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Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:07 pm
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I know, I know, before you go all 'Signs' and 'Unbreakable' etc on me, I am referring to the Shyamalan films that were any good.
One of them. The Sixth Sense. Groundbreaking (for Hollywood) stuff that spawned a multitude of pretenders, 'The Others' is a classic example. Recently 'L'Orfanato' even has elements of this also.
I don't deny that the Sixth Sense was an excellent and absorbing piece of cinema, but do we really believe that Shyamalan has done himself any credit with the work he has produced since?
He wrote the screenplay for Stuart Little, bless him.
Then came 'Unbreakable'. Bruce Willis should have stopped at Sixth Sense and Samuel Jackson was ruefully wasted as Elijah Price. Robin Wright Penn was excrutiatingly one-dimensional. Even her limited turns in 'The Last Castle' and 'Beowulf' were more convincing.
He followed this with 'Signs'. Bruce had obviously learnt his lesson and steered well clear of this one. The horror film that never was. I don't mind films about faith, but to hype them as horror just smacks of clutching at straws. As a venture for Mel Gibson, it was quite a treat. For everyone else, including Joaquin Phoenix, it was pedestrian, given the talent available.
Then 'The Village'. By this time, we have all become used to the twist in his tales. This, like Signs, would have been better served as a Twilight Zone episode. Phoenix again is limp and by the end of it, you are just wishing they would all fall down that hole in the forest. I personally would have liked to have seen a McDonalds on the other side of that wall. Now that's what you could have called irony. This time, it's the turn of Bryce Dallas Howard to make the first of two movies with him.
'The Lady In the Water' comes next, with Howard no longer blind, but having a completely different handicap of being a water-nymph. Paul Giamatti is desperate to make something of his part and nearly does his talent justice, but is hampered by woeful scripts and a lack of vision on the part of the director.
In June of this year, we will get 'The Happening' with Mark Wahlberg. The story of a couple that start to witness their friends, neighbours and total strangers killing themselves for no apparent reason, just like a mental plague. Who can imagine the cause of all this?
The question is should we really be bothered?
Shymalan made one good movie (his third one, incidentally) and has been riding on the back of this success ever since. Each time, his movies have become progressively more predictable and he seems to me to be drowning in his own previous glories.
The critics have been both kind and savage in turns about his movies and I think I'm now at the point that I have his number, and that 'The Happening' will be a pile of dirty fat man's pants.
So tell me, movie lovers, is he a misunderstood (by me) genius, or a charlatan disguised as a writer and director who only pretends to know what he's doing? Surely he can only trade on the one good movie for so long?
Doesn't it also say something that the best actors he's had at his disposal have only ever worked with him twice, at best? And always one film after another? Are they seeing the light of day and escaping as soon as they get the chance?
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Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 6:53 pm
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Well, what have we here? This is quite the question you are posing. Is M. Night Shyamalan a one trick pony, or is he a creative genius, and we're all too stupid to recognize it?
My stance: he is neither. "The Sixth Sense" was a nice movie. Groundbreaking, entertaining, gripping, with lots of twists and turns: everything a good thriller needs. But, for me, "Unbreakable" is my favorite of his movies.
Now, don't take that as me saying "I've enjoyed everyone of Shyamalan's movies". "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" are the only two of his movies that I enjoyed. I watched about half of "Lady in the Water", just barely made it through "The Village", and was disappointed by "Signs". What happened? Why do his movies get progressively worse?
I attribute it to the Hollywood Curse. This is a curse that falls upon the most careless of new directors. They get a taste of success, and try to duplicate it by recycling some of the ideas they used in their first success. Now, 9 times out of 10, these ideas are constantly used by the director throughout most of their movies, because it has become their trademark. Quentin Tarantino has his out of sequence storytelling, Brian De Palma has the split screen shot, Martin Scorsese has the shaky cameras, and M. Night Shyamalan has the twist ending.
Most of time, it works for them. In Shyamalan's case, it just hinders his movies. Would it be too much for him to make one movie that doesn't have a twist ending? Tarantino removed his trademark for "Jackie Brown", and in Scorsese's "The Departed", I don't recall much of the shaky camera, but, then again, he does it so well, I could have missed it. Is this too much to ask? I think it should clean up his writing abilities, and maybe will let him focus on equally dividing his efforts across the entire movie, instead of focusing just on his ending.
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Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:10 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 2:50 am
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Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:08 pm
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Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:10 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:53 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:15 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:14 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:40 pm
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Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 11:44 pm
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Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:48 am
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