Broadcast News: How many romance movies end with neither guy getting the girl and everyone being kind of okay with it. It's a great illustration of what it's like to look back in a crazy period of time in a life. Excellent! And it doesn't come off as smarmy or self-important. Because James L. Brooks is fabulous. (Mary Tyler Moore Show: another great ending)
The Graduate: An obvious choice, but still great. I guess I like ambiguous endings to romances. The more I see that movie the more I identify with Mrs. Robinson (I'm a year older than she was supposed to be in the movie!). In the end, on the bus, the kids start to realize what she already knows: life just goes on. There's all this excitement sometimes, but then it just keeps going. Until, of course, it doesn't.
40 Year Old Virgin: I'm not going to give it away, but it's great
Okay, Gus, see, this is why I don't do these things. I'm already in the realm of local paper puff piece, or one of those annoying Salon articles. I type this stuff out, and it just seems too obvious.
Classic play ending: Hedda Gabler. Just see the thing. Really. Or read it, at least. It's a stylized ending, but that doesn't make it any less great.
Wouldn't this been more fun to talk about over some cool tea at the Big Table? Why do I have to be another person with an opinion on line? Okay, I'll keep going.
It Happened One Night has a great, satisfying, well-crafted ending. The whole damn thing is so well written and well made that I don't know why anyone thought another movie ever had to be made. But, again, life goes on.
Of course, Some Like It Hot has a great ending, but who doesn't know that?
I love the end of Mary Poppins. Let's go fly a kite! And why not???
The Apartment has a pretty good ending. Or is it a little cutesy? I'm not sure. It's feels like a bit of a bow to propriety, or to the need for a happy ending. But it still has a little of the ambiguity that I like. And, come on, it's Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. It does have a really great, classic beginning, that movie. But that's another blog entry.
Okay, I've done my bit. I'm going to bed. To hell with the lot of you!
