I had the opportunity to watch The Brothers Bloom this weekend. It’s a film that Maria and I had wanted to see for a long time but just hadn’t got around to it. To be honest, after our extended Oscar-nominated film-watching marathon we’ve both been a little burnt out on the cinema. However, if we’d realized how great The Brothers Bloom was going to be, we certainly wouldn’t have waited this long to watch it.
Well, it’s over, and almost right away juries around the world began to weigh in on what was one of the most hyped series finales in recent memory. The LOST finale: The End. Before the final episode opinions, objections, predictions and criticisms flew left, right and centre. Would we have our questions answered? Would we be left hanging? Would we be satisfied? Would fans feel appropriately rewarded for their six years of loyalty? Since everyone and their uncle is offering their review I, of course, must add mine to the chorus of voices. So, here we go…
I rarely like the stuff put out by College Humor but, for a LOST fan, this video is absolutely brilliant:
I think it’s impossible not to frame this review in a particular context: this is the last regular episode of LOST, ever. The penultimate LOST episode. The almost-an-end-of-an-era episode. The fat lady is about to sing, and it’s impossible to get past that. But, all that said, I want to take a second to step back and try to see the longview. Have hopes and expectations lined up with reality? Is it going in the direction we thought it would? What’s up?
If there’s one thing that I think every LOST fan can agree on, aside from the fact that the show is awesome, is that we haven’t been getting nearly as many answers as we expected. I think it’s funny, as this debate rages on, that there are those who act like apologists for LOST’s writers. We get the slightest little hint at an answer and they’re all over it to say, “See! We are getting our questions answered!” They work so hard to help us find merit in every episode despite the fact that we’re constantly disappointed. These guys are real troopers and I think we have to applaud their incredible faith. But, guys, let’s be realistic: no one is pleased with the amount of question that have been answered—we’re all disappointed.
But should we have expected more? Did we really think that we’d get all of our questions answered? I mean, deep down inside did we? From its inception, LOST has been about leaving us hanging, about piling on more and more mystery instead of explaining it away. This show has never been about tying things up neatly with a bow, and I don’t think we should expect anymore, not from this final season and, I would suggest, probably not from the finale either. In fact, they’ve so much as told us that they aren’t going to explain it all, that we won’t be left completely satisfied. If we chalk that up to the nature of the beast, then I think we can atleast get on with it.
This week’s episode of LOST, like the earlier Richard-centric episode, was entirely a flashback. I don’t think we saw any of these kind of episodes during earlier seasons so it’s pretty neat to see two in the final run. Like Richard’s episode, “Across the Sea” did a lot to move the good vs. evil plot forward and reveal to us a bit more of what the island is really about. Do we come away really knowing anything new? I don’t know, I’m still on the fence about that. But it was a solid episode with lots of information and a lot of intriguing developments. An enormous 2,200-word essay is below the break…
500 Days of Summer is one of those films that surprises you. I was surprised. When Maria mentioned that she wanted to watch it I was kind of skeptical. It looked like a chick flick, and even though I’ve been known not to mind a chick flick from time to time, I still approach them with some reserve. That said, 500 Days of Summer was really anything but a chick flick. Instead, it was an absolutely wonderful piece of film making that stretched and bent the edges of narrative story-telling, character and plot development, and imagination. It’s a must-see.
