Four Movies and a Rant on Unhappy Endings

[thehefner]

CITY OF GOD: It's kinda hard for a movie to live up to so much hype that Roger Ebert proclaims it to be "One of the greatest movies you will ever see!" but after the inital disappointment faded and I was able to think about it, CITY OF GOD was one damn great movie. The Gangs of New York still exist, they're just in Rio by the sea-o these days. A very powerful movie. And if I learned anything, it's these two things- NEVER go to Rio, and apparantly every single person there regardless of age, profession, or income smokes pot. Who knew?

BIG WEDNESDAY: You would never think to watch this movie in a million years. You'd see it in the store and dismiss it out of hand. Lord knows I did. And why? Because it's a surfing movie? Quienten Tarantino once said, "Surfers don't deserve this movie." This is the film that should have made the director stand alongside other 70's film masters like Scorcese, Lucas, Speilberg, Peckinpaw, and (I grudgingly admit) DePalma, yet the film bombed and fell into obscurity. That is, save for a small cult and the Europeans; the Italians hold this movie as one of the greatest of all time, up there in reverence with THE GODFATHER. Yet you've never even heard of this movie, right? I finally bit the bullet and rented the thing, still not won over by the concept of watching Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, and Gary Busey as surfers. Holy shit, what an amazing movie. Rent now. Seriously. A low-key and moving gem of a film.

HART'S WAR: Ok. From now on, whenever fiveseconddelay says "Watch this movie," you frickin' watch it. This is another movie that I, like most of America, dismissed out of hand. One look at that trailer and that DVD cover and I went "Ok, I know exactly what that movie is. Yawn. Next?" Holy shit, I was not expecting the punch in the gut that this movie was. I can tell you exactly why this movie came and left the theatres in a week. First, it was marketed as a war action movie. And secondly, it depicted everyone, even the bigots and the Nazis, as realistic, human, and sympathetic. I was on the edge of my seat this entire film, utterly enthralled. This has some of the best, most complex characters I have ever seen in a movie. Every single character is rich and complex. There are plenty of detractors for this film, but the criticims all seem to amount to people just bitching about how unrealistic it was. Fuck them. Seriously, this is one of those occasions where head needs to be removed from ass and enjoy. These are probably the same people who bitch about "Hogan's Heroes" being unrealistic. Fuck them. This is an amazing movie, and along with BIG WEDNESDAY, may be one of my new all-time favorites.

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO: Ok. This movie? For an hour and twenty-five minutes, I was convinced that this film would be the end result of a perfect triple shot, alongside HART'S WAR and BIG WEDNESDAY as one of my new favorites. I'd heard a lot about this film from critics I trusted. Woody Allen himself considers this the best movie he's ever done. I wish I actually hadn't known the film's premise, because I wish I could have been utterly floored by the utter beautiful magic of this film. Regardless, this film was one of the most wonderful, joyous, and truly magical movies I've seen in recent memory. It's pure, moving delight, sweet and tender and utterly wonderful. And then Allen dropped that bomb of an ending on us. I won't go into details as to what happened, but for the sake of spoilers, I'll discuss behind the cut.



Look, I am all for unhappy endings. KING LEAR is my favorite play of all time. I think there's something beautiful in a great tragedy. And I also know that this ending is the very reason Woody Allen made this movie. Apparantly the studio told him that if he changed it to a happy ending, the movie would have been a hit. I think they were right, but he firmly believed in it and kept it as such. And I read the arguments from the snooty film snobs on imdb's message boards all orgasiming over this ending, saying it was perfect and wonderful and they loved it.

I feel like I'm going to betray every film snobbery in my being and give in to mouth-breathing plebianism... but merciful christ, I hated hated HATED this ending. There's a sad ending, then there's what Allen did here, which was create a beautiful, funny, magic film and then, whup! Pull the carpet out from under you and shove a giant finger at the audience, as if to scream, "FUCK YOU! THERE ARE NO HAPPY ENDINGS IN REAL LIFE AND YOU'RE STUPID FOR WANTING ONE!"

I was so upset over this movie that I couldn't sleep. Well, ok, I was upset over other things too, but I at least might have fallen asleep around 2ish if I hadn't seen this movie. Put this movie alongside the musical LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS as rare instances where there needed to be a happy ending. In many ways, this tops THE HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, a beautiful tragedy that was going something utterly beautiful before the half-baked subplot caught up to it and utterly betrayed the rest of the film, turning it all into a parody of what people think of how an arthouse drama must end, or something.

If you have seen any of these films and have thoughts to share, by all means do. I'm very interested in hearing yer thoughts. In the meantime, I'm gonna polish off my next Hefner Monologue.

Comments

[lonebear.livejournal.com]

the last two movies with Bruce Willis I have seen have ended with him in the same condition.

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

If I saw a movie called Big Wednesday at the rental shop, I would get it just for the title, because a video game character I get a big kick out of says "Big Wednesday" with one of his attacks. (Only he sas it more like "Biiiiiiig WENZDAY!") The fact that it's about surfers would only amuse me further, and send me into fond memories of watching Surf Ninjas.

I like cheesy action films.