First up, 10 Great Movies That Flopped:
http://www.moviestalk.com/10-great-movies-that-flopped/
This list involves movies that when they were originally released were box office flops yet over time became known as great films. Some might surprise you (Citizen Kane, It’s A Wonderful Life) while you may recall others which had not such great box office results.
The inclusion of Joe Versus The Volcano, however, is a real head-scratcher for me. I know the film didn’t do all that well at the box office, but is it considered a great film today? Is it even remembered today?
Of the films listed, the one I find most curious is Blade Runner. I was around when the film was initially released and recall the less than sterling box office results…along with (if memory serves) muted and unenthusiastic reviews. The big, BIG box-office champ that summer of 1982 season was Steven Spielberg’s E. T. the Extra Terrestrial. That movie essentially was the king of that summer season, yet I can’t help but think that today the film doesn’t hold up quiet as well as some other classic Spielberg films (Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc). As one critic said in looking back, perhaps that year people wanted to see something bright and cheerful rather than dark and dour.
The second list involves Good (or Great) Movies with Terrible Endings:
http://www.chacha.com/gallery/2943/which-movies-have-the-most-terrible-endings
I agree with some of their choices while a few others were films that couldn’t be saved, IMHO, almost from the get-go.
Their choice of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, however, was a curious one. I’ve stated before that The Birds was one of those films I didn’t like all that much until I finally realized what exactly Mr. Hitchcock was doing: Making his version of those then very popular “mutated monsters on the loose” films. In his case, he took all the cliches in those films, which often involved the scariest looking creatures -usually insects- that grow to superhuman size and terrorize the populace only to be stopped by either the intrepid scientist, the rock hard military/adventure type, and the romantic interest (or a combination of all three), and invert the cliches completely.
Instead of a mutated extra large scary looking creature/insect, he took a creature NO ONE thinks is terrifying and is present almost everywhere: The common bird. No mutations, no extra size, just your common bird. In swarms. There is no scientist to explain the bizarre behavior. The rock hard military/adventure type cannot stop their rampage. And the romantic interest ultimately is shocked into a near coma-state.
And then, most sinister of all, (SPOILERS!!!) the birds simply let the leads go at the end. Why? Because they won. The birds had conquered all (certainly the small city and, implied in this, the world itself), and they viewed the few survivors as no longer a threat to them.
The ending was incredibly appropriate and made total sense.
Switching gears a little here: Mission: Impossible, the first of the Tom Cruise MI films, had a golden opportunity to create an ending that didn’t crap on the original TV series. As those who saw the film may recall, Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt, an MI agent who survives a catastrophic mission wherein all his teammates were betrayed and killed. The betrayer, it turns out, is none other than (SPOILERS!!!!) Jim Phelps, the character who was the lead in the TV show that spawned the movie. This is not unlike doing a Star Trek film where it is revealed after a while that Jim Kirk or Spock were, in reality, “bad guys”.
But at the very end of the film, when Phelps is dispatched and Ethan is on a flight and receives his first briefing as the leader of the MI task force, I thought the tape recording he was listening to would refer to him as “Mister Phelps”, revealing that name is in actuality a code name for any leader of the IMF group. Thus, the TV show’s Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) and the movie’s evil Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) could be revealed as separate people…and the Ethan Hunt character is, in the end, renamed “Jim Phelps” and continues from there.
I’m not the first person to think this, and there have been others who noted that maybe the whole “James Bond” ID should/could also be viewed as a “code name”, thus allowing for so many difference actors to play the character.
Not a bad idea, either. At least in my humble opinion!