A Beginner's Guide to Endings

I found this one on Netflix streaming movies. Quirky and funny, great entertainment for an afternoon with nothing better to do in the hot Texas summer.

This movie should have made it to the main stream. Like "Harold and Kumar", "Snatch" and other such movies, your definitely not watching this movie for the great believable story line or explosive drama.

As with any good film, it's always important to start things off the right way in order to spark your viewer's interest. How funny that a film entitled "A Beginner's Guide To Endings" absolutely mastered the art of an opening scene.

This is one seriously weird and quirky film. And, I don't think I'm off base here in saying that there is no way you could possibly have seen a film like this before...

This movie is really impressive. I expected it to be some pretty bad stuff I'd turn off after a shot while but I liked it very much.

"A Beginner's Guide to Endings" begins with Duke White (Harvey Keitel) rattling off odds of chance, of life, of games, and of death. He's determined to kill himself one way or another and see if his death can give his sons better odds at living a semi-functional life.

"The events leading up to my death were a lot like the rest of my life, things didn't go exactly as planned." Duke White (Keitel) is dead and his three sons are at the will reading.

A favorite movie of mine, Magnolia, is introduced with a narrator talking about odds and the unlikelihood of certain things happening and A Beginner's Guide to Endings starts in a very similar fashion. The credits for this Jonathon Sobol film are cleverly presented as parts of games of chance and from the outset there is that feeling that unlikely things are going to happen and this will be an unpredictable and unusual comedy.