"" - Ralph Wiggum, The Simpsons 1F17
| Blog General Travel Hockey Technical Gaming Catalogue Movies TV Shows Music Video Games Stats Pages Travel Plans Live Music Phone History Things to Do Links About Blog Archive Current Blogs June 2011 (1) January 2011 (1) 2010 (18) 2009 (28) 2008 (25) 2007 (67) 2006 (23) 2005 (32) 2004 (10) Blog Tags General 10 in '10 (4) Books (1) DVDs (3) Funny (13) Gadgets (5) Hawt (1) Movies (14) Music (7) Pets (4) Recipe (16) Running (3) TV Shows (2) Web (29) Travel Calgary (2) Edmonton (12) Kuala Lumpur (1) New York (7) Niagara Falls (2) Phuket (2) Pittsburgh (5) Washington (4) Hockey Pittsburgh Penguins (25) Technical .NET (3) Java (4) Software (3) Work (2) Gaming Commodore 64 (2) Master System (1) Mega Drive (1) Rock Band (1) Xbox 360 (16) XNA (1) The rarely updated blog of Joel Dixon | < Waltzing around West Edmonton Mall | The Little Things >Wednesday, October 24, 2007Top 5 non-Hollywood movie endings# Posted by Joel Dixon at 24/10/2007 11:08:25I was watching Without a Paddle the other day (I'm a Seth Green fan) and it wasn't too bad. But throughout the film, no matter how dim the future looked for the main characters, I knew it was all going to work out OK. A lot of movies coming out of Hollywood seem to spend most of the time trying desperately to fool you into thinking the story will end in a disaster, then do a spectacular switch-a-roo at the end. I'm also reminded of the time I watched Pirates of the Caribbean with Bell, I was really enjoying the movie until they pulled a complete Disney ending and everyone was happy (except for the bad characters). It's made me think back to the movies I've enjoyed because of an unexpectedly sad or weird ending. The death of the main character isn't enough for me, as they can be quite common especially in mafia / crime movies. There are also a lot of movies where the main character does die at the end, but everyone learns a life lesson and the world is a better place. Movies with a moral to the story don't count no matter how tragic (think Romeo and Juliet). I'm after the unexpected, coming-out-of-nowhere and for no good reason endings which aren't just a logical progression of the storyline. We need these unexpected tragic endings from time to time, to keep us honest. If there is the real threat that all of the characters contract rabies and die from a freak electric can-opener accident - you are more invested while watching the film. I will note that I am probably missing out on many other great non-Hollywood movie endings. There's many movies I've never watched (which I'm currently rectifying), so some killer endings are probably missing. If you know of any - please comment to this entry and let me know - I would be very interested. Here are my personal top 5 non-Hollywoodland movie endings: Bambi didn't make the final list - as I don't remember anything about the actual movie (including the ending). It does however get a honorable mention because I can still remember that I was extremely upset by the movie at the time. After checking out a synopsis on the Internet I can confirm - yeah, that would have upset me. A great movie that makes you think, and definitely needs to be watched twice. Guy Pearce plays a man with a weird form of amnesia in which his brain is unable to store new memories. For assistance he leaves himself a series of notes and has a number of tattoos on his body with various facts he feels are important. It wasn't the easiest movie to understand or try to guess what was coming up - but I still think the ending was notably unexpected. A top movie written by a pair of Melbourne boys - directed by one of them and the other played a main character - I blogged about this movie when I first watched it. As I said then, one of the better twist endings and completely unexpected. It's a horror movie, so you know people are going to die at the end, but there was one aspect of the finale that forced an audible gasp from me. I have to admit I didn't see the twist ending of this movie coming, and I think that was the same for a lot of people. This movie really kick started another round of the surprise twist ending for mainstream films - and at it's time of release it caught many people by surprise. This is another movie where it pays to watch it twice. This movie would easily be number 1, if they had have kept the original ending. I've kept it in my list because they have preserved the original ending in the DVD as a special feature (be sure to check it out). The story is that Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and director Rawson Marshall Thurber were very happy with the unconventional ending, but the movie studios wouldn't allow it (instead creating the bubblegum ending in place now). See the movie's Wikipedia entry for more. Easy Rider is a great movie that's clearly stood the test of time. Interesting story, pretty good soundtrack, and a brilliant performance by Jack Nicholson in his first big role (for which he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar). While I had heard of this movie for a long time (as I'm sure a lot of people have), I didn't know that the ending was going to be so unexpected. You have to watch this film if you haven't already - and then you'll definitely know what I'm getting at with this blog post. ![]() # Posted in the General section and tagged as: Movies Back to Top Comments
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