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1: I hope so, but somehow doubt it. I've been waiting for John Woo to make a decent flick since he was stolen from Hong Kong.
2: The people that do are pretty silly. But I think most people are so used and anesthetized to this very typical Hollywood convention that it just sort of slides over them by now. It's kind "Oh yeah, I'm in safe and familiar territory after having had certain notions challenged... it's all right now. Let's go back to not thinking..."
3: Depends on the screenwriter I guess. I'm sure some of these may have had more realistic endings and the happier ones were tacked on by the demands of the studio, who always avoid offending the public.
4:I think it goes with the underlying order hope. The marriage to the doppledanger is just a symbol of that order. When people (not all, but many) get married they suddenly turn into members of the ststus quo all over again. They become "normal", and it's the cue for the audience to relax. I think marriage is a symptom of the Hollywood happy ending, not the cause.
5: Well the Greek plays I'm familiar with ended up with most everyone dead or poking their eyes out after having fucked their mother. Unless you're referring to a deus ex machina deal, which doesn't quite fit...
I think large budget pitcures are designed for comfort factor. Those movies that decidedly don't follow this convention are looked at a little screwy. I overheard people say that they should have changed the ending of "Castaway", since Tom Hanks didn't end up with the girl at the end after his years-long ordeal. (I didn't see it... really...) I agree that the whole bait-and-switch of the "new shiny clone wife" is a bit of a cop-out and not terribly realistic, but most of these people's fantasy lives are put on automatic pilot for most the time anyway. The same goes for Shakespeare, who basically wrote for a large audience as well. And mostly on demand for an audience or royals. Hell, looking back at this, I don't think I answered much- but perhaps I'll add something more substantive at a later date as I am running out the door in a few.
Oh. And as for Tom? I think Cintra Wilson sums it up much better than I.
"I must warn the world about Tom Cruise. I feel he is an utterly terrifying Superior Life Form, with the power to melt heads and braid spines. His eyes are as hard, shiny and brutally penetrating as diamond drill-bits. The new braces on his teeth suggest that he is erasing all that remained of his tiny imperfections, and he is now metamorphosing into Ultra Super Perfection Man 3000. I fear his intense, mind-beating politeness, his titanium imperviousness to human weakness, his barking power-laugh.
"Movies make a little bit of magic touch our lives," he commanded us to acknowledge, with steely resolve and Mach-5 mega-humorlessness.
People in the audience started laughing, until they realized that Tom was Not Being Funny At All. He was chosen to frankly address the post-Sept. 11 whither-the-Oscars conundrum head-on. "Should we celebrate the magic the movies bring? Now?" Tom asked, his eyes boring into the eyes of the TV multitudes and implanting rays of total domination. "Dare I say it?" He flashed a smirk with his robotically flawless teeth. "More than EVER," he hissed, laying on his most Extreme Scientological Unction. He had been commanded by the Elders to Obi-Wan-Kenobi-ize the audience into rebelieving in the importance of the obscenely superfluous Oscars. Tom Cruise is becoming the Scary Flaming Eye from "The Lord of the Rings," and I fear that nobody can stop him."
Article itself at http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2002/03/25/oscars_2002/index.html |
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