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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tags: sopranos finale | john sayles | david chase | people who need their asses kicked

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