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Just pop in Sixth Sense and call it an evening. He is actually more disappointing that Stephen King--and he's hard to beat on screen.
No point in discussing it. Apparently Night thinks he knows how to build drama and atmosphere. Somebody is packing his bootie...they should tell him the truth.
I may never see another of his films if they let him make one.
Follow Ups:
A "peak" implies improving performance. His is more like running off a cliff; all downhill after the first few steps. His first three movies were, if nothing else, mildly entertaining. I actually liked "Signs". The last two have been just about as bad as major film production can be.
As the guy who jumped off the 20-story building shouted as he passed the 10th Floor "So far..so good!"
Several extremely creepy and melancholy moments. The video snippet from Brazil (??) was a great touch. As were his dying wife's final words about swinging away. That scene with her was very Stephen Kingish.
Thumbs up on that one and 6th Sense. The rest of his ouvre is from bad to laughably bad. Hopefully he's got a good one or two left in him.
Dear God, please let the current boom last.
I promise that I won't piss it away trying to corner the silver market or buying department stores like I did the last one
I never understood why it got panned so badly...the Gibson Effect maybe. I though a lot more could have done with the lost faith - redemption aspect of Gibson's character. Am I the only person who saw the water as a statement on baptism?
I think Signs is actually his best film to date, all things considered. Sixth Sense hangs almost completely on the big u-turn it takes at the end; nothing else about it was notable IMO. "The Village" was lame, but I couldn't believe how really bad "Lady in the Water" was.
As the guy who jumped off the 20-story building shouted as he passed the 10th Floor "So far..so good!"
.
I'm sure this is a Gritsism but let me in on the joke..
Dear God, please let the current boom last.
I promise that I won't piss it away trying to corner the silver market or buying department stores like I did the last one
I even liked Unbreakable..or at least I liked Bruce Willis in it.
Baba-Booey to you all!
.
I told myself that after seeing The Village...and stuck to it!
I haven't see it yet, and by the consensus it looks like I will have to prepare for it.I've seen "The Sixth Sense", and "Signs".
It seems to me Shyamalan practices a different type of vision and places greater value on message rather than "art" or viewer manipulation, although there is beauty in his shots. He's like the complete opposite of Hitchcock.
"Signs" was so subtle I needed to see it a few times to come around from expecting to be wowed, surprised or shocked, to simply pacing my own expectations to sync with the film's purpose (like a meditation): to open my eyes to the subtlties of the strange or miraculous in apparently everyday occurrences.
I agree with the observation that repeated viewing isn't the formost after seeing a Shyamalan film, but he must intriguing or why would so many knowledgeable posters here not just skip it?
Also, he may have had more editorial support on his first projects.
Thoughts?
No way I'll see another film of M Night Dingaling.
-------------Call it, friendo.
.
Liberals, conservatives, objectivists, subjectivists; all thinking as one.
Group hug.
;)
M. NIGHT-MARE
ANOTHER STUPID FLICK FROM SHYAMALAN
Ashlyn Sanchez (from left), Zooey Deschannel, John Leguizamo and Mark Wahlberg just realized people are killing themselves because they saw this movie.
Ashlyn Sanchez (from left), Zooey Deschannel, John Leguizamo and Mark Wahlberg just realized people are killing themselves because they saw this movie.
By KYLE SMITH
Rating: stars
June 13, 2008 -- WHEN a malicious breeze begins to blow in "The Happening," fear sets in - the fear that the only thing that will occur is the Shyamalan hitting the fan. Someday this movie's principal claim to fame will be that it inspired an episode of The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror ("The Crappening"?).
Let's review the oeuvre of M. Night Shyamalan since "The Sixth Sense": stupid ending, stupid ending, stupid ending and, in a change of pace with his last film, "Lady in the Water," stupid all the way through.
For his latest trick, this back-room-of-the-Ramada magician has given us: no trick at all. "The Happening" has no ending. I count that as an improvement over "The Village" and "Unbreakable," each of which concluded with one of the fastest audience stampedes out of a theater I've ever seen.
"The Happening" is about unexplained outbreaks of mass suicide in several Northeastern cities. Shyamalan has a lot of fun imagining cool ways you could kill yourself if you weren't afraid of pain. Drive your jeep into a tree? Too obvious. How about lying down in front of an industrial-size lawnmower or punching out a window with your skull?
A pair of schoolteachers (Mark Wahlberg, John Leguizamo) and the wife (Zooey Deschanel) of the Wahlberg character try to guess what's happening as the background boils with speculation. Could it be terrorism? Does it have to do with bees? How about chemical weapons seeping out of the CIA? Since we're (as always, with M. Night) in Pennsylvania, there are unique potential sources of toxins to worry about, such as Three Mile Island and Philadelphia Eagles fans.
There is a lot of chatter about global warming, about science, about geometric progression, about ecological disaster. "Calculus, calculus, calculus!" someone mutters, but if those are the only remaining options, I'd just as soon saw my neck open on the nearest broken window, too.
As in "The War of the Worlds," rumor takes over and people's immediate reaction is to flee somewhere, anywhere, shooting whoever gets in their way. But the story isn't a puzzle in which scenes yield more pieces that the audience tries to learn how to put together. It's just setup, setup, setup, the end. When Betty Buckley turns up as a bitter off-the-grid loner, such is Shyamalan's dismal track record that you suspect right away that she serves no purpose except to pad the running time.
Shyamalan has hit on something, though, and he does set up an IV drip of tension. The moment is right for a movie like this. Eco-unease and terrorism are in the air, both of them (for many) carrying the stink of our own sins as a plausible root cause. It wouldn't take much to persuade today's audience that the answer blowin' in the wind is that a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
With a slightly brainier imagination at work, "The Happening" could have been a spooky little art film whose purpose wasn't so much to tell a linear story as to strum on our inner sense of looming catastrophe, the unanswered questions adding to the dread.
That would call on skills Shyamalan has not shown since his only good movie: making characters interesting and dressing up dialogue with something other than plodding functionality ("Whatever is happening is happening to smaller and smaller populations"), red herrings ("We had tiramisu together. That is it!") or dull jokes ("I'm talking to a plastic plant.").
Laying down a witty or ironic subtext, as Stanley Kubrick would have, is not within Shyamalan's powers. Kubrick's films are made to be pondered over repeated viewings. No one will watch any of Shyamalan's recent films twice. A movie that features Wahlberg suggesting everyone try to outrun the wind can barely be watched once.
kyle.smith@nypost.com
from him by now. He should try switching the type of movie he makes to maybe drama or who knows? comedy! It could be a masterstroke of genius...
Or maybe monkees will fly out of my ...
:^)
thanks
Phil
df
please explain...
better Quayle than Bush...
;^)
thanks
Phil
s
my nod to Mike Myers - Waynes World
thanks
Phil
.
...very weak. Mostly bad acting - Wahlberg is ok - it just seems to be a mess.
Should have had a better script and more fully-formed story.
Been downhill every since the 6th Sense - maybe he's hit bottom.
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