But how does it end?!

That's the question I always ask whenever someone recommends that I watch a new movie. I love movies, LOVE them. But I don't always like how they end. I have a deep respect for the blood, sweat, and tears of the hundreds if not thousands of people involved in crafting each film I watch. However, it's their amazing work that I blame for this feeling of devastation I experience when I leave a movie theater after seeing a film that ended different than I expected.

That's not to say that I don't watch sad films, I do, but sometimes it helps to have a heads up that everyone dies so I can be emotionally prepared before the credits roll. I know that I shouldn't try to blunt the intensity of the emotions that these storytellers are working so hard to get me to feel but here's the deal: I have a lot of baggage and big emotions in my own life. I can't always handle everyone dying at the end. I can't always handle the leads not ending up together. It messes me up, which in turn, messes up my day and my week. And sometimes that is the point. Movies can be calls to action, can be expressions of pain, can be personal forms of art. And I see and appreciate that. But I need a little heads up if that's where we are heading.

Movies can also encapsulate inexpressible joy, and love, and laughter. And while I have cried in a movie theater many times, it is nearly impossible to replace the feeling of laughing and cheering alongside people I don't know within the micro-community of a movie theater. Movies can get me down, but they can also lift me up. And that feeling can last for a couple of hours, or the day or the week as I revisit scenes and themes in my mind.

This site is not intended to be a full review of each film. Instead, it is for all of the people out there who wonder, "But how does it end?"