The Worst Surprise Endings in Movie History

Posted on October 22, 2009 at 3:59 pm

Huffington Post has got a list of the nine worst surprise endings in movie history (well, in the past few years). I was pleased to see three of my Gothika Rule picks on the list, “Perfect Stranger,” “23,” and “The Forgotten.” (For newcomers — the “Gothika Rule,” named for a movie with one of the worst endings of all time, means that I will give away the surprise to anyone who sends me an email to save them what I had to suffer in watching it.) Be sure to check out the comments from readers with their own suggestions. I’d add “The Pink Jungle,” “Desperate Measures,” and, of course “Gothika.” Any others?

Paranormal Activity: Marketing or Art?

Posted on October 22, 2009 at 8:00 am

Jen Chaney has an astute article in the Washington Post about the latest movie phenomenon, “Paranormal Activity.” Like The Blair Witch Project, it is more concept than movie, taking advantage of what most would consider a disadvantage: no money. The premise of both films is that they are found footage from rudimentary amateurs. And both films arguably had more creativity in their marketing campaigns than in the films themselves.
Chaney calls it a “a pop cultural sneak attack,” not just in terms of its box office (exceeding its under-$15,000 budget many times over in its first weeks of release) but in its buzz. The title is a top-trending topic on Twitter. It “outsold a 3-D Pixar double feature (the “Toy Story” re-release), a Bruce Willis thriller (“Surrogates”) and a Michael Moore documentary (“Capitalism: A Love Story”). ”
The movie’s trailer audaciously showed the audience’s shocked reaction to what they were watching, like the film recognizing that our imagination is much scarier than anything that could appear on screen. And Chaney describes the “you have to ask for it” marketing campaign.

Apparently because we — the same individuals who relish our right to elect a president, choose our American Idols and watch our favorite TV shows OnDemand — voted to bring this slow-building shocker to a theater near us. Or at least some of us did. Paramount Pictures, the studio distributing “Paranormal Activity,” has dubbed it the “first-ever major film release decided by you,” mainly because of an online polling system that guaranteed a nationwide roll-out for the micro-budget movie once 1 million supportive votes had been cast.

Whether those votes reflect actual audience demand for the film or whether they were an appearance that created a reality, it worked, and “Paranormal Activity” will unquestionably be one of the most profitable films of the year.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

More (and Less) on ‘The Invention of Lying’

Posted on October 14, 2009 at 2:05 pm

In Washington DC’s City Paper, Tricia Olszewski cites my fellow-Beliefnet blogger Michele McGinty (who has not seen the film) and me about the surprisingly lukewarm reaction to the anti-religious elements engendered by the Ricky Gervais film “The Invention of Lying.”
I believe the reason that there has been so little objection to the film is that the film is not anti-religion. On the contrary, the alternate universe of the film has no lies but it is also depressingly literal and concrete. There is no fiction, no compassion, no imagination, no faith, no abstraction. No kindness. No love. Marriages are based on genetic compatibility. And as a result, the lives of the characters are empty and without meaning. Even the fictional religion thought up by Gervais’ character to comfort his dying mother has enormous appeal because the citizens of this spiritually impoverished world sense that they need something more to believe in.

Wait, Archie Will Marry Betty?

Posted on October 8, 2009 at 8:47 am

Now that Archie has not just proposed to Veronica (issue 600), but actually married her, gone on a honeymoon, and is going to be a father (issue 601), the comic is hitting rewind and sending Archie down the literal road not taken, so he gets to propose to Betty. In issue 603, Archie returns to the “Memory Lane” road that took him from high school graduation into adulthood and takes the other path, one apparently endorsed by the fans as the New York Times reports 80 percent favor the blond girl next door over the glamorous brunette.
The series is written by Michael E. Uslan, a lifetime Archie fan, who told the Times that this idea was inspired by Robert Frost’s famous poem, “The Road Not Taken” as well as the Gwyneth Paltrow movie “Sliding Doors” and the song “Both Sides Now.” This dual storyline allows the characters to explore the way choices large and small affect the future. But Uslan promises that all will be resolved.

“I have written his final fate in one of these two futures,” Mr. Uslan said. “Now, back in high school, it’s up to the three of them. Everything they say, don’t say, every action they take and fail to take, is going to add up to determine which of these two roads are taken. And one of them will be.”

Two Great Posts on Idol Chatter

Posted on October 8, 2009 at 8:00 am

I am honored to share coverage of popular culture with the thoughtful posters over at Idol Chatter. Two posts I have especially liked this week are Ellen Leventry’s commentary on the new homeless American Girl doll and the Mont Blanc $25,000 pen commemorating Mohandas Gandhi, a concept so stunning that at first I assumed it was a parody. She says:

Sure, American Girl has been working with HomeAid America, a leading national nonprofit provider of housing for the homeless, since 2006, and they have successfully addressed important social issues with other dolls, including Addy Walker, an escaped slave who is trying to reunite her family, and the Depression-era, penny-pinching Kit Ketteridge. But, American Girl is taking a problem that is less safely historical and merchandising it in the same way. In this recession, with more and more individuals and families becoming homeless, surely the Mattel-owned company could give a generous percentage of the sales of the even-in-economically-good-times-exorbitantly priced doll to charity?

That would certainly reinforce the learning experience of this doll. And I agree, too, that while Mont Blanc is giving some of the profits from this pen to charity, including one approved by Gandhi’s great-grandson, there is something fundamentally inconsistent in the idea of honoring a man whose possessions could be contained in a shoebox with a pen that costs as much as a car.
I also loved Esther Kustanowitz’s post on “The Family Goy,” about an episode of “The Family Guy” that explores Lois’ Jewish identity. There’s a link to the episode, too, so take a look.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture