Twist, Please

We at the Blasphemy Blog were quite disappointed that we were not victorious in Tbogg's guess-the-surprise-ending-to-the-new-Shyamalan-movie contest. Unfortunately for us, everyone else had the same idea we did.

Tbogg initiated this contest to heap scorn upon M. Night Shyamalan, who tends to go for the twist ending that forces you to rethink completely the entire story. We confess that we have actually enjoyed the three twisty endings to the three Shyamalan movies we have seen. The visceral thrill of the surprise is like candy for us. And we're also gullible enough to fall for them every time.

But our favorite twist ending of all time? The Cold War. All that buildup, all those little hot wars and posturing, threats of world annihilation...but it ends with a bunch of ecstatic Germans swinging their pickaxes. What a twist.

Attempting to predict the future, as stockbrokers and CIA analysts do, is big business, and is so because no one can really do it. We all have our ideas about how things are going to turn out, but it seems like the harder we think about it, the more of our intellectual firepower we bring to bear on the future, the faster it slips away from us. How many smart observers of American culture thought that TV would be just a fad? How many knowledgable investment bankers passed on the personal computer? Even smart people can only guess.

And stupid people can be right sometimes, too.

Here's hoping we're headed for another twist ending in this "War on Whatever." We're thinking something with dolphins and a hip hop dance troupe. Now that would be unexpected.