The Great Geek Manual

These aren’t just films with great endings. They’re films that would have been complete failures without an eleventh hour twist. Click the images to watch the endings at YouTube.

10. Citizen Kane (1941)

“I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a… piece in a jigsaw puzzle… a missing piece.”

It may be the stuff of a film professor’s wet dreams, but ask any film student and they’ll tell you, Citizen Kane is a two hour set-up for a three-minute scene. In fact, the whole movie can basically be abbreviated to its closing shot and line.

9. The Usual Suspects (1995)

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

The conclusion to Kevin Spacey’s best performance makes this one of the best crime movies ever. The final scene turns everything that came before it on its head. More than that, the movie’s final revelation makes the rest of the movie’s fragmented plot make sense.
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The full theatrical trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar was finally released yesterday. I’m still not sure whether I’m stoked or disappointed. The whole thing looks something like Last of the Mohicans meets Starship Troopers, with a pinch of the Battle of Endor. (Seriously, tell me you’re not getting some Ewok vibes.)

Sci-fi in 3D is rare enough that I would probably go see it no matter what, but the way these trailers are unfolding, my review is likely going to look like a Mad Lib.

Movie: “District 9”
Director: Neill Blomkamp

Rating: Rated R for bloody violence and pervasive language.
Release:
Running Time: 1 hr 52 min
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Robert Hobbs… IMDB listing

Verdict:

District 9 is a gripping allegorical tale couched in a frantically-paced action thriller that engages both the mind and eye from the first frame through the last shot. The technical aspects of the movie provide a brilliant wrapping for an emotionally harrowing tale of race relations. It combines thundering chase scenes, shoot-outs ripped straight out of a video game, and a morality tale that would be just as at home in mainstream literary piece. The result is a movie that manages to be both intelligent and exciting – a thinking man’s science fiction movie.

Synopsis:

Over twenty years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees, the last survivors of their home world. The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in South Africa’s District 9 as the world’s nations argued over what to do with them. Now, patience over the alien situation has run out. The tension between the aliens and the humans comes to a head when a human field operative, Wikus van der Merwe, contracts a mysterious virus that begins changing his DNA. Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable – he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9.
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Movie: “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”
Director: Stephen Sommers

Rating: Rated PG-13 for adventure action and violence.
Release: August 7, 2009
Running Time: 1 hr 58 mins
Starring: Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Christopher Eccleston, Marlon Wayans… IMDB listing

Verdict:

After having seen the trailers for G.I. Joe, I went into the theater fully expecting Marlon Wayans to completely ruin this chestnut from my childhood. Unfortunately, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb, Wayans set the tone for the movie, which couldn’t have been any worse if Walker, Texas Ranger had been incorporated into its thoughtless tangle of a storyline.

This movie should have been released direct-to-DVD. Its storyline is roughly on par with a late night Steven Seagull flick. It plays out like a sequel, with almost two hours of non-stop mayhem and special effects without any character development, only to end in an overblown finale and a bizarre twist like something out of a B-movie. The movie’s only redeeming quality is the amazing designs behind the parade of shiny, imaginary tech that pervades the movie from beginning to end.

Anyone over the age of twelve who is considering seeing G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra in theaters should seriously consider waiting to rent it instead.

Synopsis:

Paramount Pictures and Hasbro (previously was collaborated on making the worldwide blockbuster “TRANSFORMERS.” join with Spyglass Entertainment for another extraordinary action-Adventure: G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra. From the Egyptian desert, the elite G.I. Joe team with the latest in next-generation spy and military equipment will against the corrupt arms dealer Destro and the growing menace from the mysterious Cobra organization to dispute them from plunging the world into chaos. “G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra” is directed by Stephen Sommers (“The Mummy,” “The Mummy Returns”).
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Ten years ago this weekend, I saw The Blair Witch Project. I went in, basically knowing what to expect from the movie’s extensive marketing and fully realizing how the movie must end, but I still came out unwilling to walk within spitting distance of a tree for a week. To this day, I count the movie as the best horror movie I’ve ever seen, partly due to nostalgia and partly due to the movie’s highly effective psychological wind-up.

Though the “golden age” of horror films probably spanned the second half of the seventies and the early eighties, this past decade hasn’t been too shabby. New technology has allowed directors to push the envelope in movie visuals, while Generation X’s love of fantasy has infused the genre with a new aspect of magical realism that has re-invigorated the genre.

The following is a list of what I have judged to be the best horror films of the last ten years. Each inspires authentic fear with a strongly build story rather than a series of cheap tricks or fountains of blood.

10. The Ring (2002)
Though it only ranks the bottom of the list for its lack of re-watchability, the American remake of Ringu gets a nod for its exceptionally creepy atmosphere and its open-ended story. There isn’t any one “jump out of your skin” moment, but it is hands-down the most effect use of the “evil child returns from the dead” story device ever.
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Movie: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”
Director: David Yates

Rating: Rated PG for scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality.
Release: July 15, 2009
Running Time: 2 hrs 33 mins
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Gambon, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright… IMDB listing

Verdict:

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is an amazing cinematic experience worth every penny of the price of seeing it on the big screen. It’s far and away the most fast-paced and visually stunning entry yet released in the Harry Potter series, which is, in itself, a monumental feat.

However, judged strictly as an adaptation of a novel, this movie is a monumental failure. The movie’s storyline doesn’t simply abridge the novel, it mutilates it nearly past the point of recognition. Most of the book’s best scenes, including Dumbledore’s visit to Privet Drive and the book’s climactic battle between the Deatheaters and the Order of the Phoenix inside Hogwarts, have been completely cut. Worse, the movie actually includes new scenes (which won’t be spoiled here) that not only grossly diverge from the flow of the series but also violate the spirit of the novel.

Sadly, with the movie’s mise en scène and script both likely to illicit strong but opposing opinions from fans of the Harry Potter novels, it’s difficult to say whether this is going down in history as the best or worst movie the series. Hardcore Potter loyalists are likely to love to hate this movie for the liberties it takes with story, but moviegoers simply looking for some big screen thrills and those fans who have followed Harry’s adventure only on the big screen are going to emerge from theaters with a smile.
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Movie: Push
Director: Paul McGuigan

Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, brief strong language, smoking and a scene of teen drinking.
Release: July 7, 2009
Running Time: 1 hr 51 mins
Starring: Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Camilla Belle, Djimon Hounsou… IMDB listing

Verdict:

This film is the latest in the long line of bitterly disappointing contemporary superhero movies churned out by Hollywood, including Babylon A.D. and Jumper, which have taken an excellent underlying concept and sterilized it with poor casting, mediocre acting, and dumbed-down storyline.

Despite the film’s lively cinematography, interesting special effects, and great story concept, it just isn’t long enough to gain the moment necessary to overcome the burden of its actors’ dull performances. Had this been a miniseries, it could have been amazing, but as a two hour movie, it’s a bore. It might make for a good weekend rental, but plan on having something else to do while you watch.

Synopsis:

For decades, a shadowy government organization simply known as The Division has been experimenting on members of the psychically gifted community, the members of which are gifted with the ability to see the future, track people, create new realities, alter memories, or kill without touching their victims. When a young clairvoyant girl named Cassie whose mother was one of those taken for experimentation enters the life of a rough-and-tumble telekinetic named Nick, the pair find themselves in a break-neck race to escape their own future deaths. Together, they navigate the Hong Kong underground to escape, outwit, and overthrow The Division for the good of all their kind. Their escape is complicated when Kira, Nick’s former girlfriend, breaks out of the medical facility to join them. She may be the key to victory, but she may also spell the end of free will for psychics everywhere if The Division gets ahold of her.
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This weekend anime and action fans are in for a treat, as Blood: The Last Vampire opens in theaters. Enjoy it. This weekend will be the last chance you’ll have for the next two months to enjoy a film in a theater completely free of mobs of robe-wearing, wand-waving, Hogwarts cosplayers.

Video Releases

• Knowing (PG-13)
• Push (PG-13)
• The Unborn (PG-13)

Animation

• Freedom: Complete Collection

If you know of any major releases I missed, please comment below.