Or popular films, even.

My Fair Lady.
Please, someone tell me that GB Shaw didn't sanction that ending? I saw it for the first time at the weekend and restrained the urge to hurl the tv out of the window at the conclusion. The entire end sequence is out of synch with the rest of the film and the original play.

Whisky Galore. They don't run out of whisky in the book.

Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
No Country For Old Men

Good call. I really didn't see the point of the bit with the old feller in his country shack. I'd have sliced off the last 15 minutes or so.

Rosemary's Baby. Absolutely no need for the last scene, which clumsily rams home that they're all satanists, changing it from a great movie about the pregnant woman's paranoia to a good movie about satanists.

Unbreakable. At the end it turns out that Bruce Willis has superpowers, changing it from a still-bad movie about a crippled comic-book obsessive who's desperate to find a real superhero, and a boy whose worship of his father leads him to believe he has special powers, to a ridiculous movie about a bloke who actually is a superhero.

(I think; it's a while since I saw either of them.)

There's so many! It seems much harder to end a film well than to begin one brilliantly. I wonder why. Maybe because we're allO OK with narratives that begin in ways we expect or in ways we don't, because we want to assume the rest of the film will make sense of itself, make itself complete. And then when it doesn't we're more disappointed .

Recently, erm, Sunshine springs to mind, in particular. The kind of ending that actually removes all the enjoyment from what you've already seen.

Bright Young Things, that's an obvious one. Although in that case, the decision (imposed on Stephen Fry by the studio if I remember serves me correctly) to reverse the book's ending infects the whole film, because Fry has to jigger with the story earlier on to make the bad ending make sense.

The Lavender Hill Mob. Shove on a daft ending 'cos criminals can't possibly be seen to get away with it...

I wouldn't call it a dreadful ending by any means, but the hand-shake 'all friends together' bit at the conclusion of LA Confidential is a little bit too chummy and happy-ending after two hours of sharply-cynical, beautifully-done crime capering.

LotR:The Return of the King

An excruciating ending to what had been a perfectly silly movie.

Bad endings kill movies (or any other narrative art form, really) for em. I'd rather watch a mediocre film with a great ending than a great film with a mediocre ending.

Rinoceronte Mentaverde wrote:

QUOTE:
Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
No Country For Old Men

Good call. I really didn't see the point of the bit with the old feller in his country shack. I'd have sliced off the last 15 minutes or so.

************ SPOILER ***********

I would personally have finished it at the point where Javier Bardem is staggering down the road after crashing his car.

QUOTE:
Good call. I really didn't see the point of the bit with the old feller in his country shack. I'd have sliced off the last 15 minutes or so.

I actually liked that ending (even if it was a bit on the nose thematically), but that may just be b/c the movie had built up enough goodwill with me. I did have a problem with the ending to the other big Oscar-bait movie that came out around the same time, There Will Be Blood. I thought the ending pushed the tone of the film too far over the edge into the baroque. It made me laugh, which I didn't think was its intention. I do seem to be the minority with this point of view among my friends, however.

QUOTE:
I'd rather watch a mediocre film with a great ending than a great film with a mediocre ending.

Yeah that's kind of what I meant. It's probably as simple as you have the strongest impression of the bit you saw most recently and you reintterpret everything that went before in the light of what happens in the 'now'. And the huge power that 'closure' has on narrative.

I remember thinking Ginger Snaps was sharp and witty and even a bit different, and that was all spoilt by the by-numbers scary monster ending.

The psychiatrist bit in Psycho.

I quite liked the ending of No Country For Old Men.

QUOTE:
It made me laugh, which I didn't think was its intention. I do seem to be the minority with this point of view among my friends, however.

The OTT rant about milkshakes? Oh, I burst out laughing at the point as well! I thought it was intentional, to be honest.

Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
Rinoceronte Mentaverde wrote:

QUOTE:
Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
No Country For Old Men

Good call. I really didn't see the point of the bit with the old feller in his country shack. I'd have sliced off the last 15 minutes or so.

************ SPOILER ***********

I would personally have finished it at the point where Javier Bardem is staggering down the road after crashing his car.

Yeah. Same here.