M. Night Shyamalan, Lady in the Water, and other films
Last night I was flipping through channels and saw that Signs was on, and despite the recent Mel Gibson madness in the news (holy crap, Mel), I was pretty darned excited to turn that movie on. Then I realized it was on Telemundo, and since I don't know Spanish, my heart fell. Sigh. I still watched a few minutes, because hey, people speaking familiar dialogue in a language I don't understand is funny (but why?). But then I turned it off, with the double sadness of Spanish Signs and English Lady in the Water hanging over me.
So here's the thing about me and M. Night -- I love that guy. This is like, a major intellectual crush, and I would probably go so far as to say that, in certain silly ways, he's my favorite screenwriter out there right now. Why, you may ask? Well, because he knows how to tell a good, fanciful story. And because he knows how to integrate faith themes without it disrupting the story and without it having to be a movie "about" faith. And, because his are some of the only scary-ish movies I can watch without wanting to pee my pants for days afterward. And just because I do, so shut up everyone. He is great, in my opinion. And that's what's so disappointing about Lady in the Water -- with another two revisions, it could have been great too.
Too bad it's not. I'm not going to review it here. But the whole experience of seeing it left me with just enough of that good M. Night Shyamalan taste in my mouth to want more
, knowing full well I wasn't going to get what I want. So it's another long wait until his next movie comes out.And I'd just like to say for the record, everyone please get over The Sixth Sense. Yes, it was good. Yes, we were all so surprised at the end. No, none of us felt that the "twist" at the end of The Village was as good as the twist at the end of Sixth Sense, but that's because there was no big twist. We all knew something was up from the beginning, the encounter with the modern world was just the answer to the question, "What's up with these people" -- NOT a twist.
Thank you.
This is all the more reason I was so rooting for Lady in the Water. But I'm with the critics on this one. Nevertheless, if I could write something that conveyed spiritual angst the way Signs did -- not perfectly, but well, and in the midst of a good story -- I'd be a pretty happy girl.
That's all. Thanks for listening.
posted by The Crabby Hiker @ 7:20 AM
5 Comments:
Having watched with you and already gone through the whole critique at length, I have little more to say except that I think you should have turned Signs back on to see that part with the Alien in the pantry in Spanish, because I wonder what the alien would say when he got his talon cut off.
Also, we didn't talk about the fact that M. is going a little beyond "vignette" in Lady. His frustrated actor side is really flexing itself, especially casting himself as a young Martin Luther King Jr.
That's all for me too.
Yeah, definitely agree about the "frustrated actor" side -- and I wondered if the woman cast as his sister was really related to him, though it would be easy enough to find out, I guess. . . I found it kind of cute that he'd cast himself that way. Cute, but a little sad.
So what do you think about Unbreakable? I really loved it when I saw it, but I'd like to see it again. Lately I've been nagged by the fact that the villain is a comic-book obsessive. Is M-Ni's point that the idea/ideal of the "superhero" needs to be cut free from what he sees as an oversimplified good/evil dichotomy in order to work in the real world? That superheroism isn't possible until its freed form its comic book trappings? My memory of the little documentary on comics that came with it would support this theory--I remember someone going on and on about the "elemental good v evil struggle" of comics, and how that was their appeal.
So, anyway, if that IS the point, then it's kind of a terrible one that is itself reliant on an oversimplified view of comics.
I suppose I could actually just post this over at PF instead of hogging your comments page.
For reasons that are mysterious even to myself, I've never seen Unbreakable. It's in my netflix queue, and I'm told it's THE movie to watch of M-ni's.
So I can't comment, but I might just move it up the queue and devote an entry to it :-)
I liked Lady in the WAter. No revisions needed. Lots more than a lot of other movies. Better than many Oscar winning movies, which I am actually watching now. Lady will not be winning any though.
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