Extra credit
NOW I remember what I wanted to ask Ed Helms about "The Hangover" when the
two-minute warning from the publicist put me in panic mode. True, he said that
all the "deleted" photosof the boy's lost night in Vegas - shown in a montage
over the credits in the end - were posed. But were they simulated? In
particular one involving Zach Galifianakis
and a woman old enough to be his mother. I did a double take when I saw it, not
sure if I could believe my eyes, as did the Culture Vulture on
the "New York"
magazine website.
These shock images might be just one more in the ongoing trend (at least since "Ferris
Bueller's Day Off" in 1986) of "post-credit cookies" (though this is during not post) of studio
movies that withhold a final payoff shot or scene until the very end of the
credits (a recent example: "X-men Origins: Wolverine"). How else get people to hang
around when the credit sequence can be almost as long as the
movie itself? True, there are diehard cinephiles who stick it out, perhaps to
show their respect, like fans at a baseball game listening to the national
anthem (and I wonder how many of them would remain standing if the anthem was
played at the end of the game?).
At any rate, as the Vulture also pointed out, it suggests that the bean-counting censors at the MPAA don't watch movies through to
the last frame before slapping a rating on it ("The Hangover" got an "R").Unless they are shown a version without the credits.