Friday, 26 October 2007
Bland Finale: How Not To End A Picture
posted @12:31 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Another gem from Listmania 2007! Henrik Hansen's 'Ten Otherwise Wonderful Movies Let Down by a Naff Ending.' The written word can't entirely do justice to the performative vigour Henrik brought to his argument on the night, but you will certainly see how one man's incensement can be presented for the amusement of many. Henrik also exposes the base logic of Hollywood storytelling to a scrutiny that ought to make studio development types wake up and smell the coffee...
HENRIK HANSEN'S LIST
There's nothing worse than enjoying a movie, only to be let down by a horrible ending.
10. The Lion King (1994) Roger Allers/ Rob Minkoff
Simba, a lion, meets up with Scar, another lion and, more importantly, one who killed his father. Simba has spent a lot of time in exile, with only Rozencrantz and Guildenstern... sorry, Timon and Pumbaa, for company. So, faced with the challenge, does he defeat his enemy in mortal combat? Nah, he lets him fall to his death, proving that he, Simba, is the better man, that is to say, lion. This wouldn't be so bad, except that Disney loves death by gravity - they used it in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Beauty and the Beast and Tarzan. The villain dies without the hero being responsible! Disney heroes don't kill, they just let people die. That's rather unsettling, actually.
9. The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992) Brian Henson
Delightful movie. Who knew that fabric could make you cry like that? And then they go and let Michael Caine sing at the end. What were they thinking?
8. Throw Momma From the Train 1987 (Danny DeVito)
An enjoyable movie, but the scene at the end includes a line from director/star Danny DeVito, "Well, it's been a year," which sounded so lame. He would have done better to hold up a sign that said, "One Year Later." That would have worked.
7. 4 Weddings and a Funeral (1994) Mike Newell
Another fun movie let down by a dreadful line reading. "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed." Andie McDowell doesn't deliver a genuine line in this whole movie, but ending on this clunker was tragic.
6. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) Chris Columbus
A charming farce, as long as you don't take it too seriously. Because it’s a farce, you don’t wonder why Sally Field doesn’t twig that her new nanny is really her ex-husband in drag. I mean, come on, if you were married to Robin Williams, wouldn’t you know what he smelled like? But we let that go. Then, at the end, the cat is let out of the bag and she takes her husband to court. And the judge tells our cross-dressing hero that he needs counselling and denies him access to his kids. Cue, tears and angst from Robin Williams. You mean, we were supposed to be taking this seriously? In the "movie reality" in which most of the movie exists, the judge should have said, "Get out of here, you knuckle head! Case dismissed! Ice cream for everybody!" But the judge treats this like it actually happened in something resembling the real world. So, what kind of movie are we actually watching?
5. Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Frank Oz
It's a story we've heard so many times before: boy meets girls, boy discovers alien plant set on world domination, boy murders people to feed to the plant, boy gets girl. In the original film (1960) Roger Corman and in the stage musical, our boy Seymour, after the death of his beloved Audrey, goes into the voracious plant armed to the teeth, ready to take it down from the inside. Very dramatic and redemptive. He dies and the plant takes over the world.
But that didn't test well. So a new ending was filmed. Seymour destroys the plant and lives happily ever after with Audrey. What's a few murders between friends?
4. Noises Off (1992) Peter Bogdanovich
Another victim of a Hollywood ending, this adaptation of Michael Frayn's brilliant farce follows the downward spiral of a not so brilliant farce that gets worse and worse until it collapses completely. But someone at Walt Disney studios decided that the story needed a happy ending. So, a brief voice over at the end explains how the actors pulled up their socks, put all differences aside - even the murderous ones - and lo and behold, they had a hit. Sadly, the film wasn't as successful.
3. Superman (1978) Richard Donner
Faced with an impossible challenge - stop the bomb that's going to seriously inconvenience Lois Lane or stop the bomb that's going to blow up Hackensack, New Jersey and, more importantly, Miss Techmacher's mother - the Man of Steel chooses the latter. After all, he did promise and Miss Techmacher actually kissed him, not like Lois ever would. Sadly, he's too late to save Lois and in his grief he comes up with one real cheat of an ending. He turns the world around very, very fast and goes back in time.
So, the dilemma wasn't really so difficult, after all. And that should make any problem he ever has to face acedemic. If If it's ever getting too tough for him, all he has to do is go back in time and fix it!
2. Superman II (1980) Richard Lester
By now, he's got it down to a science. Faced with the crushingly difficult problem of what to do now that Lois knows his secret identity, he comes up with an even better cheat - kiss her extremely well and she just forgets! I wonder if Miss Techmacher suffered similar ill effects?
1. Titanic (1997) James Cameron
As a spectacle, I enjoyed this movie. But the ending was shocking. (Not that the ship went down - I saw A Night to Remember when I was a kid.) Our heroine, Rose, after living to a ripe old age, finally decides to do something with the priceless diamond she's been keeping. Does she pass it on to a beloved relative or friend? Does she sell it to help those less fortunate than herself? No, in a repulsively selfish act she throws it into the ocean. This can only be seen as romantic by people that have already thrown gazillions of dollars into the making of this film.
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