Posted on 07/30/2006 1:02:24 PM PDT by MotleyGirl70
I've seen Chinatown a dozen times, and while it's a great movie, two specific things about it stick in my mind: Jack Nicholson's bandaged nose and the final line of dialogue. Acting, directing, a great script
these are essential to any film. But a classic ending, now that can really make a movie.
We spent literally months brainstorming and corralling the 50 films with the absolute best endings we've ever seen. We're not talking about the last half hour. We mean the last minute of movie. You know, the ending.
Needless to say you can consider this entire article one monster SPOILER ALERT. Most of the films here are classics that you've probably seen several times over. But if not, skip past the ones you haven't seen and put 'em in your rental queue, otherwise you're going to ruin a whole lot of good films. Check out the flicks and we promise you won't be disappointed when the credits roll. As always, apologies in advance for the ones we stupidly forgot (and we know you'll be writing to let us know -- yes, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, Seven, Carrie, we're sorry!).
- Christopher Null, Editor-in-Chief
I haven't seen Perdition. One movie just popped into my head, and again, it's because the ending, like Deliverance, has been copied so many times. At the end of American Graffitti, the senior portraits of the four main characters popped up on the screen and it told what happened to them in later life. American Graffitti 2 sort of ruined it, as it revised Terry "the toad" from being someone who tragically died in the war (reported MIA) to being a deserter. However, Animal House copied it, and it's become a staple ending to quite a few movies. I thought of it when you mentioned the ending to Unbreakable.
Mrs. Doubtfire
and
Forrest Gump
were good?
I grew up around Lutherans and Catholics, mostly. Each was so sure the other was going to hell. Now, a lot of them are working together to be sure the ROPers and their ACLU enablers don't take the country to hell. I beleive cooperation with friends is far more important than squabbling over some doctrinal issue with which you or I may happen to disagree. I've never understood the hostility that Jews and Mormons generate among some who call themsleves Christian.
I love "Brigham City." Intense.
As a Mormon Christian, I've never understood it and I never will.
As a HUGE honking fan of Back to the Future, Sean O'Connell couldn't be more wrong. Screenwriter/director Robert Zemeckis and co-writer Bob Gale have said time and time again (pun intended) that they had no intention of making a sequel. If they had, they insist, they never would have had Marty McFly's girlfriend Jennifer go to 2015 in the DeLorean!
But Zemeckis and Gale did put her in the car, so when the movie became an international sensation and Universal naturally demanded a sequel, it became necessary to remove Jennifer from most of the action! That's why minutes after the action is resumed in Future II in the flying time machine, Dr. Brown knocks her unconscious with a device shining light in her eyes, and she is left in an alley out cold while Marty and Doc save the future of Marty Jr. Eventually, she is left on the front porch of her childhood home, still unaware, where she remains until the final minutes of Future III, having no clue of the Wild West adventure Marty and Doc have lived.
Although the dialogue was decidedly corny, I loved the ending to Future III, which said plainly "The End." Zemeckis and Gale left no doubt that III was enough, and there will be NO Future IV. While I wouldn't want to see another movie with Marty and Doc (not too many movies have more than one sequel with the quality intact), I would love to see something with Jules and Verne, Doc's sons. But then again, I would like to be able to fly like Superman, and that's not happening either.
It's a Wonderful Life is the greatest movie ever made, IMHO. I once considered writing a book about it, line by line, but decided it would take more time than I have.
Every year when it is played on NBC, somebody in the news that night turns out to have done something rash that makes me think s/he should have seen Wonderful Life and re-evaluated their actions. For instance, the day the movie played in 1999, Carolina Panthers receiver Rae Carruth was arrested (and eventually convicted) for ordering a drive-by shooting that killed the woman bearing his unborn child. Another year as I was watching it, a woman who was despondent over issues in her personal life jumped out of a corporate jet to her death.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1674923/posts
Your help would be appreciated.
"As a Mormon Christian..."
Again, Mormonism uses the name of Jesus Christ, but redefines Him to no longer be the Biblical definition of the only God of all universes, but instead you have Him as one of multiple gods,the god of "this" universe. And that is a different Jesus, which Paul said is anathema. Mormonism is not a Christian religion or sect or denomination.
Saying this was not "hostility" against you, but rather love, speaking the truth.
We must actually fight the terrorists, if we care about the peoples whose countries are being destroyed-- we do it because we care for them. So too, speaking the truth about the real Jesus is love, not hostility.
Jesus Christ is the ONE Redeemer, Savior and Lord of all creatures, everywhere. That is what I believe. That is what I know. And that is what my Church teaches, regardless of what you may have heard to the contrary.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with the original topic of this thread, so I will leave it at that.
Oh! Duel is an excellent film! I haven't seen that in years. Is it available on DVD?
Well, if you believe that, then you should leave Mormonism, because that is not their official doctrine. And if they tell you it is, they are trying to deceive you or are ignorant themselves.
Research it, any GOOD encyclopedia. I'm not making up what they hold. The men become gods after life, on their own planets. Rather than the Christian Jesus who is eternally God the Son, the Mormon Jesus is the spirit-brother of Lucifer, because God had sex with Eve. All kinds of malarky they veil from you. They say Jesus is the "only God with which we have to do" making it sound like there's only one, but they admit believing there are other gods in other universes.
Sorry for getting the thread off topic.
I agree. It's a great ending in its amibiguity.
I loved that ending.
I'll have to get that one. Hey, I love the old Disney movies and the Harry Potter movies...I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.
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