We saw Gran Torino last weekend, which prompted me to realize that I heart Clint Eastwood. Yes I know, this is pretty obvious. It's like watching a baseball game and noticing that Omar Vizquel plays pretty good defense. Eastwood plays this crochety old man who uses racial slurs the way Derek Jeter grounds into double plays in the post season (often.) But it's impossible not to kinda like his character. Oh and it has the Jo & Laurie factor, a.k.a. "The Little Women Phenomenon." Men feel free to stop reading. Come on girls, you know, in Little Women, how you desperatly want Jo & Laurie to be together? Only they never end up together. But no matter how many times I've read the story or seen the movie and know that it can never end the way I want it to, I always watch it again thinking that just maybe this time it just might end differently. Same thing in Gran Torino. It can never end the way I really want it too...but I get the feeling I'll keep rooting for the same thing if I ever watch it again. I kinda like that.
What's your favorite "Little Women Phenomenon" movie?
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For me, the "Little Women Phenomenon" movie is "Saving Private Ryan". No matter how many times I watch it, I want that coward Upham to deliver the ammo during the final battle; I want Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) to let the men kill the German instead of letting him go; I want Private Mellish (Adam Goldberg) to be strong enough to overpower the German when struggling with the knife; I want Private Jackson (Barry Pepper) to get the hell out of the tower before the tank takes him out; and obviously I want everyone to survive the final showdown at the bridge.
But as they say, war is hell and "Saving Private Ryan" didn't waiver from that absolute truth, which is one of the many things that made this movie so great.
See that's the best part about it, deep down you KNOW that the movie would be weak as hell if it ended your way, but you can't help but kinda wish it would...just once.
DAMN IT BARRY PEPPER! GET OUT OF THE TOWER!
I can only think of the prosaic. These are the ones that in my head end happily, and yet the "happy" scene is actually missing from the movie:
"Shakespeare in Love": it's a romantic comedy where love prevails and the play succeeds, but Viola is shipped off to America in marriage, never to see Will again. What???
"Good Will Hunting": obviously this does end happy. But the reunion with Skylar doesn't appear onscreen and I always trick myself into thinking it does. They have a heartbreaking split, we see her leave on a plane, but I'm thinking, "it's okay, they get back together." And while I'm sure they do, I DON'T SEE IT, and I'm always surprised when the credits roll and I don't get to see Skylar again.
"Funny Girl": it's a delightful musical, Streisand cracks me up, and she falls head over heels for the dashing Nicki Aunstein. That's all I remember. The fact that they divorce in the end because he's a weak-ass man who can't handle his wife's success always seems to elude me.
I wish Micky didn't die in RockyIII
I wish "my dog skip" never died, it would have left me tear free
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