2012 Film Olympics: Twist and shout!

Posted Monday, July 30, 2012 at 4:40 PM Central
Last updated Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 4:56 PM Central

by John Couture

If there's one thing that I really get a kick out of in the Olympics, it's the unexpected results. To borrow a tagline from Big Brother, expect the unexpected.

I also love when NBC's best laid plans go up in smoke over the course of an hour or so. You see, NBC was all set to trot poor little Jordyn Wieber all over London as the latest and greatest in a long line of all-around Olympic champions from the U.S. women's team.

There's only one problem, due to IOC rules (which may or may not be fair - that's an entirely different issue altogether) only a maximum of two gymnasts per team can compete in the all-around. At the end of the qualifying round, Wieber was knocked out of the all-around by one of her own teammates.

Awkward.

Suddenly, NBC was left to improvise as all of their hours of B roll on Jordyn became as worthless as sun tan lotion in London. Well, not so suddenly because NBC is tape delaying their cherry-picked events after all.

It was surely a shocking twist that they didn't see coming as they spent a great deal of promotion on Jordyn and her rivalry with teammate Gabby Douglas as the two were expected to vie for all-around gold. Instead, Gabby and teammate Aly Raisman will look to finish 1-2 in the all-around.

Of course, who doesn't love a good twist? I especially love those twists that no one sees coming and completely shocks you. Film twists have been around forever and this is another category that was extremely competitive.

I guess a spoiler alert if you haven't seen these movies, but if you're reading this I'm pretty sure you've seen them. When you think of all the twists that didn't make the podium such as The Crying Game, Planet of the Apes and The Game, you know that we only took the best of the best, sir. With honors!

BRONZE

I know that some of you felt that Hoth got the shaft in the snow category and I can feel your pain. Leaving The Empire Strikes Back off that podium was a tough decision, but at the end of the day, only like 15 minutes takes place in the snow while the rest of the film is spent on a swampy planet or in a cloud city.

But there's no denying that finding out that Darth Vader was Luke's father has to be one of those gut-wrenching blows that makes movies famous. It hurt us as much as Luke to realize that he was telling the truth.

SILVER

Man, I remember seeing The Sixth Sense back when I was married the first time. I leaned over to my then wife about five minutes in and said that I thought Bruce Willis was dead. After that, she was dead to me and I still blame this unintentional spoiler for the demise of that marriage.

OK, not really, but you have to admit that when that twist was revealed it seemed to change the way you watched films. It made an instant celebrity out of director/writer M. Night Shyamalan. The only problem is that he then went into the business of creating twist endings and it got old real fast. In fact, I think his career need to continue with the twists hurt this film from making it to the top.

GOLD

Surprisingly, there really was no twists in our twist category. Huh. Of course that would have just been too meta. The Usual Suspects takes home the gold and it is quite deserving.

Who is Keyser Soze? That's the question that we are trying to figure out throughout the entire film. The funny thing is that we've known him all along. He's the one who has been telling us this story as his alter ego Verbal Kint. The best part of this film is that it lives up to so many repeat viewings even after you figure out the twist.

Disney and Fox secure their first medals of the games while MGM proves that it can deliver the gold.

Make sure you come back tomorrow when we get a little bit wet.