the elephant man Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As the film prepares to take flight tomorrow, reviews are starting to pour in for Hilary Swank's Amelia. It's quite the mixed bag, from Roger Ebert's praise to Keith Uhlich's description of the film as a "colorfully hollow biopic about America's beloved aviatrix." Should more chime in with Ebert's positivity, the film could get decent buzz, but as it stands while writing this on Thursday afternoon, out of 13 reviews, it's got a paltry 23% fresh rating.

The negative sentiments aren't really a surprise. The early pictures of the film weren't exactly promising, and the trailer induced skeptical responses. But rather than rant about dreams of Amelia Earhart getting one of those biopics that mesmerizes from the get-go, I'm going to try and stay positive. Not every biopic has to struggle to find footing. In fact, some manage to capture the magic of their subject and make for a damn fine film.

Catch seven of my favorites after the jump, and since such a small number can't begin to cover them all, please weigh in with your own in the comments.

Right off the bat, I have issues with this list. Not so much for the fact that almost all of the films are sci-fi horror/thrillers, but because they left off a film with such a depressing ending that it still haunts me to this day. But first off, Den of Geek has compiled a list of what they feel are the 10 most depressing movie endings ever. Before you click over and check them out, be warned that massive amounts of spoilers await you. Here's their top ten: Soylent Green, The Elephant Man, The Descent, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Spider, Nineteen-Eighty Four, A.I. and -- drum roll please for number one -- The Mist.

Yes, valid points are made on all of them. Yes, they are depressing. But what about The Last American Virgin? Now there's a film with the most depressing ending I've ever seen (and if you've watched that film, you know exactly what I'm talking about). Off the top of my head, No Country for Old Men had a pretty depressing ending -- as did Goodfellas. There's Untamed Heart, Venus, Requiem for a Dream -- pretty much any film where someone is dying of an illness, but gets one last chance at love. Though it served as a bridge film, I thought Empire Strikes Back had a pretty depressing ending. Check out their list, then tell us which films were left off.

In your opinion, which film has the most depressing ending of all time? (Dammit, now I have The Last American Virgin ending stuck in my head. Sigh.)

UPDATE: Here's another list from our friend Alex on the 15 Bleakest Film Endings of All Time. A lot of the films you folks talked about in the comments are on his list, so hop on over and check it out.

Oh, boy. I still get chills thinking about the debut of David Lynch's Twin Peaks on television. With the lights out in my tiny room, I eagerly tuned my tiny TV to the well-publicized pilot episode -- and within 15 minutes I was in tears. David Lynch made me freaking' cry about the death of a fictional character I knew nothing about! At that point I'd only seen The Elephant Man and was in no way prepared for what Lynch could do with framing, lighting, pacing, music, mood and characters. All I knew was that I'd never seen anything like that on television before and that I definitely wanted to see more.

The pilot episode has never been available on DVD in the US, though I once owned an apparently legal copy from overseas with fuzzy picture quality. Lynch produced a different version of the pilot -- in which the question of "who killed Laura Palmer?" was answered -- for release in Europe as a theatrical feature. The first season was released by Artisan as a box set -- sans either version of the pilot -- in 2001 but has been out of print for quite a while. The second season was released by the current rights holder as a box set just a few months ago, amid rumors that a complete edition would be forthcoming. Reporting from Comic-Con in July, Cinematical's Kevin Kelly gave us a preview of a box set that sounded impressive.

Now we have details courtesy of James Israel at Jump Cuts, who says that the show was what initially got him and his brother interested in independent film. Israel posted the official press release about "The Definitive Gold Box Edition." The 10-disk set includes all 29 episodes plus both the original and European versions of the pilot. Yay! The material has been newly remastered from the original negative and approved by Lynch. Double yay! The extra features are said to include "hours of newly-minted bonus content ... never before released on DVD," which might convince those who already own both seasons to double dip. A promotional Quicktime clip can be downloaded from this location. Twin Peaks: The Definitive Gold Box Edition streets on October 30.