Never Forget to Remember Me

Never Forget to Remember Me

Ever since I was a wee lad I wanted to work in the "talking pictures." Maybe it was because I was born and raised in Los Angeles and even though I do work on a film studio right now, I know there's one thing stopping me from being a director. My reckless abandonment of anything sane.

As a little boy playing with action figures and setting them up to star in my movie I imagined how awesome it would be to make a completely sober, serious movie and play it straight for 99% of the run-time and then introduce a completely ridiculous non-sequitur ending like the main character succumbing to Spontaneous Human Combustion, Aliens coming down and raping him, getting run over by my parents car tire as they pull up the drive way, or something equally absurd, just for the sheer sake of trolling the audience.

Now I don't have to imagine what it's like anymore. Robert Pattinson's new film Remember Me did it for me. Oh, don't want to get a film you wouldn't have seen anyway spoiled? Fucking pussy.



For those of you still reading, Bravo! You're in for some expected treats. Imagine this - A modern love story set in what New Yorkers believe is the epicenter of the world, New York. Two people come across and have a relationship that is the bees-knees. They have their issues and one has daddy issues. Finally resolving those daddy issues, even if it causes the relationship to suffer, he goes and visits his father.. in Tower 1 of the WTC.. on September 11th.. And there you go, WHAT A TWIST!

According to the first reviews on Rotton Tomatoes, there's no foreshadowing of the ending. It just happens. I mean, think about it, I severely doubt that they are going to toss in a "Meanwhile in Afghanistan" in the middle of these two young twenty something love birds enjoying their young love in New York.

Just imagine that being attached to your romance film. Camera zooms out of window at New York Skyline, you see a plane heading straight at Pattinson, camera turns around and zooms into Pattinson's eye. Explosion. Fade to black. The average unprepared moviegoer just sits, and stares. Isn't that right, some loser at AICN?

Many of you have already heard about this ending; some are just reading to confirm that it is in fact the ending you’ve been hearing so much about. Yes. It is that ending. Just as Tyler gets a precious glimpse into the mind of his father and feels, for the first time, as if he understands him, his father’s secretary asks “How old would your brother be?” “28. He died May 20th, 1995. You should know that.” Throughout the film it is mentioned that his brother died at the age of 22. Just as you begin doing the mental math, plugging six years into that equation and realizing that they just celebrated Labor Day – we cut back to Tyler’s little sister in her classroom. The teacher steps out from in front of the chalkboard. It reads September 11, 2001. Back to Tyler who steps over to the window and looks out over the city. Gosh he’s high above it. Now we’re outside looking in. The building is unmistakable. We pull back and see its twin framed behind it.

All this time the film has failed to mention that Tyler’s dad works in the World Trade Center. Now I’ve been told that other prints showing around the country set up the date of the film as taking place in 2001 on a title card towards the beginning – some press materials are including this as well. Our print apparently didn’t have it. No one I spoke too saw a date. But twist or not, surprise or not, my response is the same. This ending is cheap, low and despicable. It’s bad enough when a love story aims to rob the audience of a happy ending through an easy but tragic twist of fate accident like being run over by a bus or struck with brain cancer or some such horrible thing; but when you invoke the single most profound, horrifying, culture changing event of the modern era, you best have something powerful to say about it.

That shock of an ending is great. I don't even mind that they're totally ripping off an idea about a romantic comedy where an adorable couple gets into a series of wacky hijinks as they take a train across Europe and then BAM! the infamous gates to Auschwitz close behind them.


This film just went viral

The film would only be better if he somehow got to time travel and met Dale Earnhardt jut before he dies in a car wreck. Or how about if the second plane turned into a werewolf and fought with Robter Pattinson over the love of the first plane, which turned into a woman....

I just have to wonder how on top of wardrobe they were. I mean, think about how much of a pain it must have been to be the Script supervisor on this film? No iPhones, nobody texting other people, Zoolander posters all over the place, iPods powered by coal - They really did keep this as a period piece, damn it! It's brilliant if you think about it. This movie, if it is ever remembered, will be remembered for unzipping its pants and letting 9/11 flap down onto an audience made entirely of fat women, preteen girls and my friend Ray, who loves him some chick flicks.

I also have to hand it to Pattinson. He's sure knows how to troll people. If not with proof of this film, but with his life in general as a magnet for teenage fangirls.

"I really hate vaginas. I’m allergic to vagina."

HE even hates Twilight. Or at least his character.

"When you read the [Twilight series], it’s like saying ‘Edward Cullen is so beautiful I creamed myself’. I mean every line is like that. He’s the most ridiculous person who’s so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn’t do it. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that’s how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he’s a 108 year-old virgin, so there’s clearly some issues there."

I think I just met my new homie. He is seriously comically amazing. You have to admit, now that's just funny. If that doesn't make you think twice about this guy then how about how he treats his stalkers.

"I had a stalker while filming a movie in Spain last year. She stood outside of my apartment every day for weeks—all day every day. I was so bored and lonely that I went out and had dinner with her. I just complained about everything in my life and she never came back. People get bored of me in, like, two minutes."

At first you must think that it's kind of sad that an internationally known actor would be so bored in his apartment that he'd hang out with his stalker and then drive her away. Maybe that emo vampire shit really got to him, right? WRONG! That right there is the best way to deal with a stalker.

If Jodie Foster just took John Hinckley out to a cafe and talked about her cats and told "funny" stories about how she thought she lost her shoes but they were just behind the door, The ol' gipper wouldn't have had to take a shot in the chest.



So this news got me to thinking about other films and what other "out of nowhere" endings happened.

The Knowing
Easy Rider
A Serious Man
From Dusk Till Dawn
Jason X
City of Angels
Carrie
Identity

But the winner of this "Out of fucking nowhere WTF?!?!" award goes to Dead Or Alive.

"A yakuza of Chinese descent and a Japanese cop each wage their own war against the Japanese mafia. But they are destined to meet. Their encounter will change the world."

And that's not even much of a spoiler.. because really, all you now know is that the ending comes out of fucking nowhere. Remember Me, welcome to the list of movies that make no logical sense as to why they ended the way they did.

The final cherry on top of all this is that the director was asked why he titled the film "Remember me"? his reply is that "Never Forget" would have been too obvious. Nice one. Well played there. Well played indeed. The only way you could have one upped yourself was by having the ending credit go up really fast while playing Yakkety Sax. Which, while I very rarely would do it, sort of makes me have to end this blog entry with Tribute.wmv