Oscar SPOILERS!

by Chris White, February 15, 2005

Many moviegoers were distraught in recent weeks when several reviewers and media personalities revealed the dramatic twist ending of Best Picture nominee “Million Dollar Baby,” deriding it as pro-euthenasia. In the interest of fairness, here are spoilers for the four other films in the category:

Sideways: A romp through California wine country goes sour as Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church) argue heatedly in a vineyard field over Jack’s philandering ways. In the passion of the moment, Miles is overcome by years of repressed homosexual urges and kisses his former college roommate; Jack, stunned, falls to the ground and shrieks. Unable to live with the humiliation, and with winery staff members closing in, Miles grabs the 800-page, 20 pound manuscript to his unfinished novel and tries to bludgeon Jack in the head. But Jack recovers in time to grab Miles’ arm, hold him close and kiss him back. “What with all the wine we drink, this should have happened sooner,” he whispers. The final scene shows Miles smiling and utterly fulfilled at a book signing for his best-selling novel, kissing his new boyfriend and casually sipping a glass of wine no doubt made from grapes nurtured on the love they shared in that very field.

Finding Neverland: Facing a serious case of writers block and with deadline fast approaching, J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) can find inspiration only through the use of opium. The Davies boys are taken by the example of their beloved friend, and begin dabbling in the use of opium themselves; their addiction spirals dangerously out of control and Jack (Joe Prospero) stabs a convenience store clerk with a wooden sword in a botched hold-up. Years later Barrie, now cleaned up, visits the 25-year-old Jack in prison, where he has been condemned to die. Arranging alone time on the roof of the prison, Jack expresses regret for his crime but laments the cruel system that would take his life for a childhood mistake, especially with all of the moral growth he’s experienced while behind bars. With a knowing nod, Barrie sprinkles him with “magic pixie dust,” and Jack jumps three stories to his death, shouting “I can fly!”

Ray: After inventing soul music, overcoming heroin addiction and battling racism, Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx) has but one challenge left: curing blindness through stem-cell research. Though bothered at first by the religious and moral dilemmas of harvesting stem cells, a series of conversations with God and the Diet Pepsi Uh-Huh Girls convince Ray that any loving deity would not condemn the research. His only enemy? The federal government, which shuts down all government funding to Ray’s home lab. But it is too late to turn back now – not only because he must cure his own ailment, but because thousands of desperately ill children have written him letters asking for his help. Ray dies in a hail of gunfire, trying to break into a fertility clinic to steal more stem cell lines – at least he thinks it’s a fertility clinic. It’s actually a bank. The faces of the sick children flash across the screen while “I Can’t Stop Loving You” plays in the background.

The Aviator: His grasp on sanity slipping, Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) turns to modern pharmaceuticals, but is dismayed at the tremendous cost of prescription drugs. Though fabulously wealthy, Hughes refuses to pay for the pills on principle: obscene profits should not be made at the expense of the ill, who seldom have any recourse. And who helps the pharmaceutical companies? The very same United States government that unfairly harassed Hughes as a war profiteer. Both his business advisors and Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) beg him to buy the drugs he needs, but Hughes refuses to take part in such a exploitive system, and he spends the rest of his days peeing into mason jars, which is the way of the future.

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