He Could Go All The . . . No! Cable! Please Come Back!
I was done with my work last night and decided to flip through channels before going to bed. AMC was showing Rudy and was only about 30 minutes in. Now, Rudy is a very good movie, but is it worth staying up an hour more than you wanted to? For me, yeah. I love that last scene. When they chant his name and he finally runs out there, it's definitely a major chills moment. So I stayed up through all of those commercial breaks when I just as easily could have popped the DVD in, and made it to the end. And right after Vince Vaughn comes over and tells Rudy that the halfback pass was for him, you guessed it. Satellite not receiving. No!!!! Thankfully it was only a three second lapse but at 12:30 a.m. when I waited up that long to see the ending, I was ready to spike my water glass if the movie didn't come back on.
So that got me to thinking, what would be the worst possible ending of a movie to miss due to the cable going out just before it happened? Sports movies are good for this because they're all the same. There's a struggle. Something really bad happens. Good guys win in the end. How can you not watch the good guys winning in the end? We'll exclude sports movies from this list because it's tougher for other movies. For instance, Good Fellas is a great movie, but you can absolutely turn it off toward the end if you're ready to fall asleep at 12:30 a.m. I'd much rather have the cable go out after Ray Liotta flips than have it go off early in the movie when Joe Pesci asks Ray Liotta how he's funny. After some careful analysis, here is my Top-5 list of movies that you don't want to watch the whole way through only to have the cable go out on you with the climactic ending about to happen.
Honorable Mention: The Godfather Part II
The movie is so great that I wouldn't be as upset if I watched the whole thing and missed the end, but I never watch this movie without putting myself through Fredo's demise. Just unbelievable every time when he's saying the Hail Mary.
5. Rounders
Rounders fits this mold perfectly. It's a movie that is mildly entertaining the whole way through but after you've watched it several times, you watch it just to get yourself all geared up for the heads up match with Teddy KGB. First, John Malkovich's Russian accent would be the worst movie accent of all time if it wasn't for Nicolas Cage in Con Air. Second, Matt Damon's life goes from aspiring law student to in line for a Russian mob hit in a little over an hour. Third, the end of the movie pits Matt Damon against John Malkovich in a poker game. For a lot of us, this is how we were introduced into the wonderful world of Texas Hold'em. Nothing is better than watching that final scene if you are even somewhat of a poker fan. Now, imagine you made it through Matt Damon's dropping $30k in one hand, Ed Norton's getting out of prison and sucking Damon back into gambling and getting him on the hook for his $15k debt, and then Damon's being able to win it back only to have Norton get him in trouble with a room full of cops which loses all their money and gets them beat up in the process. Imagine you made it through all that and you're watching that final scene. Matt Damon doubles the $10k that Petrovsky lent him, gets goaded into a final heads up match and is down and out and he flops that nut straight. He checks, Malkovich is about to bet but . . . cable goes out. How much would that blow? Ignore the fuzzy math that ensues when Matt Damon explains how he ends up $30k in the green and it's one hell of an ending. Ok, that fuzzy math really bothers me, but it's still great. I would cry if I watched the movie for two hours and missed the final hand.
4. 8 Mile
Now I understand that this movie wasn't exactly Gone With the Wind, but it was definitely entertaining if you at all like hip hop music. It was basically Eminem's life story with a few minor changes. He's a struggling rapper living in a trailer park with his mom and sister. He works at a factory in Detroit making next to nothing and he chokes big time in the first rap battle that starts the movie. So the movie goes on, he hooks up with Brittany Murphy. She cheats on him. He gets the crap kicked out of him as a result and almost gets killed. He has a minor falling out with his friend, and, just when all seems lost, he decides to enter one last rap battle. Now, most of the movie is nothing special, but I would watch it just to make sure I didn't miss the ending. Eminem predictably takes apart his first two counterparts, does some good trash talking and is facing the guy he choked against, who also pulled a gun on him, in the finals. Eminem is about to go first and, cable goes out. Even if you didn't like the movie, that last rap is well worth the wait and I would be heated if the cable went out right then. Eminem getting Poppa Doc is great.
3. Primal Fear
This is a solid movie throughout, so it's not higher because I enjoy watching the entire movie and the final courtroom scene is almost as enjoyable as the unbelievable ending. If you haven't seen the movie, you need to stop reading this part now and go watch it, if only for the end. Now, Ed Norton puts in a classic Ed Norton performance and Richard Gere, Laura Linney, and the dad from Frasier are all good, but just when you think you're going to walk away saying that it was decent but not overly worth watching, Richard Gere decides to go back to the cells and visit Ed Norton one last time. Norton asks him to tell Laura Linney that he hopes her neck feels better, Gere says he will, he's walking out and, boom. Cable goes out. You just missed the look on Richard Gere's face and the scene that follows that make the entire movie about 10 times better. Tragic.
2. The American President
I personally like this whole movie. My Dad and I watch it every time it comes on, and yes, about half of those times it's on a women's channel but we're both comfortable enough to admit we love this movie. Michael Douglas plays the President of the U.S. and Annette Benning plays the environmental lobbyist that he falls in love with. Underrated in this are Richard Dreyfuss' role as the Dick Cheney-esque guy running for President against Douglas' bid at a second term and Martin Sheen as Douglas' best friend and White House Chief of Staff. The whole movie Douglas cowers from the barrage of insults and mudslinging that Dreyfuss throws at him. Douglas loses Benning in the process, gets into it with Sheen and then steps in out of nowhere in the end to finally answer to the press in a White House Press Conference. He's been such a pansy the whole movie that you are in no way prepared for what is to ensue. One of the all-time chills moments and it comes in a romantic comedy centering around a guy loosely based on Bill Clinton. Well, just when you've made it to the moment when the whole movie comes together, the cable goes out. Again. You miss, "your fifteen minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd and I am the President." I got the chills just writing it. Twice.
1. The Usual Suspects
Come on, if you've seen The Usual Suspects then you knew that this was the number one. The Usual Suspects is the John Wooden era UCLA Dynasty teams of movies for which you absolutely MUST wait around for the end. First off, it took me a couple viewings to figure out what was going on in half the movie. Second, there's a Baldwin not named Alec involved and you pretend like he's a serious actor for the entire movie. Third, and most importantly, I don't know how many people saw this movie but I can tell you that the first time they saw it they had to call someone else and talk about that ending. This is the classic example of a decent movie whose ending won it the Oscar for Best Screenplay. Now I'm not even going to make you imagine how upset you'd be if you watched the whole movie and missed Chazz Palminteri dropping that coffee cup. That would be heartbreaking. Kevin Spacey said it best, "and like that . . . he's gone."
Note: Mailbag is coming up. As always, send in your questions to Eric.Rudin@gmail.com. I'm sure there are some of you Laker haters out there who want to tell me about how LeBron's going to win it all.
So that got me to thinking, what would be the worst possible ending of a movie to miss due to the cable going out just before it happened? Sports movies are good for this because they're all the same. There's a struggle. Something really bad happens. Good guys win in the end. How can you not watch the good guys winning in the end? We'll exclude sports movies from this list because it's tougher for other movies. For instance, Good Fellas is a great movie, but you can absolutely turn it off toward the end if you're ready to fall asleep at 12:30 a.m. I'd much rather have the cable go out after Ray Liotta flips than have it go off early in the movie when Joe Pesci asks Ray Liotta how he's funny. After some careful analysis, here is my Top-5 list of movies that you don't want to watch the whole way through only to have the cable go out on you with the climactic ending about to happen.
Honorable Mention: The Godfather Part II
The movie is so great that I wouldn't be as upset if I watched the whole thing and missed the end, but I never watch this movie without putting myself through Fredo's demise. Just unbelievable every time when he's saying the Hail Mary.
5. Rounders
Rounders fits this mold perfectly. It's a movie that is mildly entertaining the whole way through but after you've watched it several times, you watch it just to get yourself all geared up for the heads up match with Teddy KGB. First, John Malkovich's Russian accent would be the worst movie accent of all time if it wasn't for Nicolas Cage in Con Air. Second, Matt Damon's life goes from aspiring law student to in line for a Russian mob hit in a little over an hour. Third, the end of the movie pits Matt Damon against John Malkovich in a poker game. For a lot of us, this is how we were introduced into the wonderful world of Texas Hold'em. Nothing is better than watching that final scene if you are even somewhat of a poker fan. Now, imagine you made it through Matt Damon's dropping $30k in one hand, Ed Norton's getting out of prison and sucking Damon back into gambling and getting him on the hook for his $15k debt, and then Damon's being able to win it back only to have Norton get him in trouble with a room full of cops which loses all their money and gets them beat up in the process. Imagine you made it through all that and you're watching that final scene. Matt Damon doubles the $10k that Petrovsky lent him, gets goaded into a final heads up match and is down and out and he flops that nut straight. He checks, Malkovich is about to bet but . . . cable goes out. How much would that blow? Ignore the fuzzy math that ensues when Matt Damon explains how he ends up $30k in the green and it's one hell of an ending. Ok, that fuzzy math really bothers me, but it's still great. I would cry if I watched the movie for two hours and missed the final hand.
4. 8 Mile
Now I understand that this movie wasn't exactly Gone With the Wind, but it was definitely entertaining if you at all like hip hop music. It was basically Eminem's life story with a few minor changes. He's a struggling rapper living in a trailer park with his mom and sister. He works at a factory in Detroit making next to nothing and he chokes big time in the first rap battle that starts the movie. So the movie goes on, he hooks up with Brittany Murphy. She cheats on him. He gets the crap kicked out of him as a result and almost gets killed. He has a minor falling out with his friend, and, just when all seems lost, he decides to enter one last rap battle. Now, most of the movie is nothing special, but I would watch it just to make sure I didn't miss the ending. Eminem predictably takes apart his first two counterparts, does some good trash talking and is facing the guy he choked against, who also pulled a gun on him, in the finals. Eminem is about to go first and, cable goes out. Even if you didn't like the movie, that last rap is well worth the wait and I would be heated if the cable went out right then. Eminem getting Poppa Doc is great.
3. Primal Fear
This is a solid movie throughout, so it's not higher because I enjoy watching the entire movie and the final courtroom scene is almost as enjoyable as the unbelievable ending. If you haven't seen the movie, you need to stop reading this part now and go watch it, if only for the end. Now, Ed Norton puts in a classic Ed Norton performance and Richard Gere, Laura Linney, and the dad from Frasier are all good, but just when you think you're going to walk away saying that it was decent but not overly worth watching, Richard Gere decides to go back to the cells and visit Ed Norton one last time. Norton asks him to tell Laura Linney that he hopes her neck feels better, Gere says he will, he's walking out and, boom. Cable goes out. You just missed the look on Richard Gere's face and the scene that follows that make the entire movie about 10 times better. Tragic.
2. The American President
I personally like this whole movie. My Dad and I watch it every time it comes on, and yes, about half of those times it's on a women's channel but we're both comfortable enough to admit we love this movie. Michael Douglas plays the President of the U.S. and Annette Benning plays the environmental lobbyist that he falls in love with. Underrated in this are Richard Dreyfuss' role as the Dick Cheney-esque guy running for President against Douglas' bid at a second term and Martin Sheen as Douglas' best friend and White House Chief of Staff. The whole movie Douglas cowers from the barrage of insults and mudslinging that Dreyfuss throws at him. Douglas loses Benning in the process, gets into it with Sheen and then steps in out of nowhere in the end to finally answer to the press in a White House Press Conference. He's been such a pansy the whole movie that you are in no way prepared for what is to ensue. One of the all-time chills moments and it comes in a romantic comedy centering around a guy loosely based on Bill Clinton. Well, just when you've made it to the moment when the whole movie comes together, the cable goes out. Again. You miss, "your fifteen minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd and I am the President." I got the chills just writing it. Twice.
1. The Usual Suspects
Come on, if you've seen The Usual Suspects then you knew that this was the number one. The Usual Suspects is the John Wooden era UCLA Dynasty teams of movies for which you absolutely MUST wait around for the end. First off, it took me a couple viewings to figure out what was going on in half the movie. Second, there's a Baldwin not named Alec involved and you pretend like he's a serious actor for the entire movie. Third, and most importantly, I don't know how many people saw this movie but I can tell you that the first time they saw it they had to call someone else and talk about that ending. This is the classic example of a decent movie whose ending won it the Oscar for Best Screenplay. Now I'm not even going to make you imagine how upset you'd be if you watched the whole movie and missed Chazz Palminteri dropping that coffee cup. That would be heartbreaking. Kevin Spacey said it best, "and like that . . . he's gone."
Note: Mailbag is coming up. As always, send in your questions to Eric.Rudin@gmail.com. I'm sure there are some of you Laker haters out there who want to tell me about how LeBron's going to win it all.
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