January 30 movie: The Usual Suspects. The only other time I'd seen this movie, I didn't know the big twist. Actually, I didn't even know there was a big twist, but Georg called while I was watching it (he was still living in NY at the time) and I told him what I was watching, and he said something about "the 'who is Keyser Soze' secret," and then I knew to look for it, and it was fairly late in the movie so almost everyone was dead, which made it pretty obvious who it was -- of the two who were left, it was the one they weren't pointing you towards.
This time I wondered how the movie would hold up if you know the secret already. Pretty well actually. The movie is tight and holds together well enough that there's more to enjoy than just figuring out who it is. There were a few clues early on (one that my friend Peggy pointed out to me, in a very early scene the person in question holds a cigarette the way they do in Eastern Europe, and another time he kind of smirks when no one is looking at him) but nothing that made me feel stupid for not figuring it out sooner. In a way, the knowledge that all the flashbacks were just spinning yarns makes the bulk of the movie seem kind of pointless, but I still enjoyed it.
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I actually knew the ending before I saw the movie, thanks to a music video on MTV at the time somewhere between when The Usual Suspects was in the theater and when it came out on tape.
I *think* it was an early Jay-Z song, it sampled Glenn Frey's "You belong to the City". The video was a 4 minute version of The Usual Suspects with rappers in the main roles, and basically recreated the pivitol part of the end- walking down the street.
Course, when I saw the actual movie, I knew who Soze was. But I still thought it was a really good movie.
I kind of wish they'd dropped some clues that Gabriel Byrne's girlfriend Edie could have been the real Keyser Soze. Because for one thing, that would have been a cool way for the twist to work out. And for another, there would have been more suspense when it got down to the end and there were so few people left standing.