Was it good for you too?
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Dabba (New York, USA)
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Was it good for you too?
Climaxes that don’t satisfy….one minute you are working together as a
unit – body, mind and soul (that makes it 6 entities, so should
technically qualify as an orgy), huffing and moving and panting, and
the next second, a look that is a combination of relief, ecstasy,
confusion and disappointment floods one face.
A good climax, where
both pitcher and catcher (u don’t always need a mitt to catch) come,
is just as rare in the movies as it is in the bedroom, kitchen or
airplane toilet. Even if you don’t smoke, you need to savor a ciggie
after one of those.
The problem comes with expectations. When the person knows what they
are doing, and has displayed some skillz (when someone has really
serious skills, you should spell it with a Zed in the end) and set the
wheels in motion, a good climax seems inevitable; yet, it should
surprise. Give me exactly what I want, but in a way that even I don’t
know. Use some lube if you must, and bring all your daddy issues,
which by the way belong in bed, not on a shrink’s sofa.
Let me not belabor the analogy any more. This will be an ongoing
series of posts (like my anatomy of a scene), where I am going to
ANALyze climaxes that don’t work.
There is something innately satisfying about seeing logic manifest
itself. When every gesture, character and scene work towards that
finale…exhilarating. Good climaxes are of course easy to spot –
Requiem, Sixth Sense, Eternal Sunshine, Park’s revenge trilogy and
quite a few others.
I present you Training Day, a damn fine piece of screenwriting,
directing and acting. Any movie in which I can tolerate Ethan Hawke
has got to be good right? In most good movies, you give your
protagonist a motive/goal. The question you ask is will she or won’t
she get it? The most satisfying movies are the ones, that don’t give
you the obvious answer. You may get the cake but you have the dilemma
of whether to eat it or keep it.
I am not posting an excerpt because it’s too long. SPOILER alert.
So, Ethan has taken the beating of his life (my happiest moment in the
movie) from Denzel. Inexplicably, he doesn’t kill him although he had
paid the Cholo Gs earlier to waste him. Maybe he didn’t kill him
because it was too close to his house, and he wouldn’t be able to
cover up. But they had a gun battle earlier in Denzel’s house, when he
was definitely trying to drop that punk-ass bitch.
Denzel’s on the clock. He has to meet the Russians before midnight and
he has only 25 minutes left. Ethan somehow manages to survive the
beating, fall on the hood of Denzel’s G-ride, chase after him, and
Denzel keeps missing when he shoots at Ethan on his hood. Car crash
happens and Ethan getting the gun happens, and table turning totally
happens. It is very happening.
Now Washington wants the Gs in his hood to kill Hawke, but no one
wants to because they don’t really like Denzel. They established this
earlier with a throwaway line from one of the bench presser Gs who
guards Denzel’s house. Ethan gets to relish the turn of events, get
Denzel’s money that he owes the Russian mob as his evidence, and walks
away.
But something else happens during all this. Denzel Washington’s agent
calls the director Antoine and the writer, David Ayer, and says this
is the movie that will probably win Denzel his first Oscar (lead
actor), so can we please freeze the movie for him to ham it up for the
Academy. Everyone obliged.
“King Kong ain’t got nothin’ on me!!!”
Denzel also tells Antoine that if he’s playing a bad guy, he wants to
go down in a hail of bullets like Pacino in Scarface. So Fuqua has
Denzel’s car riddled with bullets by the Russo mob, but that’s not
good enough, because you can’t see his face. So Denzel opens the door
of the car, falls out, and Close Up totally happens.
Ethan survives his Training Day with his integrity intact, and Denzel dead.
I think a better ending would have been if Ethan took a page out of
Denzel’s street book, and had somehow compromised or cheated a bit by
going against the rules to get Denzel. This would mean that he would
have had to plant evidence on Denzel, and the Russian mob could still
have shot down Denzel.
What would you have done?
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
watched this one too long back, but just checked out a few youtube clips to remind myself of the ending, and yeah.. denzie is definitely hamming it up in his own way.. i think you can even see the spit fly out in one of the shots.
would have to watch the whole thing again to come up with my own ending.. but i do like your take on it dabba
I agree that Ethan’s good cop routine got to much to bear. Well I feel that Denzel apart from being a good actor was always the goody two shoes in all his previous movies. People liked him for that. And yes this was the only way he could come up with an oscar win by getting the writer to sketch a character that people would despise, and the jury would notice.
Why is it that a hero (oops gone bollywood again) the actor should die to get him the Oscar nod?
Interesting…..
esp since I just finished watching GONE BABY GONE & contemplating what Casey Affleck’s “right thing to do”.
I think the Cholo’s should have raped Ethan while the Russians should have killed Denzil with Vodka.
BTW I”m watching STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING right now. This actor Frank Langella is so majestic. Its a nice New York movie… well so far!
Agree with you. Some more movies with great climaxes imho – American Beauty, Forrest Gump, Million Dollar Baby, Shawshank Redemption off the top of my hat. Yeah, yeah, I love that genre…
Dil Se climax was so disappointing. Everyone went- What? That’s it?! What the fuck!?
i suppose its quite a nice post if not a sweet post as being sweet is like trying to climb the old stairs leading towards the grand old monastery.i would now prefer to be the rubbles falling down the stairs on our path bound upwards towards “salvation”.
i wont get any spoiler notification:as for the time being.
the movie that we are trying to talk about here is a bit more than what u have posted which on the contrary very much said a lot of your unwillingness to think.
according to you this movie was quite a complex movie and you desire it to be a little bit more complex.but in exactitude this movie was soo complex that very few could have understood the really complexity in it!
well i suppose i am getting out off the plane in mid-air.si,i better be a little careful.
training day signified the end of the black and white community in america..i.e the prevailing america and not the old ameria.
few scenes before the last scene:we all must have seen the group of negres surrounding the great christ:-DENZEL…and ask what?ethan hawke being a white guy staring right on the face of the christ-;that christ who had his own followers behind his back.ethan had the weapon of “mass destruction”and could have used it cheap artistic skills..but he despised himself from doingthat at least for a moment because he could have seen the souls of thousand american black souls crying within the christ”denzel”.so what he was able to look at was a small bunch of people in the whole system of humanity called by the name of negres.
so it was great of ethan ofwhat he had prefered to do.it was in some way the memento of love and unity amongthe american whites and the blacks.
thanks for reading guys, and thanks for commenting.
@ striker – you may notice a pattern on the movies I am writing about these days. it’s all research for the awesomest thriller ever written. By me.
@$iDs – You also forgot to add, gain weight (fat suits don’t count. You have to actually gain weight) Examples – Clooney in Syriana; the south african chick from Monster (can’t remember her name now).
The other thing u can do is fight some major affliction – Crowe in Beautiful Mind; Pacino in Scent; Hanks in Philly and many more.
Or you can use the oldest trick in the book – strip butt naked and fuck on the screen. Seems to work only for women called Halle Beri in movies that have a race theme, or for Ozzies in movies with a gay love story.
@ mainak – Gone Baby is a very good screenplay. the casting was off in my opinion. Freeman should not have been in that movie. Plus, the wind down, wind up in the middle of the movie was a little troublesome although i didn’t lose too much sleep over it.
I was going to do a post on revealing Character through the choices they make, and the dilemma that the choice should offer. Baby would be a great example. still may do it.
Dabba
Did you know one of the conditions for Harvey Kietal so to agree to do a indie film is to have a
1) “rape kinda” scene in the film.
2) To have a butt naked shot of him.
You should do that post through Gone Baby Gone.
What did you feel after the movie was over about BEN AFFLECK?
:d
@ D&C – Dil Se had a lot of problems, and the climax just compounded it all.
Shawshank was one of the few movies where they earned their happy ending. I am still quite surprised by the complete lack of cynicism or irony in that movie.
American Beauty and Gump, when I watched them for the first time, i thought they were great. Now in retrospect, not so much. Gump was too gimmicky for me, and there was some really sly manipulation going on in Beauty which i had not caught on to when i saw it the first time.
@5 nadir – I was really confused by ur comment.
I gathered two things, something about my inability to think (correctly observed), and the Black/white race relations and JC symbolism.
Sometimes a crime thriller/drama is just that. One may read Christian symbolism into any story about a martyr, or that the movie is about race relations in america.
It is quite possible that you are right, but I don’t look for greater meaning and symbolism in a movie with Ethan Hawke. It is also quite possible that the actors or director brought that in as subtxt without the writer intending it.
I was quite satisfied with my superficial understanding of the story of the events that transpired. If you see more meaning, good for you.
@ mainak –
Respeck.
seems to erase some of the douchebaggery associated wit him. plus, when Casey is ur brother, u can’t be that bad right?
dabba, you just sold the first ticket to your movie. charlize “hotness” therone is her name btw.. and let’s not forget losing a whole bunch of weight either (tom hanks, castaway – though he didn’t win i don’t think)
sorry to digress from topic, but speaking of thrillers, just watched “no country for old men” a couple of days back.. and the ending just made me go wtf.. why do the coen brothers thrive on wtf endings so much? i think that deserves a post in itself.. bardem was magical, and brolin was sufficient. can’t believe you smoked with him mainak.. that’s pretty fucking cool.
@ striker –
i have to watch No Country again when it comes out on DVD (not all of us are that lucky mainak) after all the euphoria has died down, and the oscar season is over, for me to be able to analyze that movie. That movie should be a master class in thriller direction.
i liked the movie a lot, and didn’t mind the ending. In their own Coenish way, the ending was strangely befitting and satisfying for me. Their best movie for me is still Miller’s Crossing.
hello dabba;
your makeshift name reminds me off the mumbai dabbawallas(just kidding).
what i had tried to point out from my previous post was not ur inability to think but more appropiately your inability to make other sthink regarding your work.
u had started it pretty nicely but you had unknowingly or indirectly put an end to the point that u were trying to put across through your post in its latter stages
any form of art is highly intepretative and you should always be open to all the views that come into ones mind..isnt it?
have u watched the slackers by richard linklater?most of the richard linklaters movies are unconventional sorts;representing chaos and randomness.he leaves it all to the viewers to interpret..doesnt he?
that is art i suppose!
@ 14 nadir –
“but you had unknowingly or indirectly put an end to the point that u were trying to put across through your post in its latter stages”
Can you elaborate? I am curious about what exactly you are getting at, and I hope I have not come across as contentious.
I have seen Linklater’s films, and have enjoyed most of them. A rambling, unconventional movie like Slackers, as well as an abstract and chaotic Waking Life. But, he also made Dazed and Confused and School of Rock, two movies I enjoyed immensely.
I believe that there should be absolute clarity in the events that transpire. If that is not done, the Director/Writer has not done her job. The meaning of the events are of course completely open to interpretation, and no creator can ever expect the patrons to get exactly what was intended, and if they do, it is usually spoon fed and will not satisfy.
I don’t use the word art because I don’t understand what qualifies, and how to evaluate it. I know movies and stories though.
yep it was one of those WTF just happened climaxes..
i was waiting for the coolest neva b4 seen turnarounds orcheastrated by ethan and somehow ‘fate’ was the ‘hero’ at the climax… (if i remember rt)
remember thinking.. issko isske liye oscar mila?!!!!!!!!!
@ DPac –
Would you like some cheese with your ham sandwich?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX-d2MMp3co&NR=1
http://youtube.com/watch?v=97f5h5YSHxA
“I’m talking about ethics”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkJIcFMN_pc&feature=related
Dabba
Do you give your analysis more power than your feelings when you watch a film?
My top 3 Coen Brother films are -
1) FARGO
2) RAISING ARIZONA
3 The Big Lebowski
I plan to watch NO COUNTRY again in a few weeks when I’m done with the rest of the DVD’s. Because I loved the movie while watching it I am also not sure how great it really is. And I completely got lost in thoughts in that last monologue by Tommy Lee Jones. Also I don’t get sounthern accent sometimes. I didnt get some of his interactions with his smart deputy.
This year belonged to Tommy Lee Jones, Casey Affleck & Josh Brolin.
@ dabba..
are u saying he should have got it for that snippet??
sorry bro didnt get u….
Dabba .. i have seen training day .. but dint quite njoy it then.. so now its faded from my memory!!
will see it again thou,
i njoyed denzel saabs performance in HURRICANE!!
@ DPac – I thought the same when I saw Training Day way after the Oscars… isko is ke liye Oscar mila? KUCH BHI! It is an entertaining movie at the max.
Talking about climaxes, has anyone seen ‘Fallen’? Also had Denzel. I think it was an average movie but the whole concept and ending worked for me and I rate it among the best climaxes. Subtle yet shocking. Clever yet ironic.
Shawshank was unique. I totally agree about Gump being gimmicky. I saw it recently too and remember thinking to myself ‘who’s the moron really?’. Cast away ended well.
Dil Se.. no comments. I thought Company had a good climax. Sarkar felt like you are going on 120kph in a 40 zone and just missed a right turn.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE had a great ending. Makes up for all the dull moments in the film.
This years best ending was
GONE BABY GONE
THE ASSASINATION OF JESSE JAMES(Its 30 mins long)
@ DPac – no..no, it’s bad. totally hamming it up. i just posted the clip to refresh people’s memory.
@ george – when i watched training day, i was not that impressed. it was quite entertaining and i liked the way it had been plotted, but by the time the ending rolled around, all i could see was denzel’s oscar ham and this was before the nominations or anything else.
@ anand G –
Yes, Fallen had a clever ending.
@ Mainak –
I try my best to completely get into a movie without any analysis when I watch it for the first time. Watching in a movie theater helps.
Two things help me in that. If the dialogue is good, then the movie automatically draws me in. If the writing is good, and I don’t see the mechanics of it, then I can stop thinking completely, and just go with the emotions. I will dissect the movie later though to see what worked and on DVD, definitely watch each scene multiple times.
Gone Baby had one of the most emotionally devastating ends in recent times. I have got to do a post on that movie. There seems to be one problem with Dennis Lehane adaptations (Mystic River being the other one). He writes mysteries…almost old fashioned kinda whoddunits, but with very strong characters rooted in their city/town and it is about something. The mystery is almost secondary to the story, and is just a vessel to explore these characters.
In a novel, you can spend half a chapter on a tertiary character, mentioned them in passing couple of times later, and then bring them up as the killers/criminals in the end.
In film you can’t do that. In Mystic River, I knew after the first 30 minutes of the film, and they had introduced the actual characters that did Sean Penn’s daughter, I knew it was them. The rest of the movie, was just kind of lost on me after that, and I was just watching the spectacular method ham on display after that.
Same thing with Gone Baby, the casting of you know who, and their disappearance from most of the movie made me realize their role. But, I was so taken in by Casey’s performance and the investigation, and the dilemmas and choices, that it didn’t bother me. Colorful dialogue sure helped too.
I will watch jesse sober.
True.
In the end I realized the casting choice. I was completely lost in Casey’s dilema too.
I love the shot of TV(Social Comment). And I love how its stays so long. Some may say it was too obvious. But who cares.
Just saw I AM LEGEND. I loved it. Must be great in the theaters.