F For Fake (1973, Fr./Iran/W.Germ.) (aka Vérités et Mensonges, or Truths and Lies, or F Wie Fälschung)

The Last 17 Minutes Of the Film Were Fake

Writer/director/actor Orson Welles' last feature film was this non-linear, documentary-essay (and magic trick at its end) about fakery, art forgery, authorship and authenticity, charlatanism, the value of experts, magicians, and the art world.

Within a hodge-podge of re-edited films (BBC film stock, an earlier documentary on de Hory, candid film footage, newly-shot commentary), the bearded, self-indulgent Welles served as playful emcee as he narrated about "two world leaders in fakery":

• Elmyr de Hory (Himself), a famous and prolific Hungarian art forger who lived on Ibiza
• Clifford Irving (Himself), Hory's scamming biographer who wrote a biographical book called Fake about him

Irving also wrote his own believable but fraudulent biography of a real person - Howard Hughes, and when found out was dubbed "Con Man of the Year" by Time Magazine.

Welles opened the film with a simple statement that hinted at the 85 minute long film concluding with an odd plot twist:

Ladies and gentleman, by way of introduction, this is a film about trickery and fraud, about lies. Tell it by the fireside or in a marketplace or in a movie, almost any story is almost certainly some kind of lie. But not this time. No, this is a promise. During the next hour, everything you'll hear from us is really true and based on solid facts.

The final segment of the film consisted of a 17-minute long dramatic retelling of how a young, sexy Croatian actress Oja Kodar (Herself, Welles' real-life girlfriend at the time of shooting), first seen in the film in a segment on girl-watching, enticed famed artist Pablo Picasso in the village of Toussaint by walking by his place during one summer in provocative beach-dress, and was soon invited in to be his mistress in exchange for ownership of the 22 nude paintings he made of her.

Later, she sold fraudulent or faked Picasso paintings made by her painter-forger grandfather to several museums and collectors in their place, and supposedly made a fortune by selling the real finished Picasso paintings - although her grandfather said they had been burned.

After a tense "reenactment" of an argument between Picasso and Kodar's dying grandfather (who was the accused forger), Welles - admitting that he was a charlatan himself, playfully and mischieviously reminded the audience of his earlier promise to tell the truth for only an hour, and that the concluding portion of the film was just more fakery:

At the very beginning, I - of all this, I did make you a promise. Remember? I did promise that for one hour, I'd tell you only the truth. That hour, ladies and gentlemen, is over. For the past 17 minutes, I've been lying my head off. The truth, and please forgive us for it, is that we've been forging an art story...

He then apologized to Picasso and summed up: "To the memory of that great man who will never cease to exist, I offer my apologies and wish you all, true and false, a very pleasant good evening."

The Faculty (1998)

The Master Queen Alien Was New Transfer Student Marybeth, Killed in the Conclusion by Casey

Scream's writer Kevin Williamson scripted this Robert Rodriguez-directed horror film. It was a hybrid of teenage angst high-school films (such as The Breakfast Club (1985)) and the sci-fi alien invasion film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

The film opened with leading members of the faculty of Herrington High School in Ohio being taken over by murderous aliens. The first to be possessed was menacing Hornets football coach Joe Willis (Robert Patrick), and then drama teacher Mrs. Karen Olson (Piper Laurie) who used a pair of scissors to murder and also infect briskly efficient Principal Miss Valerie Drake (Bebe Neuwirth).

The film's tagline made reference to the six main teen characters, archetypal members of the student body (a misfit rebel, a geek, an outcast, a cheerleader, a jock, and a girl-next-door, etc.) who were introduced during the character credits, that would investigate the weird happenings at their high school among the "Faculty" members:

These six students are about to discover their teachers really are from another planet.

• Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett), a repeating senior-year loner and troubled misfit who was selling fake IDs, dirty videos, condoms and drugs from his car's trunk
• Casey Connor (Elijah Wood), a geeky, whipping boy
• Stokely "Stokes" Mitchell (Clea DuVall), a freckle-faced, black-garbed lesbian and sci-fi buff, an outcast
• Delilah Proffitt (Jordana Brewster), a pretty head cheerleader but vindictive and superficial school newspaper editor-in-chief
• Stan Rosado (Shawn Hatosy), Delilah's red-haired ex-football-playing jock boyfriend who wished for academic respectability
• Marybeth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris), a friendly girl-next-door new student/Southern belle from Atlanta

An alternate universe of alien beings came to fruition after a small alien pod (pelagic or sea-dwelling organism) was found on the high school football field by Casey. He took it to his science teacher Mr. Furlong (Jon Stewart), who examined the strange creature. It thrived and replicated in a tank of water - and developed sharp teeth.

One of the alien converts, elderly teacher Mrs. Brummel (Susan Willis), warned before dying: "I don't know what's happening. They want everyone." And then Casey and Delilah watched from hiding as hypochondriac School Nurse Rosa Harper (Salma Hayek) was murdered and infected with a bloody ear-injection from Coach Willis' mouth - and then reappeared apparently normal.

Almost the entire faculty was soon "commuted" and the students were next, beginning with the most influential. Casey and Delilah were the first to suspect the alien control and parasitic take-over of human bodies at the school (Casey: "It's a devil's cult or something. Maybe they worship comets?...Everybody's been acting really strange, especially the faculty"). Stokely jokingly theorized: "It's like they've all turned into f--kin' pod people or something...Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A small town was taken over by aliens." Casey was more suspicious:

Casey (suspiciously): "Maybe X-Files is right. Where do all these movies come from anyway? How do we know Spielberg, Lucas, Sonnenfeld, Emmerich haven't been visited by aliens? You know, maybe they're aliens themselves. Maybe they're simply preparing us for what's to come."
Stokely: "Aliens have just been setting us up over the years, creating this happy little make-believe existence with their E.T. and their Men in Black movies just so that nobody would believe it if it really happened."

Casey convinced his friends why the aliens had chosen Ohio: "If you were going to take over the world, would you blow up the White House Independence Day-style or sneak in through the back door?"

It appeared that once the faculty members (and then students) were alien-inhabited, they had a transformative make-over and strange character change (often revealing their true or better selves), plus they required huge amounts of water to survive.

The first public evidence of alien-takeover was when science teacher Mr. Furlong attacked the students in the lab-room, and dope-dealer Zeke severed Furlong's fingers from his hand (and they crawled along the floor) and poked his eye out with a long, thin tube of his own dehydrating (diuretic) drug - causing Furlong to decompose.

After a getaway, the unlikely group of six students theorized that if they found the 'master alien' or "Queen" leader and killed it, they could eliminate the threat and the further spread of the parasitic alien seeking human hosts, and everything would revert to normal. Each student, suspicious of the others (in a scene paying direct homage to John Carpenter's blood-test scene in The Thing (1982)), snorted the drug (composed mostly of the contents of caffeinated no-doz pills) to prove their non-alien status. Delilah was revealed to be one of the aliens, and in the confusion, Marybeth concealed the fact that she hadn't snorted the drug.

With little time to spare before the human race was entirely taken over, the group of five returned to the school's Friday night football game where they shot and killed Principal Drake in the gym, but she wasn't the "Queen Bee." On the field, Stan became infected, and tried to convince Stokely to join him: "It's so much better. There's no fear or pain. It's beautiful...No problems or worries." When Zeke went to his car trunk to get the last of the drug, he encountered infected frumpy teacher Miss Burke (Famke Janssen) - now a sexpot, who was beheaded when he crashed his car, but remained alive.

Transfer student Marybeth revealed herself as the head "Queen" alien with huge tentacles - she infected Stokely in the swimming pool. While standing naked in front of Zeke in the locker room, Marybeth first tried to entice Zeke ("Do you like what you see?"). He was knocked out, and then she stalked Casey and told him about her own alien world:

You know, in my world, Casey, there were limitless oceans as far as the eye could see. A beautiful home until it started to dry up. So I escaped, came here, and met you. All of you. All of you were different from the others. You were lost and lonely, just like me. And I thought that maybe, I could give you a taste of my world: a world without anger, without fear, without attitude. Where the underachiever goes home at night to parents who care. The jock can be smart, the ugly duckling beautiful, and the class wuss doesn't have to live in terror. And the new girl -- Well, the new girl, she can just fit right in with people who are just like her. You see, Casey, even Marybeth's feelings can be hurt by a bunch of pathetic, lost, little outcasts who truly believe that their disaffected lonely life is the only way they can survive. I can make you a part of something so special, Casey, so perfect, so fearless. Don't you want that, Casey?

When he replied: "I'd rather be afraid," she retaliated: "Fine. All right. Have it your way. 'Cause this is where your land of fiction gets it right. We win. End of story!" Casey trapped the creature in the collapsing gym bleachers, and then stabbed it in the eye with the last tube of the drug. Although Casey was infected, things immediately returned to normal - unexplicably.

In voice-over, a female news-reporter on the campus a month later claimed there had been "a mysterious disappearance of several faculty members one month ago. Both the local authorities and the FBI have largely discounted several students' claim that an extraterrestrial was involved. A spokesperson for the FBI has indicated that no substantiating evidence has been found."

In the meantime, cross-clique romantic pairings had occurred:

• Stokely and Stan
• Casey and Delilah
• Zeke had joined the football team and was dating Miss Burke.

After Delilah kissed Casey, she told her hero: "You know, you can be pretty cool sometimes." He replied: "Things sure have changed, haven't they?" It was unlike the ending of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where: "They get us. They win, we lose."

Fallen (1998)

The Evil Spirit Azazel, in the Dead Body of Detective Hobbes, Almost Died, But Cleverly Jumped Into a New and Unexpected Host - A Stray Cat

Gregory Hoblit's police crime drama, a soul-transference supernatural thriller, had a warning for its tagline:

Don't Trust a Soul.

Another more revealing tagline was about the main protagonist, who was confronted by a more evil presence than a mere moral criminal:

Detective John Hobbes is searching for a criminal he's already met... already caught... and already killed.

The most important aspect of the film to realize was the continuing presence of an evil spirit or fallen angel named Azazel. This cursed angel roamed the earth, without form, and could possess susceptible people's souls by switching bodies after contact. Azazel was an ancient diabolical presence and force that was almost impossible to track - it was eternally condemned to transmigrate from one soul to another.

The biggest clue was the opening voice-over ("I wanna tell you about the time I almost died...") from homicide detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington). The ultimate twist was revealed in the final minutes - related to this line of dialogue. It was revealed to not be Hobbes' voice, but the voice of Azazel. Hobbes continued:

I never thought it would happen to me. Not at this age. Beaten, outsmarted. How did I get into this fix? How did it all begin? No, no, no, if I go back to the beginning that'll take forever. So, let's start more recently. Somewhere. Anywhere. Reese.

The remainder of the tale was told in flashback. Hobbes was visiting a serial killer named Reese (Elias Koteas) that he had put away - his eighth criminal to die on death row. He was joined by his superior, Lieutenant Stanton (Donald Sutherland). Reese was about to be executed, filmed and documented by the ACLU for a treatise against capital punishment. Reese abruptly reached out his hand to shake with Hobbes, and then recited something threatening in a foreign tongue (the ancient biblical language of Syrian Aramaic). [Note: If Reese had the evil Azazel in him, had an attempt to transmigrate into Hobbes failed or succeeded?] He then ominously and prophetically warned:

Open your eyes. Look around sometime...Remember this, Hobbes...A day, a week, a month...What goes around really goes around... I'll be looking for ya.

As Reese was walked to the execution gas chamber down a long corridor, under the opening credits, the Rolling Stones' song played: "Time Is On My Side." Reese also sang the song as the gas pellets were released - and yelled out: "Baby, come on, go ahead. Light up my life!" Afterwards, Hobbes spoke in voice-over: "Something is always happening. But when it happens, people don't always see it, or understand it, or accept it." (Through visual clues, the evil spirit in Reese had jumped to one of the prison guards that Reese had touched.) As Reese's captor, Hobbes was interviewed by the filmmakers: "Criminals don't accept consequences, huh? They kill somebody, somehow, it's not their fault. Well, this is the consequence of what I do."

However, Azazel continued to transmigrate after Reese's execution from one person to the next - through physical contact. There was a copycat killer committing similar murders.

In a side-plot, Hobbes contacted university theology professor Gretta Milano (Embeth Davidtz), located through clues from a riddle Reese asked Hobbes before his execution. Gretta told about her detective father, Robert Milano ("Cop of the Year '65'"), 30 years earlier. He had been set up and falsely accused of a number of copycat murders and then killed himself: "My dad was a good cop. 'Pride of the force' and all of that. And then he shot himself. A reporter found out my father had been under investigation. He'd caught a killer, but copycat crimes started. Evidence mounted up against him: fingerprints, witnesses. The press never got real proof, but my father's medal was rescinded." He died at his out-of-the-way mountain cabin in the middle of nowhere, reportedly cleaning his gun.

Hobbes visited the out-of-the-way cabin owned by the Milano family, to investigate further, where he found a book on demons (and how they moved by touch), and a name drawn on a basement wall: AZAZEL - but then painted over. Hobbes had consulted a dictionary and found Azazel meant - "the evil spirit of the wilderness." When he met with Gretta a second time and told her his findings, she cautioned him: "Walk away, Mr. Hobbes...If you enjoy your life, if there's even one human being you care about, don't take this case." In the meantime, Hobbes received a translation of the tape with Reese's threatening foreign words before his death:

I can't enter you by touch. But even when I can get inside you, after I'm spirit, I won't. I'll f--k you up and down, left and right.... lf that doesn't work, I have other ways.

When pressed during a third meeting, Gretta explained the Azazel phenomenon to Hobbes:

There are certain phenomena which can only be explained if there is a God and if there are angels. And there are. They exist. Some of these angels were cast down. And a few of the fallen were punished by being deprived of form. They can only survive in the bodies of others. It's inside of us. Inside of human beings, their vengeance is played out.

She concluded by identifying executed criminal Reese (a left-hander, sadistic, who liked to sing) as Azazel. Hobbes was told why he was targeted for a number of crimes, just like her father:

You got his attention. So he tries to get inside you. Remember, he shook your hand. That didn't work, so now he's gonna try to find some other way.

She suggested that there was a network of people who were fighting these demons. Meanwhile, the evil spirit began to torment Hobbes ("evil just keeps on coming"), like it had Gretta's detective father, by framing him for a series of murders, including the killing of a well-respected, innocent high school math teacher (Bob Rumnock) in the street that he thought was possessed by Azazel. Immediately, Azazel's spirit next went into the body of a young female bystander, who boasted about the ability to transfer to a new host closeby without even touching them:

Wake up, Hobbes. I'm not that easy to kill. When my host dies and I move as spirit, no man can resist me. What are you going to do, arrest me?... I'm still having fun. Aren't you still having fun?

Hobbes spoke with Gretta about his experience - and both feared that Azazel was becoming more powerful:

Hobbes: "After the host body dies, the demon can survive for one breath or 500 cubits, right?... Now at the same time, Azazel says to me when he moves as spirit no man can resist. What does that mean? Someone that he can't get into by touch, he can still get into by spirit."
Gretta: "Because, if when he's in spirit form, he's fighting for his life, he's gonna be that much more powerful."

With Gretta, Hobbes worked out a plan to rid the evil spirit forever. In the film's climax, he drove to the out-of-the-way Milano cabin, thinking it was the ultimate battle: Hobbes vs. Azazel. Lieutenant Stanton drove up and told why he was there: "I'm the poor schmo they sent up here to bring you in." From another direction, his backup appeared, Detective Jonesy (John Goodman), Hobbes' 12-plus years partner. And then suddenly, the possessed Jonesy shot and killed Stanton (with a bullet to his right temple). He then began stalking Hobbes, who jumped for cover. Jonesy began singing "Time Is On My Side," and warned about Hobbes' fateful choice:

If I kill you, it's just the final pathetic chapter in the life of a disgraced hero. Just one more piece of s--t, human scum. But turn it around. If I die, I enter you, put twenty more murders on your tab before you go down.

During a struggle for the gun, Hobbes shot Jonesy in the stomach - deliberately not killing him. He reasoned with the slowly dying Jonesy/Azazel: "If Jonesy dies too fast, as powerful as you are, I might never get away from you." Hobbes decided to do what Robert Milano had attempted but failed to do 30 years earlier - kill Azazel in a remote setting so that the demonic spirit wouldn't be able to possess anyone else in the vicinity. Hobbes suicidally lit up a cigarette laced with poison ("It's beautiful, isn't it? Isn't it so sweet? We die together just you and me"). Hobbes then waited until he was predictably possessed by Azazel.

Just before his death in the snow outside of the cabin, Hobbes continued his voice-over dialogue from the film's start - he was now speaking as Azazel! - the evil spirit refused to be defeated by Hobbes:

So, like I said at the start, I was beaten, outsmarted, poisoned by Detective John Hobbes. Can you imagine what it feels like to be alive for thousands of years and realize you're actually going to die because some self-righteous cop decided he was going to save the f--king world? Yes, a demon can die and Hobbes figured out how to beat me at my own game. So what? The war isn't over, I promise you. Not by a long shot.

Azazel 'jumped' into the body of a stray cat (shown from Azazel's POV), ready to inhabit another new body, and chuckled:

Oh! You forgot something, didn't you? At the beginning, I said I was going to tell you about the time I almost died. See you around.

Fargo (1996)

The Surviving Kidnapper Carl and Jerry Were Arrested by Chief of Police Marge Gunderson; Wade and Jean Did Not Survive; The Painting Submitted to the USPS by Marge's Husband Norm Would Be Displayed on the 3-Cent Stamp

This classic Coen Brothers' film ended with the resolution of multiple homicides, including:

• The death of indebted, scheming car salesman Jerry Lundegaard's (William Macy) wealthy father in law Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell) after he delivered ransom money to criminal Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi)
• The death of Jerry's kidnapped, hostage wife Jean (Kristin Rudrud) in the presence of the second criminal Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare)

Gaear killed Carl with an axe, during an angry dispute. Pregnant local Chief of Police Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) found Gaear feeding Carl's body into a woodchipper - she arrested him, after shooting him in the leg.

Jerry was arrested in a motel room near Bismarck, North Dakota. It was unclear whether the ransom money that Carl buried in the snow was recovered.

In the satisfying epilogue, Marge and her loving husband Norm (John Carroll Lynch) were watching TV in bed. She congratulated him on being the winner of the USPS oil painting competition (of a mallard duck) for the 3-cent stamp, a necessity when the postal rate was to be increased.

They were anticipating a hopeful future, thinking about their new prospective life as a family after the birth of their child:

"We're doing pretty good...Two more months..."

Fatal Attraction (1987)

Wife Beth Shot Her Husband Dan's Scorned Lover Alex Forrest to Death in the Bathtub, After She Appeared Drowned - But Resurrected Herself

Adrian Lyne's popular thriller included a few terrorizing scenes of scorned lover Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) seeking revenge after experiencing a short fling with errant husband and successful New York publishing lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas). Earlier in the film, she made "hare stew" of his daughter Ellen's (Ellen Latzen) pet rabbit (named Whitly).

In the shocking and violent conclusion, Dan (seen struggling in closeup) held the hysterical woman under the water in his home's second floor bathtub after she had attacked his wife Beth (Anne Archer) with a large kitchen knife and also attacked him -- he apparently drowned her when she went limp under the water.

"Return From the Dead" Shock Ending of Alex Forrest After Her Attempted Drowning By Dan Gallagher

But then she suddenly and explosively emerged still alive to repeatedly slash at him, until Beth shot her in the chest to finally end her terroristic advances.

[Note: In the film's original ending, crazed and unstable Alex committed suicide to frame former lover Dan, making it look like he had murdered her. After preview audiences objected, the ending was changed.]

The original bathtub scare scene was in French director Henri-Georges Clouzot's psychological horror-thriller Les Diaboliques (1955, Fr.) (aka Diabolique), and also repeated in The Shining (1980), and What Lies Beneath (2000).

Femme Fatale (2002)

Laure Woke Up in an Overflowing Bathtub After A Lengthy Dream; She Advised Doppelganger Lily Not to Commit Suicide, Thus Changing Both of Their Futures For the Better; Laure's and Veronica's Theft of $10 Million Was Successful

Writer/director Brian DePalma's erotic, neo-noirish, dramatic mystery thriller with a major plot twist often provided various obvious and crucial clues in plain sight to audiences, but they were also presented with deliberately misleading, distracting and contrived happenings or far-fetched coincidences. Concerning the fantasy vs. reality dichotomy (and bait-and-switch tactics), DePalma was daring moviegoers to adopt new perspectives. He urged them to pay close attention to what they were viewing and to properly understand and make sense of all of the visual information, without misrecognizing or misinterpreting things and becoming blind to the underlying more sinister elements.

The glossy, visually-striking and lustrous, well-crafted cult classic included themes of voyeurism, deja vu, manipulation and deception, destinies crossing paths, and doubling (including mirroring, doppelgangers and double-identity). Except for the first half-hour (and the film's short concluding segment), it was almost entirely a dream of the title character's nightmarish future, after which the female protagonist attempted to change her destined fate.

The film opened with a spectacularly sexy heist during the screening of the film Est-Ouest at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Nearly-nude, sleek film super-model Veronica (Rie Rasmussen) wore a see-through gold-plated halter top (an "amazing top in the shape of a serpent"), encrusted with 500 diamonds (385 carats) worth over 10 million dollars, as she strutted down the red carpet runway for the festival's gala opening.

As a mercenary con-thief for hire, blonde femme fatale Laure Ash (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) posed as a French journalist-photographer at the film festival event, scored to Ryuichi Sakamoto's 'Bolero'-like music; the statuesque Laure whispered in Veronica's ear to meet her in the ladies room before the film screening began; with phallic and sexual symbolism on full display during the theft sequence, Laure and Veronica kissed during a hot lesbian/bisexual tryst in one toilet cubicle.

Laure's idea was to swap the jewels in the serpentine gold-plated bodice with fake ones; Laure dismantled each part of the garment and dropped it to the floor so that her accomplice 'Black Tie' (disguised as a security guard) in the adjoining stall could replace the jewels with fake glass knock-offs; however, while Laure was deftly executing the plan (and the viewing audience was being distracted by the sexy scene), she switched the real serpentine bra with the fake one; her accomplice left with the fake garment, while Veronica departed wearing the real diamond-studded bra.

The Sexy Heist in the Ladies Room Between Laure (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and Veronica (Rie Rasmussen)

Although the well-choreographed theft wasn't everything that it appeared to be, blonde Laure (together with cohort and partner in crime Veronica) did execute a double-cross and Veronica absconded with the real jewels utilizing a very distracting and clever bait-and-switch tactic. After the heist, Laure double-crossed her two accomplice partners - 'Black Tie' (Eriq Ebouaney) and Racine (Édouard Montoute); during the escape, 'Black Tie' was shot and later arrested (and imprisoned), and as Laure fled, she scolded him for deceiving her: "You said no f--king guns!" In the lobby, Veronica pretended that she had been swindled as she told a security guard: "They switched them with the real! They're glass!"

While on-the-run and hiding out in Paris to evade pursuit by Racine, the double-crossing Laure - wearing all black (and a black wig), was in the rain with a black umbrella standing outside a church in Belleville (a suburb outside of Paris); she was planning to meet up with her camouflage-wearing brunette girlfriend [partner-in-crime Veronica!]; she didn't realize that a long-haired, in-debt Spanish paparazzo Nicolas Bardo (Antonio Banderas) was watching from his overlooking balcony; he photographed the two of them (seen in split-screen) - at the same time that Racine was spying on her through binoculars; she received instructions from Veronica about where she could obtain a passport to leave the country; she was given a note, instructing her to go to Room 214 at the Hotel Sheraton.

Inside the church, Laure was mistaken for a missing, suicidal woman named Lily (also Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), her own look-alike doppelganger, by Lily's aging parents (Irma (Eva Darlan) and Louis (Jean-Marie Frin)); they called after her as she ran off to a taxi; they (and Racine) trailed her to the Hotel Sheraton, where she took the elevator up to Room 214. [Note: During Laure's time in the hotel, passersby later appeared in Laure's dream as major characters.] Inside Room 214, the vengeful, double-crossed and betrayed partner Racine assaulted Laure and attempted to strangle her as he demanded: "Where are the diamonds?"; outside of the room, Laure was thrown off the multi-story balcony into the hotel's inner courtyard by Racine, but miraculously, she survived the fall by landing on giant rolls of airduct insulation.

Lily's parents brought her to Lily's apartment to recover; in their discussion, it was revealed that their daughter Lily had disappeared (and was feared dead) after experiencing a "terrible tragedy" (loss of husband Thierry and daughter Brigitte). Once the parents left for the day, Laure noticed her resemblance to Lily in a framed photograph and other photos mounted on the bedroom's wall; while watching TV, a commentator (speaking in French) during an advertisement provided a major key to the remainder of the film: "And if you could see the future in a crystal ball, or in the palm of your hand, or in a dream, would you change it?"

Laure responded to herself: "Yep" - she had decided to escape her own trap of being pursued for the diamonds after her double-cross; she found Lily's passport and plane ticket and decided to take them to impersonate Lily; at 3:33 pm (all clocks remained fixed at 3:33 pm during the next segment of the film) while she took a soothing soak in an overflowing bathtub (in Lily's apartment) - she fell asleep (and a dream sequence commenced).

Laure in Bathtub: Start of Film's Lengthy Dream Sequence at 3:33 pm - She Awakened To the Sound Of a Suicidal Lily Returning Home

During her bathtub-dream sequence (a spoiler!), Laure was awakened (?) when Lily returned to the apartment; the distraught Lily scribbled a suicide note at a desk next to an aquarium tank: (Contents of Note: "I thought I could start over in America. My English is not so good, but I'm a fast learner. I even bought myself a ticket but I lost it. I can't live without Thierry and Brigitte. Forgive me, my God. Allow us to be together again. Lily"); framed between drapes, Laure voyeuristically watched in awe as Lily loaded a hand-gun, played Russian roulette with herself, and (off-screen) shot herself in the head (with the 2nd shot).

In the next immediate scene, Laure appropriated look-alike Lily's identity in order to be redeemed, "start a new life" and escape pursuit; the scene's transition-segue was a closeup view of a giant teardrop - the interior of a spinning jet engine; she boarded an airplane to the US. Due to a mixup, she was conveniently seated in first-class next to businessman Mr. Bruce Watts (Peter Coyote); she adopted the name of young suicidal, bereaving mother Lily Watts - and was married to Bruce; Watts became the American ambassador to France. In the intervening seven years, Laure/Lily was forced to return to France when her husband Watts became US Ambassador to France.

Laure/Lily again became involved with the Spanish tabloid paparazzo Nicolas Bardo when he was instructed to get a picture of the elusive Ambassador's wife - but without her permission; Bardo snapped her picture as she opened the door of her limo as it entered the gates of her new Parisian residence (the photo was sold to the tabloids for distribution); meanwhile, Laure's two vengeful and double-crossed accomplices (including Racine and 'Black Tie' who was recently released from prison) first caught up with brunette Veronica (seen only from the waist down, wearing a skimpy camouflage outfit with short shorts and knee-high boots and carrying a large bag) who was reportedly "fencing diamonds"; they seized her outside of a cafe and killed her by throwing her under a passing truck (the same truck will resurface later); femme fatale Laure/Lily rightfully feared that her accomplices would recognize her from the tabloid photo posted on billboards throughout the city.

Laure/Lily sought a way to avoid being caught; she deliberately enticed Bardo to follow her and meet up in Room 214 of the Hotel Sheraton; there, she manipulated him by non-chalantly stripping to her skimpy underwear (he asked: "Are you flirting with me?" and she replied: "You're so damn lovable"); she also kissed him as the scene faded; then she set up Bardo for charges of stealing her car and possessing a weapon (her gun, possibly due to her hot-tempered husband who she wanted to leave, or to commit suicide?), but when that failed, she was able to frame him for her own staged kidnapping-for-ransom plan so that she could claim a ransom of $10 million (paid by her husband Bruce) at 2 am and again flee from Paris and acquire a new identity.

Before the ransom exchange, she met up with Bardo at 10 am on the bridge. She suggested having some fun with him for a few hours: ("We've got a couple hours, baby. Let's go do something fun, want to?"), and maybe split part of the take; she invited Bardo into joining her in a bar-room full of men; she temptingly enticed him by asking: "Hey, how come you're the only man in this room that doesn't want to f--k me?"

Laure/Lily to Bardo: "Let's go do something fun"	"How come you're the only man in this room who doesn't want to f--k me?"
In a Basement Bar and Pool Room, Laure/Lily's Strip-Tease For Napoleon to Encite Bardo's Jealousy

In the basement of the sleazy bar/pool-room, the 'bad girl' then performed a raunchy strip-teasing dance for a brawny man named Napoleon (Jo Prestia) to arouse Bardo's angry jealousy; when Napoleon wildly lunged at Laure reclined on the pool table, Bardo rose up to protect Laure by attacking the man; now, the tables were now turned and the scene played from Laure's perspective - she was entertained watching them fight over her (their masculine fight was visualized by shadows on the wall)

Afterwards, Bardo took Laure from behind for vigorous love (she told him as she bent over: "You don't have to lick my ass...just f--k me"). After their passionate love-making on the pool table, Bardo tricked her by recording her admission of her treacherous guilt in the staging of the kidnapping-ransom plot to entrap him: (Laure: "I made everybody think you kidnapped me, so I could screw my husband out of 10 million bucks. That's what it's all about - me disappearing with 10 million bucks").

At the kidnapping ransom-exchange locale at the Seine River's Passerelle Debilly Bridge during the planned rendezvous at 2 am, Laure's plot went sour when Bardo sabotaged the scheme by threatening to play the recording; now that the plan was aborted, Laure/Lily was forced to execute her husband Bruce (with the money in a briefcase) by shooting him in the heart (she mused: "Just being careful"), and then in a direct stand-off against Bardo, she wounded him (and then told him that she had supplied him with a gun loaded with fake bullets), and finished him off with a direct shot into his chest.

Suddenly, she was attacked from behind by ex-accomplice 'Black Tie': ("F--king over everyone again, hmm, not this time!...Where are the diamonds?...Wake up, bitch, before you die!"), who threw her from the bridge into the cold waters of the Seine River - where she was shocked into reality -- the precognitive dream ended; revived by the icy-cold water, the completely-naked Laure 'awoke' from her dream (a nightmare vision of her future) in an overflowing bathtub.

Laure's suicidal doppelganger Lily entered the apartment again, but this time, Laure (who was haunted by her dream) warned Lily about killing herself with the gun: ("You know what's in this? The bullet that is gonna spread your brains all over that wall. You know how I know?"); as she held the gun at Lily, she gave her a second chance to change her future - and to escape from her own trapped fate:

"Look at me. I'm your f--king fairy godmother, and I just dreamt your future. And mine too. And all I know is, if there's a snowball's chance in hell of any of that s--t happening, we're gonna change it right here."

She encouraged Lily to take the plane to America, and sit next to "good guy" Bruce Watts who would "fall in love" with her; Lily chose to have "a wonderful life."

Laure's Challenge to Lily to Have "A Wonderful Life"

She immediately hitched a ride with a truck driver (Salvatore Ingoglia). On the way to the airport after the driver complimented her on her small, reflective glass-ball necklace, she gave him the seemingly-random object to remember the birthday of his 10 year-old daughter, and assured him: "When you're on the road, your little girl will always be with you."

Lily Wearing Glass Ball Necklace Before Giving It to the Truck Driver

Seven years later, once again, paparazzo Bardo was phoned about getting a picture of the new US Ambassador to France with his elusive three children and wife. Bardo again photographed Laure at an outdoor cafe (across from his balcony-apartment) giving a $4 million share to camouflage-wearing Veronica (again revealed as Laure's partner/lover) after she had slowly fenced off the diamonds they had stolen together; Laure's and Veronica's theft of $10 million had succeeded, but Veronica advised Laure: "It's best we don't see each other again."

Photographer Bardo: 7 Years Later Taking Pictures at Outdoor Cafe - Split-Screen Technique

Laure Watching in Fear As Veronica Was Being Attacked by 'Black Tie' and Racine on the Street

After leaving the cafe, Veronica was again pursued on the street by the two double-crossed criminals (Racine and 'Black Tie' who had just been released from prison); from afar as she stood in front of a newly-posted billboard column (of Veronica wearing the serpentine garment at the Cannes Film Festival), Laure watched in horror as Veronica struggled against her captors; in flashback, Laure recalled how the two females had stolen the valuable bejeweled garment with a clever bait-and-switch tactic in the toilet stall.

This time, the crooks lost their lives when a truck driver (driving in the same truck that had killed Veronica in Laure's dream) veered into them and impaled them on the truck's spiked rear loading gate; Lily's glass-ball necklace that the driver had given to his 10 year-old daughter (who returned it to her father after growing older) was swinging from his rear-view mirror; it literally blinded him momentarily due to a rare flash of sunlight reflecting from Laure's shiny briefcase (with her share of the cash) into the piece of jewelry.

After witnessing the accident, Bardo assisted a shaken-up Laure (who had been knocked down by pedestrians), and then he asked: "You look so familiar. Haven't we met before, somewhere?" - she replied cleverly and honestly: "Only in my dreams."

The background image during the final credits was a composite panoramic shot of the Parisian district (the street corner with a cafe and church) - illustrating how the full picture was created with a collection of fragmented photos (resembling puzzle pieces); the fragmented (and reconstructed and collaged) wall mural was earlier seen in Bardo's apartment, composed of the many B/W and color photos he had taken from his vantage point over the weeks and years (from the past and present, almost timeless).

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Ferris Successfully Took A "Day Off" From School, Fooling the Dean of Students

Malingering high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), after skipping school to attend the Von Steuben Day parade in downtown Chicago, rushed home to get into bed to escape detection by his parents.

Bueller's suspicious Dean of Students Edward Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) entered the Bueller house and was attacked by the family Rotweiler, and then humiliated when wandering in the street and picked up by a schoolbus driver (and offered a warmed-up Gummi bear).

After the credits rolled, a surprised Ferris emerged from the bathroom, addressed the "fourth wall" (or movie audience) and ordered everyone to go home, now that his "day off" was over:

"You're still here? It's over! Go home. Go!"

Field of Dreams (1989)

Ray Kinsella's Estranged Father John, Not Shoeless Joe Jackson, Was Summoned to the Ballfield For A Game of Catch

This mystical sports film from director Phil Alden Robinson was about an Iowa farmer named Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) who felt instructed by various voices to build a baseball field on his farmland in Iowa. From the strange and compelling 'voices,' he heard:

• "If you build it, he will come"
• "Ease his pain"
• "Go the distance"

The film ended with the revelation that all the voices and instructions were not:

1. To summon the ghost of "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) and fellow banned Chicago White Sox ballplayers after throwing the 1919 World Series
2. To renew the spirit of disillusioned author Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), or
3. To give Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham (Burt Lancaster) a chance to play in the majors

Instead, the voices were actually Ray's own internalized desire (Ray: "It was you" Joe: "No, Ray. It was you") to allow his estranged ghostly father John Kinsella (Dwier Brown) to appear. He reacted with great surprise.

Oh, my God...It's my father... ('Ease his pain.' 'Go the distance.')... My God. I-I only saw him years later when he was worn down by life. Look at him. He's got his whole life in front of him, and I'm not even a glint in his eye. What do I say to him?

Ray's wife Annie (Amy Madigan) answered with a suggestion that John meet his granddaughter Karin (Gaby Hoffman). During introductions, John thanked them for putting up the field and letting them play there. Father and son then spoke alone:

Ray: "You catch a good game."
John: "Thank you. It's so beautiful here. For me, well, for me, it's like a dream come true. Can I ask you something? Is-is this heaven?"
Ray: "It's Iowa."
John: "Iowa?"
Ray: "Yeah."
John: "I could have sworn it was heaven."
Ray: "Is-is there a heaven?"
John: "Oh, yeah. It's the place dreams come true."
Ray (pondering): "Maybe this is heaven."
John: "Well, good night, Ray."
Ray (slightly choked up): "Good night, John. Hey, Dad? You want to have a catch?"
John: "I'd like that."

The two enjoyed a game of catch between father and son one more time as the sun set.

The film ended with a stream of cars (and headlights) approaching the ballfield in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, signaling that Ray wouldn't lose his farm after all.