I always thought the ending of movie was the most important part of the movie. It was the final statement, the last thing the audience would take away from the experience. Allow me to offer to contrasts:

Saving Private Ryan:

I always thought that Saving Private Ryan was robbed of the Best Picture Oscar when it was up for it. When Spielberg won Best Director, I was certain that Saving Private Ryan had won Best Picture. Imagine my shock when they announced the winner to be Shakespeare in Love. Years later, people agree with me, as Shakespeare in Love isn't even in the IMDb Top 250 while Saving Private Ryan is #62. To put that into perspective, Die Hard is #164. Now I'm not saying that Die Hard is a bad movie, it's great, but it doesn't have a Best Picture Oscar. Anyway, as I was stewing about it, someone pointed out that Saving Private Ryan wasn't that good of a movie. Blasphemy, I thought. But thinking back, that person was right, it's not a great movie. It's still a very good movie, and still tied with Gallipoli as my favorite war movie, but not great. The plot was rather weak, the bit in the beginning was confusing, because you thought that the old man was Tom Hanks' character, and worst of all, Vin Diesel was in it. But the Normandy scene was absolutely spectacular and the ending made up for everything. And it's the ending that became my lasting memory of the movie. Never have I seen five minutes of film wrap up two hours so well. It still resonates with me today, and every day, and hopefully for the rest of my life. "Earn this."

Malcolm X:

Malcolm X was my first Spike Lee movie. Before this, my only experiences with Spike Lee were Mars Blackmon and those Navy commercials he made. I had seen parts of Malcolm X before on BET, and it peaked my interest. Rather than sit through commercials for a movie that ran 3.5 hours, I decided just to get the DVD instead. It was beautifully shot, it was well paced, it was well scripted, it was well cast (keep an eye out for Rog from "What's Happening,") and Denzel was at his best. But the ending ruined it. I used to think that the ending of Kung Pow: Enter the Fist was the worst example of an ending completely torpedoing a movie (and Kung Pow wasn't even that good to start with,) but this takes the cake. I remember thinking right before the movie ended, "Wow, that was a great movie, maybe Hollywood really IS out to get Spike Lee." Then it happened. I won't spoil the movie for you, but I will warn you, the last line in the movie absolutely brings things crashing down, even worse than the "and I thought Christmas only came once a year" line from The World is Not Enough. Spike Lee the filmmaker was overruled by Spike Lee the Angry Black Man.

One good movie saved by the ending, another good movie ruined by the ending.




Random Yankee thoughts:

-Finally got the Derek Jeter SNL on E! tonight. First off, I have to say, wow, he's a lot bigger than I thought. When you see him on the field, his size is relative to all the other ballplayers, but when you see him next to normal people, he's huge. He's the same size as Will Farrell. Second, I was flipping back and forth between SNL and the rerun of tonight's Yankee game, and it's really weird watching Jeter in a skit and watching him at bat. Just weird...

-Okay, maybe it's just me. Maybe it's just the way his hair was tonight. But does anyone else notice that Hideki Matsui looks like an Asian Shemp Howard?