Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Top Ten Best Twist Endings...Ever!

Well, the oscars are over and now we endure the long wait through the romantic comedy laden spring until the big releases of the summer. Speaking of Oscars, however, I for one actually really enjoyed them. Aside from Franco's distant personality, I felt Anne really carried the show (despite most critics), and I loved how they re-introduced the montage at the beggining ala the Billy Crystal days. Finally, they went back to doing oscar clips...thank you!!! It seemed like the Academy went back to the formula that worked for so many years, and it came off, yet it's a shame others didn't feel the same way. The winners were of course predictable. The category that was hard to call went to Melissa Leo and I think we all remembered what happened after that. My only nit pick was that I really would have liked to see Fincher win director, since he will most likely make fewer oscar friendly movies in the future and he's just as visionary as most other directors out there. Anyway, onto the next thing...

This is a post I've wanted to do for a long time. My favortie show is The Twilight Zone (59 - 64, not the reboots) and for a long time my favorite director was M. Night Shamylan, so as you can tell, having a taste for the good twist ending has always been my thing. During my hunt for movies with great twists, I also saw a ton of bad ones, so I've come to develop a mode for what makes a twist ending work, and what makes it a cop out, as well as a list of my top ten picks for best twists endings ever.

First: "re-watchability". If you turn off the movie and go, "Well, it was all a dream...that was stupid!" You are most likely not going to watch or even recommend it, for sake of feeling cheated, frustrated and annoyed. So a good twist will hold to the test of time, and offer valuable insight into the surprising conclusion upon each re-watch. Most movies like this will feature plot points that guide your thinking in one direction...that is, to fool you, and the second time around you realize those same plot points actually make sense with the twist as well! You should even almost become excited as you proclaim, "that makes so much sense, why didn't I notice this before!"

Secondly: "believability", the ending must fit within the reality of the story. In film schools this is sometimes referred to as "versimilitude". Each story...er, "good story" will always feature a certain set of rules or logic that help the viewer build and understand the world the story is taking place in. If the ending violates those rules - game over. How would you all feel if at the end of the The Matrix they were like, "just kidding, they're not in a computer program after all!" There's no need to say it, you would be pissed beyond belief. What a cop out right? Yet, throughout most of the movie you believed the characters could actually leap over buildings and dodge bullets, because you understood the world the movie created. "Verisimilitude."

Lastly: "Pschiatry". This is a criteria because it is the number one pit fall for twist endings. The minute the movie delves into psychiatry then let the guesses begin! "He's got schizophrenia, he's got multiple personalities!" Whatever you guess, you're probably right. I think what audiences hate most about these endings is that they're easy to pull off. Also, they nearly always lead to disappointment due to their lack of creativity. No one likes the murder mystery to be solved when the lead detective turns out to have an evil alter ego. And no audience will ever talk about a drama where most of the conflict was hallucinated inside our protagonist's tortured mind. (Psycho is the only exception here because Hitchcock was the first to do it, and therefore, it wasn't a cliche at the time.)

Now that you know the criteria, here comes the list (spoiler alert!!!!! Yet if you haven't seen these movies, I don't know what to tell you.):

10. The Village
The set-up: An eighteenth century village, in rural PA, lives in isolation from the outside world, due to the surrounding woods inhabited by monsters eager to kill any trespasser.

The Twist: It's present day!!! The monsters are the village elders dressed in costume to keep the townsmen from venturing off and discovering society - which they believe to be cruel and immoral.

9. Primal Fear
The set-up: A meek, innocent kid, played by Edward Norton, is falsely accused of brutally murdering his priest mentor.

The twist: After finding out that it was Norton's alter ego (ala Multiple Personality Disorder) that committed the murder, we find out that Norton was actually faking the illness in order to be proven "not guilty."

8. The Sting
The set-up: Out for revenge against the racketeer who had their friend murdered, con-duo, played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, set out to perform the ultimate high stakes con game. Redford ultimately betrays Newman after the FBI encourages him to play both sides.

The twist: It was all part of the game! Including, the betrayal, the FBI involvement, and even the faked death of Redford...all part of the plan.

7. Unbreakable
The set-up: After being the sole survivor of a horrific train accident, Bruce Willis realizes he's never been sick or hurt. Because of his new reputation, he's tracked down by Samuel L. Jackson who convinces him to become a real life super-hero.

The twist: Samuel L. Jackson is a sociopath who's been committing mass murder until he found someone who is "unbreakable."

6. Memento
The set-up: A man, played by Guy Pearce, with severe short term memory loss, who only remembers things by tattooing them to his body, hunts for the man who killed his wife.

The twist: Pearce accidentally killed his wife by forgetting how many insulin injections he had given her, and has been tattooing false clues all over his body in order to never remember his horrible deed. (There's a little more to it than that, but it would take a whole other post to explain it.)

5. The Soylent Green
The set-up: In a dystopian future, Charlton Heston is a factory worker on the production line of the last available source of food - Soylent Green.

The twist: It's made from people!!!

4. Psycho
The set-up: Norman Bates, the timid, awkward, stuttering motel keeper, only does the will of his mysterious mother who seems to be killing off the guests.

The twist: Some consider the first twist the death of the star only halfway through the film (Janet Leigh in the famous shower scene), but the classic is when we find out that Bate's mother is actually dead, and she has now become his evil alter ego.

3. Planet of the Apes
The set-up: After a deep space exploration at warp speed, four astronauts crash land on an alien planet where apes are the dominant species and humans the slaves.

The twist: It was Earth all along!!! Instead of traveling into space, they merely went forward into time, to an era where evolutino seemed to have reversed. Whoa! This is probably one of the most haunting twists, with no soundtrack, little dialouge - just the image of the broken statue of liberty strewn across the beach. (Written by no one else, but Rod Serling.)

2. The Usual Suspects
The set-up: Kevin Spacey is being questioned by the police chief in his office regarding a violent murder/conspiracy that took place in a shipyard a few nights prior. He reveals the mastermind as being a man named Kaiser Soze, and proceeds to tell a long, intricate and action packed story about how it all went down.

The twist: He was making up every word of it! Every single scene in the movie, save the initial crime, was fabricated by Spacey, as he glanced around the office pulling names of off random inanimate objects. Spacey is Soze, and he made up a story to get himself out of trouble.

1. The Sixth Sense (I know, I know)
The set-up: You know what it's about.

The twist: You know what happens. It's awesome...