We Are Gullible (Or, Movie Endings We Already Know)
June 27th, 2004
Yes, I will go out on a ledge and say that ALL OF US are gullible.
I just recently watched the movie Miracle in which Kurt Russell stars as the coach of the 1980 Olympic US Hockey Team and struggles to put together a team of young hockey players who can, god we all hope, beat the Soviets in the Lake Placid Winter Games.
But you have to know that in 1980 the Russians had not been beat by the Americans since 1960. Twenty years since they’d been beat. The Russians were a powerhouse team. Hell, they even beat the NHL All Stars months before the Lake Placid games. But, as history tells the story, this rag tag group of wannabe professional hockey players worked their butts off and (again) as history tells us, in the end, they beat the pants off of the Russian team. Major upset. Huge story. Everyone knew about it around the world.
And yet here I sit, in front of my TV, watching the recreation of these moments on the silver screen and I am clutching my pillow and clenching my teeth for I am so afraid that the US team is not going to win after all the trouble and injury and nay-sayers involved in this whole process.
I am (and you may be, too)…gullible when it comes to the endings of movies based on mainstream, well-known historical moments or stories.
Watching Pearl Harbor I was stunned and surprised that the Japs would be so horrific as to attack our men and women as they sat parked off the coast of Hawaii. And I was even more stunned to see the reaction of the US Government. Would we come back fighting? Would we avenge such horror?
Watching Rudy I hoped to God that little Rudy Ruettiger would someday get his chance at playing with the big boys at Notre Dame. I mean, he’s putting in all that hard work. All that sweat. He came from a family who didn’t encourage his dreams. Help little Rudy! He’s going to end up failing, I know it.
Watching Dude, Where’s My Car I sat on the edge of my seat, hoping that these two genial fools would find their car. Where was their car? Would they eventually see it’s safe return?
Don’t we all realize and know deep down that every movie is going to end with happy, tied-up goodness?
It’s what continues to amaze me about the one medium I have a love affair with. Movies have the ability to get us to suspend our disbelief to such an extent that even when the movie is based on true events and we know the outcome of such events we sit like a gullible fool and wonder to ourselves if the Argentinean soccer players from Alive are really going to survive on that mountain… If that kid pretending to be an airline pilot and surgeon from Catch Me If You Can will actually get caught… And if that big old lazy lasagna-eating cat from Garfield will actually get his comeuppance…
Deep down, we all know the answers. Deep down, we all know the outcomes. Deep down, we desperately want to forget that we know any of it.
Because when you know the ending, who wants to watch what comes before it?
sometimes i hate it when you’re right.
Comment by Enigma — June 27, 2004 @ 4:35 pm
But sometimes the movies screw history.
In Titanic, they created a fictitious 104 year old tramp.
In Braveheart, they show William Wallace kiss the English queen. When in reality, queen wasn’t even born during William Wallaces era.
Troy was just a fiction. A poem by Homer. Some people say even Homer was fictitious and some one else created him because he was scared to write the bad long poems in his name.
And because of few of these anomalies, I now have to see all the movies till the end. Coz you never know if some writer screwed history.
Comment by Ankesh Kothari — June 27, 2004 @ 6:27 pm
You were clenching your pillow during “Miracle?” You must be a sweet, sappy guy deep down. You just play a tough writer on TV, right?
Comment by Andrea — June 27, 2004 @ 6:33 pm
All men are allowed to get “tense” about sports.
Comment by Pauly D — June 27, 2004 @ 6:36 pm
I guess I interpreted “clutching a pillow” differently than “tense.” Yes, men are allowed, but so are women. Hello? (The) Ohio State (University) football…need I say more?
Comment by Andrea — June 27, 2004 @ 9:12 pm
When are they going to make a movie about the 1992 USA Basketball team that won the Olympic gold medal? It’s a perfect story. Legends of the game destroy spindly Europeans and Asians on their way to victory. Like the middleschoolers visiting kindergarten classes in a kickball tournament. Can you make this movie happen Walnuts? I know you have pull in Hollywood!
Comment by Tito — June 28, 2004 @ 8:17 am
I get irritated when on quiz shows, they have Q’s like “Who is the American who invented Basketball” When it was a CANADIAN who invented BASKETBALL!
*shakes fist at the heavens!*
And it was on Canada Day TOO!
*faints*
Comment by Christine — July 1, 2004 @ 11:15 pm
This is precisely why i suggested the following: You know that scene that happens really early on in virtually every big action film where the hero is in a really precarious situation that looks like they should bite it at this point, but you are saying to yourself in the back of your mind “He can’t die, it’s only like 20 minutes into the movie.”? Well my idea is that something like this begins to take place only instead of him heroically surviving the situation, he dies, and the movie ends. That’s it. Credits roll. 20 minutes.
Comment by jimi — July 3, 2004 @ 1:33 am
“Garfield The Movie” is wonderful with perfect 3D graphic. Garfield in the movie is really a cool and smart cat who can dance admirably. When he went to the tall building to saved the dog Odie and went down, it was very cool! But it was so dangerous when he dropped down from the tall building.
The story line is superb and jokey, and the actress is very beautiful and cute. It was very incredible for Jon that the girl could love him, I also have the same feeling and the same experience with Jon.
Comment by Creford — April 24, 2005 @ 7:30 am