‘Orphan’ joins the long history of ‘Say what?’ cinema

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I haven’t seen ‘Orphan’ but a few of my colleagues in the newsroom have and they walked out trying to get their head around a particular moment in the film where things took an unexpected turn, to say the least. That inspired a photo gallery entitled The Greatest ‘Say What?’ Moments in Movies. (Don’t worry, they don’t reveal the twist in ‘Orphan’ but they do give away the oddball moments in past films.)

Their list is pretty short, I’m sure we could come up with about 10 more...there are great surprises that are compelling (as opposed to confusing) such as Janet Leigh’s murder early on in ‘Psycho’ and the big reveal in ‘The Crying Game,’ but I think the gallery was looking more for cinematic left-turns that undermine a movie and leave viewers baffled or groaning. For me a recent one was the medical miracle at the end of ‘Terminator Salvation’ that, in my opinion, made that movie’s big finish completely dead on arrival.

-- Geoff Boucher

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