Showing posts with label Scary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scary. Show all posts
M. Fright Shyamalan? Not Today.
FRAN REPORTS:
The director best known for "Sixth Sense" has a new movie out, "The Happening". This movie stars Mark Wahlberg and is "a paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity" (imdb.com).
Now, I am reserving judgement about this movie until I go and see it, which I will, probably this weekend. However, I do want to talk about the downward spiral that is M. Night Shyamalan. Here is my question...how in the world does someone go from the "Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" to "Signs", "The Village", and "Lady in the Water"(which I didn't actually see, but I'm not holding back on. A story about a mystical creature starring Paul Giamatti? Come on!)
The Sixth Sense is very widely known and liked, and I did like that movie. I thought it was very well done and I was actually surprised at the end. Unbreakable, however, is my favorite movie of his, and one of my favorite movies in general. Don't get me wrong, it's not in the top 10 or anything, but I really like the twist he put on Superheroes. It wasn't about some buff spandex wearing save-the-world-with-my-good-looks guy, nor was it about a punk, bad-ass who's attitude problem is only a result of the fact that he is vastly misunderstood. No, this is a story about a regular guy, who had lived a regular life and was finding out that he had some supernatural power. All in all, it was an interesting story, well played, well written, and I liked it a lot.
It's been 8 years now since Unbreakable came out, and 9 since the Sixth Sense. What happened to this man? Every other movie he has made has been a flaming pile of crap. What happened to the excitement? To the twists in the plot? What happened to sitting there at the end of the movie and honestly being able to say "I enjoyed that".
Again, his movies have never been my idea of "classic", but nonetheless I enjoyed them. And now, here we are, after having seen a rather pointless movie about aliens where in at the end of the movie they are shown looking quite disappointing. After a movie about a community that scares its people into a technologically retarded world by making them believe that a monster will get them if they try to leave, only to find out that the monster is none other than one of the townsfolk, in the middle of the movie no less. Yea, try and stay awake for the rest of that movie knowing that the plot for the movie was completely torn to shreds. Newsflash: you can't decide to change the plot of the movie halfway through the movie, especially after advertising it as a monster flick. And now what? The rest of the time she's trying to find a flower to heal her boyfriend? WHAT?!
Did I confuse you in the process of explaining it? If I did, believe me, it is not at all confusing, rather it is relentlessly redundant and boring.
The question is...should movie fans keep holding out for another worthwhile movie from Shyamalan? I want to. I want to believe that he can have a good comeback, that he will be able to throw a twist in there that I didn't see coming, that I won't feel like I wasted ten dollars....but it's been 8 years.
Thursday, June 19, 2008 | Labels: Lady in the Water, M. Night Shyamalan, Monster, Movie Theatre, Scary, Signs, Sixth Sense, The Happening, The Village, Unbreakable | 2 Comments
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
- abby mills
- academy award
- agnostic
- al pacino
- aliens
- American Psycho
- anime
- Anne Hathaway
- arnold
- artificial intelligence
- atheist
- awful movie
- bad acting
- bad actor
- bad movie
- bad tv
- balboa
- Barber
- Batman
- Batman Begins
- battle
- Be Kind Rewind
- bela lugosi
- Benjamin Barker
- bill murray
- binge
- black and white
- black goo
- Blade Runner
- blockbuster
- brad pitt
- brain dead
- Brando
- brazil
- bryne
- budd
- bulma
- cat
- catholic
- celebrity
- character
- Charlize Theron
- chick flick
- chick-flick
- Christian Bale
- Cinema
- clark kent
- cog
- cool
- Crystal Skull
- culture of death
- cw
- cyborgs
- Dana Scully
- danny devito
- dante's peak
- dark city
- dean winchester
- death
- Deckard
- depression
- dogfights
- dragonball
- dragonball z
- drugs
- Dwayne Johnson
- E. T.
- ed wood
- edward norton
- Edward Scissorhands
- electric sheep
- ethics
- eureka
- even money
- exploitation
- failed tv
- fat
- fat people
- Fatty McGoo
- fiennes
- Fight Club
- Film
- Fleet Street
- Four Daughters
- Fox Mulder
- fringe
- gained weight
- gaining weight
- gambling
- gaming
- Garfield
- Gary Oldman
- Get Smart
- getting fat
- ghost in the machine
- Giovanni Ribisi
- glasses
- goku
- gone in 60 seconds
- good acting
- good bad
- good bad movie
- good movie
- got fat
- got old
- great actor
- great movie
- greatness
- half assed
- Han Solo
- Hancock
- harper's island
- Harrison Ford
- harvey
- HDTV
- Heat
- Heath Ledger
- Helena Bodham Carter
- hero
- high definition
- history
- history channel
- honor
- hope
- Horror
- I want to believe
- Independent Film
- Indiana Jones
- indie favorite
- inspiration
- interesting
- Jack Black
- james cameron
- James Dean
- Jane Austen
- jensen ackles
- jeremy irons
- John Garfield
- Johnny Depp
- joke
- Joker
- Jon Heder
- kiddo
- Kiera Knightley
- kill bill
- kripke
- Lady in the Water
- las vegas
- leonardo dicaprio
- Lex
- Lex Luthor
- liposuction
- Llama
- lois lane
- loser
- Lou Diamond Phillips
- M. Night Shyamalan
- man in the iron mask
- Marlon Brando
- martha meet frank
- martin landau
- maryjane
- matrix
- Matthew McFayden
- mcgyver
- mental illness
- michael madsen
- Michael Rosenbaum
- mini series
- modern marvels
- Monster
- morality
- Mos Def
- Movie Theatre
- Movies
- Mr. Blonde
- Mr. Pink
- mrs potter
- Mulder
- music
- Napoleon Dynamite
- numb3rs
- numbers
- old guy
- orange box
- oscar
- pc games
- Pedro
- peter conway
- peter parker
- plagiarism
- portal
- Pride and Prejudice
- protestant
- Psycho
- pulp fiction
- quentin tarantino
- rat race
- Rebel
- Rebel Without A Cause
- rebellion
- Reese Witherspoon
- religion
- replicants
- reservoir dogs
- responsibility
- Ribisi
- righteous kill
- rip off
- rip-off
- robert deniro
- rocky
- rocky balboa
- romance
- romantic comedy
- Roy Batty
- rufus sewell
- ruined
- rutger hauer
- sam and dean
- sam winchester
- Samuel L. Jackson
- samurai
- sandman
- sarah jessica parker
- Saw
- Scary
- sci-fi
- Scully
- secret message
- self under-siege
- Sequel
- sg-1
- shakespeare in love
- Shia Lebouf
- sidewinder
- Signs
- simple test
- Sixth Sense
- sly
- Smallville
- snuff film
- soul
- spiderman
- spidey
- stallone
- stargate
- stargate sg-1
- staring
- steam
- Steve Carell
- stinky mcfish
- striking range
- stuck
- stupid people
- superhero
- superman
- supernatural
- Sweeney Todd
- T.V. Shows
- take a test
- tarantino
- television
- terminator
- The Dark Knight
- the future
- The Happening
- The Postman Always Rings Twice
- The Rock
- the very thought of you
- The Village
- Theatre
- theft
- three musketeers
- Thriller
- Tim Burton
- tim roth
- Tina
- torture
- trilogy
- truth
- TV
- UFO
- Unbreakable
- unsung
- Val Kilmer
- valor
- vegas
- Vote for Pedro
- voyeurism
- wake up
- war
- weight loss
- western
- Will Smith
- Willem Dafoe
- winchester
- world war II
- worst movie
- writer
- writer's curse
- writers
- WWII
- X Files
- young actor