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.