Day: April 1, 2023

It needs to be said that a film that ends with a great final shot does not necessarily deliver a big twist or surprise (Planet of the Apes) or provide a satisfying, soothing feeling of emotional closure (i.e., Wes Anderson‘s Rushmore).

Truly great endings, rather, are ones that hold and fascinate because of an unexpected (and yet perfectly on-target) feeling of irony. Anything with a certain focus or visual strategy that takes you a little bit by surprise. Content, of course, but primarily style, panache, decisiveness.

The very last shot of The Godfather (i.e., the door closing upon Diane Keaton as she contemplates her future with Al Pacino) is one of the greatest of all time.

Keir Dullea‘s star child gazing down at the earth at the close of 2001: A Space Odyssey, for sure.** The closing shot of Carol Reed‘s The Third Man is a deservedly admired classic. The final image in North by Northwest (i.e., Cary Grant‘s penis train roaring into Eva Marie Saint‘s vagina tunnel) is brilliant. In Kubrick’s The Killing, that shot of the cops approaching a distraught Sterling Hayden as they emerge from an airline terminal is a knockout.

The last shot of Brokeback Mountain (“Jack, I swear”) is excellent. Ditto Fight Club (i.e., collapsing buildings), Cabaret (i.e., a Nazi armband spotted in the crowd), and that lingering closeup of Timothee Chalamet at the end of Call Me By Your Name. The final shot of Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Blow-Up (David Hemmings vaporizes) is a keeper; ditto the bravura ending of The Passenger.

Which others?

** The exploding nuclear weapons at the end of Dr. Strangelove don’t count because they’re a montage, not a single shot.

Quentin Tarantino, 60, has said that The Movie Critic will be his last directing effort because he doesn’t want to succumb to a gradual decline period, which tends to happen, he believes, when directors get into their 60s. Yes, Alfred Hitchcock went into a slow decline after The Birds (Marnie is abundant proof of that) and Stanley Kubrick had arguably begun to lose his edge (certainly compared to the filmmaker he was in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s) when he made Eyes Wide Shut. But otherwise there are several holes in QT’s analysis.

Clint Eastwood was still cooking with good gas when he made 2008’s Gran Torino at age 77 or thereabouts. John Huston was the same age (77 or thereabouts) when he hit a grand slam with Prizzi’s Honor (’85). There’s no indication that 80-year-old Martin Scorsese is currently off his game, or that he was slippin’ when he made The Irishman (’19). In his early 80s Sidney Lumet delivered a career-crowning one-two punch with Find Me Guilty (’06) and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (’07). Woody Allen‘s last three exceptional films — Match Point (’05), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (’08) and Midnight in Paris (’11) — were made when he was 69, 72 and 75.

Other exceptions are…?

[Originally posted on 12.9.21] There’s a famous bit in The Empire Strikes Back (’80) when the Millennium Falcon won’t turn over and so Han Solo twice slams a console with his fist and wham…it’s working again.

There’s a scene in The Bridge on the River Kwai (’57) when William Holden angrily kicks a non-functioning two-way radio, and suddenly it’s working again.

There’s a scene in The Hot Rock (’72) in which a police precinct captain (William Redfield) is told by a subordinate that a phone isn’t working, and he asks “well, did you jiggle it? Did you…you know, fiddle around with it?”

There’s a scene in The Longest Day (’62) where Capt. Colin Maud (Kenneth More) walks up to a stalled vehicle during the D-Day invasion and says, “My old grandmother used to say, ‘Anything mechanical, give it a good bash.'” He hits the vehicle and it starts right up.

And don’t forget that moment in Armageddon (’98) when Peter Stormare said “this is how we fix things in Russia!” and then whacked an engine with a wrench.

In 2010 my last and final Windows laptop (I had more or less become a Mac person two years earlier) stopped working in some fashion — it was acting all gummy and sluggish — and so I decided to bitch-slap it a couple of times. Instead of suddenly springing to life, the laptop more or less died. Violence, I realized with a start, was not the answer. Times and technology had changed.

I resolved at that moment never to try and William Holden or Harrison Ford or Peter Stormare or Kenneth More or William Redfield my way out of a technical problem again.

Sharon Acker, the actress who, at 30, portrayed Lynne Walker, the moody, vacantly unfaithful wife of Lee Marvin’s lead character in John Boorman‘s Point Blank (’67), has passed at age 87.

Lynne (the sister of Angie Dickinson‘s Chris) was the best role Acker ever had. Her single best moment was when she sat on a couch and explained to Marvin what had happened, why she “couldn’t make it” with him, why she betrayed him with John Vernon‘s Mal Reese, etc.

THR reports that Acker died March 16 (15 days ago) in a retirement home in her native Toronto.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu made a reasonably good impression last night on Real Time with Bill Maher. Only 48 years old and obviously sane and plain-spoken and given to joking and smiling, he would be a much more appealing alternative to Joe Biden than Orange Plague, who might be able to win the Republican nomination but can’t possibly win.

Sununu said last night he would support Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee, but that was only to placate the rural morons.

The Sununu name carries a terrible stain, but it’s the fault of Gov. Sununu’s father, John, who almost single-handedly blocked and ruined the fight against climate change back in the mid ’80s.

There were at least three or four teachers I used to dream about “doing” during class in junior and senior high. Instead of paying attention to their impossibly boring instruction I would dream about unzipping their dresses, watching them bathe, etc. It was my great misfortune that teachers didn’t start “doing” their students in any appreciable degree until the 21st Century.

@michael_mc_crory #1965 #students #reaction #funny #teacher #beautiful #usa #america #unitedstates ♬ original sound – Westfast Live

But the bit doesn’t work because this woman (great scarf, violet-tint hair) isn’t even a little bit “chubby.” So the whole bit falls apart…sorry.

Anthony Bourdain: “Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.

“Actually, hold on. I feel like shit. Life itself is shit. My soul is drowning in it. My crazy girlfriend and I have no rules, but she’s making a show of fucking some guy in Rome right now, essentially throwing it in my face, and I feel really stunned and bruised and turned around. You know what? Fuck it — I’m going to hang myself in the bathroom.”