Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Fade To Black? How Bout I Kick Your Ass?

A few years ago Rigel brought home a John Sayles movie, Limbo, for the two of us to watch. We'd liked a few of his previous ones - Lone Star and City of Hope - so we thought this one sounded interesting. Three people marooned on a desert island! One of them is David Strathairn! If that doesn't sound like pure entertainment I don't know what is.

I can't really put into words how awful this movie was, but let me just say - Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio sings. I'm not sure why we continued to watch, but it was when the kids were small and I think we were so exhausted it would have taken more energy to get up and turn off the TV than it did to just sit there and subject ourselves to the crappiness of it all.

(Okay, now I'm going to give away the ending, but only because under no circumstances should you ever have this movie in your home. Unless John Sayles delivers it to your house personally, in which case you should just grab the DVD from him and then beat him about the head with it.)

I'd describe this move as being similar to Gilligan's Island in plot, but not nearly as believable and not done nearly as well. Several times during the movie you're lead to believe they're being rescued, but then they're not. So towards the end, when you hear the sound of an airplane in the distance and then see it rise over a mountain you're thinking, "Cool. This piece of crap movie is over."

But then the screen just goes black.

And that's when I lost it. I started yelling at the TV. I had just wasted two hours of my life, only to be left with a completely unresolved ending? I was threatening to drive to John Sayles' house, set the video on fire in front of him, and then kick his ass. I remember Rigel desperately trying to hide my car keys.

In order to validate my rage I ran to my computer and looked up the movie, and the first review I read, and I swear this is true, was from a guy who said when the screen went to black his wife was so angry she started hitting him over the head with a newspaper.

Of course, this brings me to the season finale of The Sopranos. Did any of you see it? Did anyone else want to drive to David Chases' house and kick his ass? Who's with me?

I appreciate a sophisticated plot, a clever ending. I'm not some neophyte, spending all my time watching The CW. I wasn't expecting some Hallmark moment with a neat, tidy ending. But this finale wasn't arty, or intriguing or enlightening. It was a cop-out, and a letdown after watching seven seasons of this show, which felt like twenty since weren't there like two years between each season for chrissakes?

I felt like David Chase was giving me the finger.

And now I'm going to kick his ass, too.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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17 comments:

  1. John Sayles's movies are always like that for me. Not THAT bad, but somehow deeply flawed, no matter how good they are otherwise. Spike Lee, too.

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  2. I just found your blog & really enjoyed it!! Can't wait to stop by again soon... :)

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  3. Well, I love John Sayles, so I guess I'll be skipping that one. Seriously, don't need to be whacking anyone over the head.

    As to the Sopranos, I'm sure I'm not the only person who thought the TV had just died...

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  4. Yeah, I hate unresolved movies, too. Guess I'll be skipping this one.

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  5. Oh I can understand, I felt that way at the end of Premonition a bit.

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  6. I loved Limbo. Seriously. Even. The. End. And I too thought of it Sunday night with the Sopranos.

    I also sent a big squishy kiss to Mr. Chase.

    I posted before hand that I didn't want some big limbo. I intially was pissed, but the more I thought about and the more I wrote about it- I thought it was great.

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  7. There's going to be a Soprano's movie... hence the rubbish ending which I will get to see in about a Year's time as the UK is sooooooo far behind!

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  8. I didn't watch much of the show in general. But I've heard alot of bad buzz about the finale. What a bummer.

    I saw a movie poster recently. At the bottom it had the word "RIGEL" on it. I thought of you. Is that your hubby's "Signature" on a poster? If so, I'll have to keep my eye out for that from now on.

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  9. i really liked the end of the sopranos...:)

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  10. sounds like your movie should have faded to black about an 119 minutes sooner

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  11. I've heard this over and over again by my friends who watch The Sopranos - alas, I'm a Sopranos virgin (just never got into it, but my husband loves it and i figure someday I'll watch the entire show on DVD).

    But I know what you mean about crappy endings. It would be nice if you knew the end was going to suck, and therefore not waste your time when you could be doing something productive, like say, watching paint dry.

    Carrie

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  12. I could only read half of this post because I'm a season behind on the Sopranos and avoiding spoilers despite the near impossibility of that these days.

    But that's the damn funniest movie review I've ever seen.

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  13. Great expectations succumbing to bad movie mojo!

    Tough luck!

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  14. I threw a pillow at the tv, thinking that my cable had crapped out at an inopportune moment, but no. A friend of a friend is a VP over at HBO and HE thought his cable had crapped out- so there you go... I wish I knew David Chase so I could punch him in the face.

    A theory- in a previous episode the characters talked about when you get whacked everything goes black- so perhaps it was the audience that got whacked?

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  15. My husband was holding the remote while we were watching Sopranos, and when the screen went black I yelled "HEY! You turned off the TV!", but of course, he hadn't.

    Is there room in your car for one more person when you drive to David Chase's house? Because seriously Dude, WTF???

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  16. I felt the same way after my husband forced me to watch "Ghost Rider". 2 hours of my life sucked down the toilet, never to return again.

    BTW- Thanks for the link to FameCrawler. I am totally addicted. You guys are hilarious!

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  17. I'm not a fan of these endings either. I compare it to doing the deed and about to climax when the baby starts whaling.

    Both leave you totally disappointed and unsatisfied.

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