), and writing the dumbest plot twist ending in human history (Shyamalan).
I remembered this thread, and just thought of a movie that is a perfect fit. I feel compelled to share it, so you will have to forgive my resurrecting this thread, and the thread is much older than I remembered, but anyway …
The movie Fallen has a good twist ending. I haven’t seen it in a couple of years, but I remember being really surprised, and I liked the movie overall.
“The time I almost died …” Indeed!
I did a quick “find” search, and it doesn’t seem anyone mentioned it. I would have expected more from the SDMB! This is a great twist ending!
Seriously? I’ve NEVER heard that this was ever intended. Was this really what they were trying to do?
Yeah, gotta agree there. With over 25 years of serious SW reading and analyzing behind me I’ve got to say that I have NEVER seen anything like that proposed by anyone connected to the films.
Trying to decide whether The Limey has a twist
or merely poignant/ironic circularity
The DVD for Barton Fink is even worse. It plays a clip from the end of the movie before you even get to the main screen, which not only reveals something of a twist (not a BIG twist, something you suspect but are not sure of) but is also one of the most dramatic scenes in the entire movie. Why the HELL did they do that? Did they assume everyone who bought the DVD had already seen the movie?
David Mamet was mentioned before – “The Spanish Prisoner” and “Glengarry Glen Ross” are two more DM movies that have nice twists.
EZ
The only twist I can think of is in regards to Mr. Orange and his wound, but toher then that, I can’t think of any twist.