AFT Awards: Best Ending

Beware spoilers for “Cloverfield,” “Iron Man,” “Wanted,” “In Bruges,” “Revolutionary Road” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”

This is the twenty-third category of the 2nd Annual AFT Film Awards to be announced. The AFT Awards are my own personal choices for the best in film of each year and the best in television of each season. The AFT Film Awards include the traditional Oscar categories and a number of additional specific honors. Nominees are pictured in the order I’ve ranked them.

Runner-up:
Cloverfield killed off all its characters, which was probably for the best as they were all super annoying, but didn’t resolve anything with the monster. The last bit of the videotaped footage has been analyzed to death, and I love the idea that the monster was shot into the water in the background and that the last sound heard can be played backwards to say “It’s still alive.”

The winner:
Iron Man went out on a pitch-perfect note that completely defined the character of Tony Stark. It’s a perfect way both to end a standalone project and to set itself up for a sequel, with cameras flashing and reporters wailing as Stark decides to announce that he is in fact the title superhero. I’m not counting the bonus footage after the credits, especially since I forgot to stay for it, but it’s great to see that Iron Man is going to be part of a greater Marvel movie universe, and it’s always terrific to see Samuel L. Jackson in any role, big or small.

Other nominees:
Wanted, in addition to a great scene near the end which I’ve named as one of my favorites in a forthcoming post, ended with a superb bang. Sloan’s demise is presented in the same way the movie started, with a decoy target and impossibly zigzagging bullet. The best part is Wesley’s final sarcastic remark – “what the fuck have you done lately?”

In Bruges was wonderfully creative in the way it left things open from the point of view of narrator Colin Farrell and also managed to have the villain brilliantly mirror the hero’s story in its final scenes.

Revolutionary Road was a sub-par film that wanted to send a deep message about unhappiness, and for me it was only effective in the final scene, where Kathy Bates’ character is talking to her husband about how impossible it is for them to have been so unhappy with each other, and the extremely minor character of the husband makes a powerful gesture by subtly turning down his hearing aid so that he doesn’t have to hear her, emphasizing his unhappiness.

Slumdog Millionaire went out in true Bollywood style with an awesome dance sequence set to a stellar original tune by composer A.R. Rahman.