No, this isn't some philosophical post as I transition from one life-state to another. Just that I've seen a bunch of movies in the past month or so with really lame endings, and I felt the need to comment.
I've already talked about the unimpressive ending to the equally unimpressive Day the Earth Stood Still remake. Then I saw The One while channel-surfing one night and was left completely non-plussed by the ending of THAT cinematic gem. (Much like DtESS, I was left thinking "that's the best you could come up with?")
Last week we watched the X-Files: I Want to Believe. Overall, it wasn't bad… did a nice job of capturing the feel of the show — so good, frankly, that it felt more like an extended TV episode than any "bigger & better" X-Files Movie Event. The good stuff, for the most part, revolved around Scully & Mulder's relationship, a relationship that's nearly as mysterious as the cases they investigate. (Are they married/living together, or just f-buddies? Are they the most prickly couple in cinema, considering they still call each other by their last names?)
But the mystery itself suffered from one of the worst of X-files latent difficulties, the tendency to get so caught up in making things mysterious and spooky that the story soon stops making sense. It SEEMED like there was a lot going on, with mysterious disappearances and a possibly psychic, definitely pedophile priest… but by the time you got to the end of it, you end up with the pathetic story of a deranged gay couple killing women and, with the help of the obligatory scary Soviet doctor and his fringe science, attempting to give one of the men a woman's body. (Is it just me, or does this ring as kind of homophobic? Aside from the grisly nature of the story, if they're GAY men, then why would they be trying to transplant one guy's head onto a woman's body. Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but most of the gay men I know aren't particularly interested in women's bodies. Otherwise they might not be, you know, gay.) As the credits rolled, and I tried to sum up my reaction, the best I could manage was 'huh'. Kind of a "well, that happened" moment.
Then there's Doubt. I know, I know… 5 Academy Award nominations, brilliant performances, Pulitzer Prize winning play, blah, blah, blah. Admittedly, the performances were stellar, and Meryl Streep (who, for some reason, I've never felt as impressed with as the rest of the acting world seems to be) was devastating in her role as Sister Aloysius. But when we got to the end, and Sister Aloysius' crisis of conscience, and the final credits rolled, once again I was left thinking "I sat through the past 104 minutes for THAT?!?"
I can't tell if it's just me, or if I've just run into a string of bad movies (Academy Award nominees included), but I'm really ready for a movie with a decent ending about now.
I've already talked about the unimpressive ending to the equally unimpressive Day the Earth Stood Still remake. Then I saw The One while channel-surfing one night and was left completely non-plussed by the ending of THAT cinematic gem. (Much like DtESS, I was left thinking "that's the best you could come up with?")
Last week we watched the X-Files: I Want to Believe. Overall, it wasn't bad… did a nice job of capturing the feel of the show — so good, frankly, that it felt more like an extended TV episode than any "bigger & better" X-Files Movie Event. The good stuff, for the most part, revolved around Scully & Mulder's relationship, a relationship that's nearly as mysterious as the cases they investigate. (Are they married/living together, or just f-buddies? Are they the most prickly couple in cinema, considering they still call each other by their last names?)
But the mystery itself suffered from one of the worst of X-files latent difficulties, the tendency to get so caught up in making things mysterious and spooky that the story soon stops making sense. It SEEMED like there was a lot going on, with mysterious disappearances and a possibly psychic, definitely pedophile priest… but by the time you got to the end of it, you end up with the pathetic story of a deranged gay couple killing women and, with the help of the obligatory scary Soviet doctor and his fringe science, attempting to give one of the men a woman's body. (Is it just me, or does this ring as kind of homophobic? Aside from the grisly nature of the story, if they're GAY men, then why would they be trying to transplant one guy's head onto a woman's body. Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but most of the gay men I know aren't particularly interested in women's bodies. Otherwise they might not be, you know, gay.) As the credits rolled, and I tried to sum up my reaction, the best I could manage was 'huh'. Kind of a "well, that happened" moment.
Then there's Doubt. I know, I know… 5 Academy Award nominations, brilliant performances, Pulitzer Prize winning play, blah, blah, blah. Admittedly, the performances were stellar, and Meryl Streep (who, for some reason, I've never felt as impressed with as the rest of the acting world seems to be) was devastating in her role as Sister Aloysius. But when we got to the end, and Sister Aloysius' crisis of conscience, and the final credits rolled, once again I was left thinking "I sat through the past 104 minutes for THAT?!?"
I can't tell if it's just me, or if I've just run into a string of bad movies (Academy Award nominees included), but I'm really ready for a movie with a decent ending about now.
Comments
Go see Slumdog Millionaire.
At least you didn't say Benjamin Button.