Category Archives: Mystery

1960s, 1990s, 2000s, 30 Day Movie Challenge, Crime, Detective, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller

Day 07 – 30 Day Movie Challenge

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The Most Surprising Plot Twist Or Ending

This is a really fun topic to think about. On the other hand, it is an extremely hard one to write about. I want to tell you about all these films that have an excellent plot twist but I don’t want to give away what that twist is just in case someone hasn’t seen it. So, consider this your warning. There will be tons of spoilers ahead. I could not choose just one film without giving some honorable mentions. So I will give you my top-5 plot twists or endings. I hope you will join in the discussion and let me know your favorites in the comments below.

5) The Sixth Sense (1999)
This film has the most talked about twist of all time. I doubt that there is anyone reading that doesn’t already know about the twist that gave director M. Night Shyamalan his trademark. There are almost no clues in the film, showing us that Bruce Willis’ character is actually dead from the start, besides the alienation with his wife. The Sixth Sense was a tremendous crowd-pleaser, and that was its real success. Looking back over ten years later, I can’t overlook the plot holes, like how he entered houses and other metaphysical questions. That being said, this movie was extremely entertaining and helped to reinvent a whole genre.
4) The Others (2001)
This movie combines the right direction, script, editing and performances, all for the sake of the final twist. It borrowed some elements from The Sixth Sense, and it sets you up right from the very beginning. It seems like a simple plot that we’ve seen countless times, the haunted mansion, the children seeing ghosts. And it lulls the audience into a sense of complacency with the film. But as the film marches to the end, everything gets flipped on its head, and the ending is a total shock. And afterwards you think, why didn’t I see that coming? This movie is based on a main concept we’d never seen before. We saw things from a ghost’s point of view.
3) The Usual Suspects (1995)
What can I say about this movie that hasn’t already been said. It has a tremendously well-written script and Kevin Spacey is remarkable as Verbal Kint. But could he be Keyser Soze? Was the whole thing made up just to get the police off their tail? The plot makes you want to see the movie again and again to look for clues. After several times however, some revealing plot holes open up. But all that does is provide more fodder for discussion with all your fellow movie watching friends. Because they can all be interpreted differently by each viewer. But that’s the magic of the movie. It’s not just the final twist, but that final twist is great to the point that I want to buy this minimalist movie poster made in honor of the film.
2) Fight Club (1999)
Just how twisted and disturbed is the Narrator? When we finally realize that Tyler Durden is just a figment of his fractured imagination, an alter ego that personified all the qualities he lacked, you can’t help but admire the way all the events where presented to us. And upon a second or hundredth viewing, there are clues dropped throughout the movie. The single frame shots of Tyler that appear as his personality starts kicking in, the long, and gorgeously written, monologues of the Narrator, the attitude of Marla and other supporting characters. This movie almost completely failed at the box office. I was a junior is High School when it came out and I never heard of it. It was labeled as a product of a violent culture that leads kids in trench coats to bring guns into their schools and kill innocent people. Fight Club is a disturbing movie, but it is honest and real. This twist has an actual meaning unlike most films that just entertain, this one leaves you thinking. I couldn’t bring myself to make it number 1 because of the quality of that champion and because this one will appear again in my 30 day challenge and I was determined not to have any repeats.
1) Psycho (1960)
When you look up “Horror Film” in the dictionary, this picture of Janet Leigh screaming should appear next to it. I believe that Psycho is the greatest horror film ever made. It’s hard to find anything wrong with it. When watching an older movie, you have to put yourself in the mindset of someone from that period. One of the reasons the shower scene became so notorious was that the elements of sexuality and murder were ground breaking. In 1960, seeing a nude women being murdered in a shower was something that no-one had experienced yet. Nowadays, seeing Jason double-spearing two lovers having sex is nothing uncommon. Also, because Janet Leigh was the headliner of the film, no one expected to see her die so early on. After that scene, then the real movie began, and we get a glimpse into the disturbing world of Norman Bates, a man who loved his mother a bit too much. I envy those who experienced Psycho in 1960… in the theater… they experienced the full terror of Psycho.

Well, there it is. Oh yeah, I had a few others that ended up just outside the top 5. I think of A Beautiful Mind, Memento, The Prestige, and Saw. Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know. This is way more fun when you talk back. Leave your comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.

2000s, Film Noir, IMDB 250, Mystery, Surreal, Suspense

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

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Words have failed me in attempting to describe this movie. I tried to write this review in early January, and here we are in late February and I am just now revisiting it. It probably doesn’t help that in that time span we have purchased and moved into our first house. We have lived in houses before obviously, but this is our house.

Anyway, onto the movie. Have you ever had a dream that freaked you out and left you gasping for breath as you rushed back to consciousness? When your loved ones come in the room to check if you are okay all you can say is I had a bad dream. Invariably they will ask what it was about, but we can’t say because 1) the dream is quickly retreating into our sub conscience, and 2) because no matter how well you explain what happened in the dream you sound psychotic. Mulholland Dr. is that creepy dream.

If you are not familiar with the works of David Lynch, I would recommend this movie as a good starting place. Also, the trailer doesn’t nearly do this film justice. The film and its core concept are too complex to boil down to a two-minute clip.

I like to compare it to music. If you’ve ever bought a song off iTunes because someone said that you would enjoy it; then analyzed the song and broke it down into all Its parts, you probably found that it wasn’t enjoyable at all. With that in mind, you have the sense of what it is like to convey the power of a film in which you can lose yourself. To truly enjoy it, you must surrender yourself to it. As Roger Ebert said, “If you require logic, see something else.”

David Lynch loves to make films which defy logic, but Mulholland Dr. follows no conventional plot structure, it simply ebbs and flows like a dream. I think it’s worth mentioning that this movie is an expanded version of an ABC television pilot. You thought Lost was confusing, I could imagine people cursing at their televisions in frustration as more questions arise with no answers in sight.

Also, this film features what I think should have been at the very least and Oscar Nominated performance by Naomi Watts. It would have been more deserved than Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball, and far more that Renée Zellweger for Bridget Jones’ DiaryNaomi Watts is engaging on both sides of the coin of her character. On one hand she is Betty, the perky and naïve, but very talented newcomer to Hollywood. On the other, she is Diane, the frustrated and depressed reality of the too-good-to-be-true Betty. She pulls this off so well that I didn’t realize that it was the same actress playing both parts until well into watching the film the first time. I’m still waiting for Ms. Watts to reach the climax of her career, she has made a number of good films, but nothing to set her apart from every other fair-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde in Hollywood.

I thin that this film displays the secular hope for redemption. Diane is so depressed and disappointed with her life that she elaborately constructs a dream-place where things have gone better for her. We all have regrets, failures, and things that we wish we could change. But the good news is that in Christ, the dream becomes reality. Not that all the bad things disappear when we have Jesus; but that when we have Jesus, we have the strength to endure reality, with the hope of a future redemption and glorification with Jesus.

Do yourself a favor, check out Mulholland Dr. set aside all the distractions and just let it wash over you. Then come back and give me all your theories about what is really going on. There are literally dozens of different theories. If you’ve already seen the movie, you can check them out at Mulholland-Drive.net. I think this film will be successful in creeping you out and will stick in your head for days.

Content warning for my more conservative readers. This film contains several disturbing and violent images as well as a few graphic scenes of topless women engaging in passionate kissing.

1940s, Crime, Detective, Film Noir, Hitchcock, IMDB 250, Mystery, Romance, Suspense

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

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I’m really glad I decided to tackle this mountain of film called the IMDb Top 250. In this post, I want to take a closer look at#248, Shadow of a Doubt. I consider myself a Hitchcock fan, but this is one of his masterpieces that I had never seen before. I’m not sure why I avoided it for so long, perhaps it was simply lack of opportunity. But no one has an excuse to not see this film. Heck, you don’t even have to pay for it. You can watch the whole thing right now on YouTube. In fact, Alfred Hitchcock on The Dick Cavett Show in 1972 said that Shadow of a Doubt was his favorite of all his films. Being familiar with his films and sharing his dry and bleak sense of humor, I can see why.

The actors were superb, famous in their time, but not superstars. Teresa Wright, who remains the only performer ever to be nominated for Oscars for her first three films (The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, The Pride of the Yankees), stars as young Charlie (Charlotte) who is tired of being a ordinary girl in an ordinary family. She believes that inviting her Uncle Charlie from Philadelphia will invite some much needed happiness to her depressing surroundings. But Uncle Charlie, portrayed superbly by Joseph Cotten who had a role in Citizen Kane and starred in The Magnificent Ambersons, has his own secret reasons for leaving Philadelphia to stay with his sister in Santa Rosa for an undetermined amount of time.

Hitchcock collaborated with Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town, to portray Santa Rosa, California as Hometown U.S.A. With warm lighting and a friendly atmosphere, they deliberately makes us prefer the small Santa Rosa to the cold and industrial backdrop of Philadelphia. Hitchcock wanted to slowly introduce some darkness to these bright and cheerful surroundings. This was a social commentary in his day. While this film was produced and released in 1943, it is set in 1941. Many people my age wouldn’t even blink at the simple two year difference, but anyone who lived during those two years knows that they weren’t ordinary years. The bombing that occurred on December 7, 1941 irreparably changed the world the same way that the arrival of Uncle Charlie did that peaceful family and especially his admiring niece Charlotte.

Critics were quick to call this film cynical or morally vague, words that would come to characterize Hitchcock’s style of film-making, but in the wake of the great depression, a gruesome war, and the ever-present fear of nuclear holocaust the world itself became much more cynical and morally vague.  Much like Uncle Charlie, Hitchcock entered our country in a time of peace, as a welcomed guest, and he forever changed our whole way of thinking about movies.

As we get closer to Christmas, I know that I will inevitably see at least a scene or two from Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. If you think about it, Hitchcock is like the anti-Capra. Another classic-film lover named Bill Wren said on his blog Piddleville, “Shadow of a Doubt presents us with an almost quintessential American town of the 1940′s. It’s almost Capra-esque. In a way, Shadow of a Doubt is George Bailey’s Bedford Falls from It’s a Wonderful Life except where Capra brings an angel to it, Hitchcock brings the devil.”

The singular flaw that prevents Shadow of a Doubt from being one of Hitchcock’s elite is the completely formulaic and totally unnecessary romance. It feels totally contrived and out of place. Perhaps this was Hitchcock’s way of showing that although young Charlie has grown through her ordeal, she hasn’t yet grown enough to see that the addition of others to your life will not make you happy if you cannot first be happy alone. If this was his aim, he was very subtle. Today, they would make a sequel in which we find out that her love interest is in fact a serial killer himself.

So what happens when young Charlie realizes the truth about her beloved Uncle? Will she get a chance to reveal his secret, or will he choke her into silent submission? I won’t ruin that ending of the movie for you. Take an hour and a half off and watch it yourself. By the end, you will be humming the Merry Widow Waltz and contemplating the state of the world. What do you think of Uncle Charlie’s assessment of our lives? “You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? The world’s a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie.”

Thanks for watching with me. Next week provides a jump from pre-television wartime to fun loving computer animation and offers a much more lighthearted film, Toy Story 2. I hope you’ll join me.