M. Night Shyamalan: Not a Review
And now, an article from guest Blogger and Dream Seeker character The Apologist:
Here we go again.
In my opinion, people who have not enjoyed Unbreakable, The Village, or Lady in the Water should not bother reviewing any of his future movies. He could do a Harry Potter movie or another hot franchise and it wouldn't matter -- these CRITICS don't like his style.
His style is not "twist endings," as USA Today labeled him with this week. His style, in M. Night's own words, is to take the first act of a story and expand it to three parts. He slows a story down and focuses in on details. It reminds me of Alan Moore's Watchman, where every panel has meaning both obvious and hidden.
I love it. He's a director that respects an audience looking to think and soak in the details. He's, dare I say it, different.
I love this guy's movies. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that The Happening makes money, but going up against the new Hulk movie (which appeals to fans of the TV show, as well as the comic and cartoons, better than the previous movie) is pretty much a box office death wish. You have to wonder if the distributor, Fox, is part of a conspiracy against M. Night.
Of course, there's no such thing as conspiracies, right? I'm sure LME or Tashman-style politics don't enter into the decision-making on when a movie is released. I'm sure the stuff you see on Entourage, like Vince getting booted off the Aquaman sequel because he wanted to do a Columbian drug lord movie, doesn't happen in real life. I'm sure personal feelings don't color financial decisions.
Eat the sarcasm and weep.
At any rate, I'm saddened that this may be his last movie with a decent budget that he wrote and directed. I think it's a shame that the public can't get into his style.
As for M. Night himself -- I have no idea if he is a healthy individual or not. For all I know, he's an unhealthy idealist unwilling to compromise for the sake of getting key points across to the audience. He may be unwilling to sacrifice his control for the sake of surviving in the industry, or pleasing his Sixth Sense audience.
I'll leave the personality type diagnosis to Dr. Hoffman. Personally, I have to somewhat echo Amarillo da Vaca's take on things and say that I care about his work -- the movies he produces -- and can ignore the person, if necessary. I'm a fan of his work -- I don't know him, and I'm not sure I want to know him. I just hope he is successful with The Happening, and is able to continue producing original, thought-provoking movies.
I wish him well, and I hope he is a healthy individual. I hope he's not Sinestro, if you catch my drift.
Shyamalan movies demand that you surrender to his way of telling stories.
If you're up for that, you should go.
-- Chris Hewitt, St. Paul Pioneer Press
Here we go again.
In my opinion, people who have not enjoyed Unbreakable, The Village, or Lady in the Water should not bother reviewing any of his future movies. He could do a Harry Potter movie or another hot franchise and it wouldn't matter -- these CRITICS don't like his style.
His style is not "twist endings," as USA Today labeled him with this week. His style, in M. Night's own words, is to take the first act of a story and expand it to three parts. He slows a story down and focuses in on details. It reminds me of Alan Moore's Watchman, where every panel has meaning both obvious and hidden.
I love it. He's a director that respects an audience looking to think and soak in the details. He's, dare I say it, different.
I love this guy's movies. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that The Happening makes money, but going up against the new Hulk movie (which appeals to fans of the TV show, as well as the comic and cartoons, better than the previous movie) is pretty much a box office death wish. You have to wonder if the distributor, Fox, is part of a conspiracy against M. Night.
Of course, there's no such thing as conspiracies, right? I'm sure LME or Tashman-style politics don't enter into the decision-making on when a movie is released. I'm sure the stuff you see on Entourage, like Vince getting booted off the Aquaman sequel because he wanted to do a Columbian drug lord movie, doesn't happen in real life. I'm sure personal feelings don't color financial decisions.
Eat the sarcasm and weep.
At any rate, I'm saddened that this may be his last movie with a decent budget that he wrote and directed. I think it's a shame that the public can't get into his style.
As for M. Night himself -- I have no idea if he is a healthy individual or not. For all I know, he's an unhealthy idealist unwilling to compromise for the sake of getting key points across to the audience. He may be unwilling to sacrifice his control for the sake of surviving in the industry, or pleasing his Sixth Sense audience.
I'll leave the personality type diagnosis to Dr. Hoffman. Personally, I have to somewhat echo Amarillo da Vaca's take on things and say that I care about his work -- the movies he produces -- and can ignore the person, if necessary. I'm a fan of his work -- I don't know him, and I'm not sure I want to know him. I just hope he is successful with The Happening, and is able to continue producing original, thought-provoking movies.
I wish him well, and I hope he is a healthy individual. I hope he's not Sinestro, if you catch my drift.
Labels: apologist, critics, leave the guy alone, M. Night, twist this, watchman
posted by Skew | Saturday, June 14, 2008
24 Comments:
I personally won't see any of this movies any more.
Sixth Sense was great and I liked Unbreakable, although Mr. Glass just wasn't realistic enough for me.
Signs was boring. M Nigh jumped the shark with The Village. Lady and the Water was his nail in the coffin.
M Night is 100% free to be an artist. Commercialism is not an issue for him. I happen to appreciate his style. If you don't like his stuff, don't even waste time watching, reviewing, or making comments about it.
just got back from the happening.started off pretty kewl. no twists or turns or unexpected diversions. Shyamalan is DONE after "The Village" and "Lady in the Water" by convincing Fox to bankroll this disaster.if it were his first screenplay, it never would have gotten produced.
M. Night Shayamalan has made a creepy, cautionary eco-thriller that neither cautions nor thrills.
But it's based on an interesting apocalyptic premise: what if nature turned on us? After all, Michael Crichton believes honeybees are vanishing and no one knows why.
Perhaps it's an inexplicable natural phenomenon. But as Philadelphia science teacher, Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg), tells students in a quote attributable to Albert Einstein: if bees disappear, humans will follow within four years. (Except Einstein never said any such thing.)
Then early one morning as leaves rustle in the wind, everyone in New York's Central Park becomes disoriented and suicidal; construction workers leap off nearby buildings. Panic quickly spreads throughout the Northeast. So Elliot grabs his mood ring (remember them from the '60s?) and flees the city by train with his seemingly comatose wife (Zooey Deschanel) and gabby math teacher friend (John Leguizamo!) who totes his own repressed eight year-old daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez).
Scared and stranded in rural Pennsylvania, they're on the run but from what? An airborne neurotoxin, emanating from plants and trees? Is it some kind of ecologic retribution?
The astounding success of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" with its spooky "I see dead people" leveraged him a Hollywood career but his subsequent sci-fi sagas - "Signs," "Unbreakable," "The Village," "Lady in the Water" - have gone rapidly downhill and this is another disappointment.
No logic sustains the ominous foreboding of the minimal plot. There's no palpable terror, no twist. The stilted dialog is crammed with clichés, and since the edgy, underwritten characters behave bizarrely to begin with, they have nowhere to go emotionally.
On my Official CBG Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Happening" is a fear-filled yet tepid 1. Instead of being full of dread, it's dreadful.
see, i told you, m nigh is DONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
dude, just got back.wifes been away all weekend.broke my jackoff record and took the time to see happening cause hulk was sold out.i thought it was pretty cool shit, not as good as six sense but pretty cool
M NighT, J-Bird and Billy Wagner.
Toda a seqüência na cabana da sra. Jones, diga-se de passagem, serve como prova máxima da decadência absoluta de um roteirista que, ao perceber a necessidade de prolongar um pouco mais sua diluída narrativa, encaixa um desvio na trama que não tem absolutamente nada a ver com a história que pretendia contar – e que já havia sido suficientemente estendida por uma subtrama envolvendo a esposa desaparecida do personagem do desperdiçado John Leguizamo (algo que logo é abandonado) e inúmeras e despropositadas referências a um “anel de humor” que não levam a nada.
BBBBBWWWWWOOOOOOOAAAARRRR!!!
CRASSHHHHHHHH!
BOOOOOOOOOM!
Did you hear that? That's a bomb exploding.
Shyamalan has always been a little too earnest for his own good. He may write B horror but he always directs polished Hollywood movies with an aim at box office success. He’s a populist and God love him for trying to make us happy. Just please stop because it’s not working anymore. He’d probably be great with a co-writer or someone to balance his sensibilities, which have veered off the page.
The idea of plant-life evolving enough to defend itself by attacking groups of people with a neurotoxin may have some basis in truth. It’s actually a really interesting idea. But that’s basically what we get by way of a “twist.” That’s the story.
It’s always been Shyamalan’s curse that he peaked early with “Sixth Sense” and now we all want another “gotcha.” But not an insulting one. “Unbreakable” is a cult classic with comic book fans, but I wasn’t overly enthusiastic. Liked it, though. “Signs” I thoroughly enjoyed, until the gotcha. (It never rained once around the globe?) “The Village” felt like a slap in the face. That’s not a gotcha, that’s dirty trick. “Lady in the Water” had no real gotcha, but for me its one saving grace was its likable characters. I love Paul Giamatti and adore Jeffrey Wright and the world there was enough to carry me through a truly silly picture.
“The Happening” doesn’t have that for me. I love Mark Wahlberg almost as much as the next person (Donnie is my Wahlberg of choice) and his Elliott Moore is a living saint to put up with everything around him, not least his cheatin’ heart of a wife, Alma (Zooey Deschanel). Alma is not very happy with Elliott for reasons that are not explored beyond the idea that she’s not the settle down type. She never comes across as whole or sympathetic, which is disappointing since this actress is usually a joy to watch.
Shyamalan created this universe, but he’s not consistent with it. Why are some people passed over? Because they are nice to the plants? It’s hard for me to get invested in the situation when our heroes pass right through the toxin unscathed, then go on running. What are you running from? You appear to be immune.
There was an odd moment at the end when a talking head on TV was saying the New York toxin first appeared on a Tuesday at 8-something a.m. – I think he said 8:33. Was that some kind of strange 9/11 reference? Then the talking head said the attack was a warning because we are destroying the world. Sooo … what is he saying? Is he linking 9/11 to overdevelopment and hence groups of people on the East Coast deserved to kill themselves
m nigh is gay, that's the secret, dailyskew.ya said u didn;t want to know the truth but thats the truth he a gay indian boy
Vahl and I are goint to have to create a character named "M Nigh" now.
Uhmmm, guys you know M Nigh copied the Sixth Sense from the Orson Scott Card novel Lost Boys, right?
He also copied Signs from Lord of the Barrens.
And he copied the Village from Margaret Peterson Haddix's Running Out of Time.
He's an OK director..should probably stick to that instead of screenwriting AND directing.
I personally think having Parker unmask was the single worst decision ever made for the character. It was a move completely out of character, guaranteeing another one of his family was going to be killed at some point in the future. Talk about a lack of responsibility!
All you fools who've taken time to take my bait and bash "M Nigh" ... I just have TWO WORDS for ya:
"Exceeds Expectations"
"M Nigh" beat the Box Office expectations.
Eat it and weep.
By the way, I am currently in negotiations with "M Nigh" for his triumphant debut in the Dream Seeker Universe.
My bad then, dude. Don;t know why you take this stuff seriously anyway, just chill out, man. Just havin fun
Here's the thing: The Happening is not that bad on second viewing. Perhaps I was hasty.
The premise of M Night Shyamalan's latest paranormal thriller is no more bizarre than any other apocalypse fiction (Arthur Machen's The Terror is about butterflies for goodness' sake). If the film isn't viewed with hostility from the fade-in, it's an effective, mid-ranking genre picture. Mark Wahlberg isn't the strongest leading man, but the rest of the cast are fine, and its puzzled, panicky characters act in a more or less credible manner.
Shyamalan stages set-pieces, such as a chain of suicides, perfectly. Compared with, say, The Invasion (the Nicole Kidman remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers) or Michael Haneke's annoying Time of the Wolf, it's solid, acceptable work.
Yet it opened last week to near-universal derision in America and Britain, earning scornful reviews and (if one pays attention to such things) jeering, contemptuous internet postings (the critics, at least, had seen the film; many bloggers clearly had not).
It was obvious that the knives were out in a way they weren't for The Incredible Hulk. Shyamalan, whose "written, directed and produced by" credit suggests a smug public image, won critical and audience success in 1999 with The Sixth Sense, but his subsequent, similarly-toned films (with or without Twilight Zone kickers) have found decreasing favour, and there's a sense that we've just had enough of his films (and, more to the point, him).
His scripts are sometimes mawkish, sometimes pretentious, but he has a knack for genuine "jump" moments and whispered, intense conversations that raise a chill, and he mostly gets outstanding performances (The Happening has good work from Zooey Deschanel). It's a different style to the shrieking melodrama of competing sci-fi horror films like The Mist and The Ruins, but just as valid.
Part of Shyamalan's "crime" is being drawn to subject matter (alien invasion, mermaids, superheroes) many can't take seriously under any circumstances, just as newspapers once dismissed lowly cowboy pictures now hailed as classics. The Happening is not in the first rank of its genre, but it doesn't fall into the pits of sci-fi hell either. Its failings certainly annoyed me less than I Am Legend's hash of Richard Matheson's outstanding source novel or Speed Racer's message that paying attention in school is a waste of time and a woman's job is limited to making pancakes.
Some critics were still incensed by Shyamalan's previous film, Lady in the Water, in which he ill-advisedly included the character of a movie critic who gets eaten by a monster. He's an earnest film-maker whose weird streak of humour doesn't always work - a speech delivered by Wahlberg to a plastic plant just dies on screen - and he comes across personally as privileged, superior and faintly creepy (traits he's well aware of, since he has used them in his own "significant" cameo appearances in film).
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
Took the bait...Game...Set...and MATCH
i thought the movie was bad on purpose, and it was over everyone's head because of that. i heard that m nigh is fooling everybody, including his fox bosses.
I thought the exact same thing as I watched this film, that this was bad on purpose. I am a big fan of M Nigh, and I even thoroughly enjoyed Lady in the Water, but thought this was his worst film by far. But as a was walking out of the theater, I was thinking he made this intentionally horrible to get back at critics who pan him no matter what, just as a general F U to everyone for hating his last few films, or an attempt at campy b movie making.
So then I realized it was cool, and m nigh had us all playyyed.
And I'm cracking up every time I see someone post M NIGH.
FYI, Damian Hospital and Tony Vahl have officially copyrighted "M Nigh" now.
No, he didn;t do it on pruposr; M. Nigh is has become a modern day Ed Wood at this point. He believes he is a genius, and that his flims are great, yet the exact opposite is now true. I say "now true", because once upon a time he made a good movie or two. The guy is simply delusional these days. It's quite sad really.
Face the facts, he had a couple good ideas (Sixth and Unbreakable) followed by a decent idea (Signs) followed by a poor, ripped off idea (the Village) that he then followed up with a laughably bad movie (The Lady in the Water) that exists only to prove that he has an immense EGO. Everyone tried to get him to not make Lady, but he wouldnt listen. Studios rejected him until finally a studio allowed him to make that garbage just because he was who he was, even though they had zero faith in the story.
Well, here it happens again, The Happening is even worse (as far as I hear, I wont actually waste my money on it) and now, it looks like some people love this director so much that they are grasping for straws! You guys sound like the parents of a murderer who choose to believe the absurd over all the clear facts simply because they cannot allow themselves to admit that their child is just plain bad.
I believe Shyamalan has talent, but like so many before him, he has lost it. He needs to lose the ego and get back to his roots. He needs to start all over again.
I dont know which it is, I have no ability to look into his heart and soul. I can only judge from what I see, and what I see looks very bad lately.
Heres to hoping he finds his way again, eventually.
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