I see mean critics. I see mean critics.Personally, I have enjoyed all of the Shyamalan movies that I have seen. The critic seems to be concerned that Shyamalan is marketing his films (ie, he's not content to be a starving artist), and trying to satisfy his audience.
I loved unbreakable better than sixth sense and signs. I'm probably the only one.
The village was okay.
I go in this order best to worst.
Unbreakable.
Signs.
sixth sense.
the village.
It would've been better if the stories of the mythical creatures turned out to be real and many of them showed up at the end.
I saw it last week. A good film. I'm not sure why all the critical carping by (so called) critics ...
How awful! The man wants to shoot his movies where he can go home to his family each day. [SARCASM OFF]
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the sole reason for this hit-piece.
Wow, this critic really dislikes Shyamalan.
I read two critiques from slate on this movie. Without giving away too much, both critics seemed to wonder why certain things were done (as in, why didn't they just do this ___, wouldn't that have been easier?).
Both critics overlooked the notion that perhaps the path of least resistance is not necessarily the right path to follow. Truth, justice, honor, and faith are not just slogans. To many people even today, honoring a vow, though it may cost them everything, still holds meaning. And for me, that is a large part of what this movie was about. But again (as noted in another post), I'm still on meds so what do I know. : )
Wow, this critic really dislikes Shyamalan.
I read two critiques from slate on this movie. Without giving away too much, both critics seemed to wonder why certain things were done (as in, why didn't they just do this ___, wouldn't that have been easier?).
Both critics overlooked the notion that perhaps the path of least resistance is not necessarily the right path to follow. Truth, justice, honor, and faith are not just slogans. To many people even today, honoring a vow, though it may cost them everything, still holds meaning. And for me, that is a large part of what this movie was about. But again (as noted in another post), I'm still on meds so what do I know. : )
However, I must say that "The Signs" looked low budget. Like it was filmed for $25,000 in my back yard.
The Village was horrible. Since others have posted spoilers already, I will do the same...
1) Ivy was um... BLIND, yet she ran through the brambles and woods like a deer. Heck, after several hours in the forest, her cloak was only muddy at the feet, not the knees, so yes, dear viewer, a BLIND girl didn't fall down ONCE on her sightless bushwhacking trek.
2) How in the world did the retarded guy make those gutteral sounds in the suit? (Ok, maybe that was meant to be in Ivy's head, I'll give this one a pass... bUt how did he a) run thru the Village to the woods undetected with the suit, b) find Ivy, c) Not have the presence of mind to take off the stupid mask, etc.
3) Why pay high priced actors (Brody, Hurt, Weaver) for this movie? No skills were required.
4) In 2004, no way this place stays secret.
5) If men created this secret world, and pardon my crassness, why would they bundle the women up in frontier clothes? Bikinis all around (on the younger women.)
6) Why would you, ever, send a blind girl off on an adventure in the woods, with poor directions, to a place she knows nothing about and can't possibly understand. What is a "town" to her anyway?
7) What happened to the two wimps who left her alone in the woods?
9) Where did all the kids in the Village come from? Way too many for the small number of adults there.
10) On adn on and on and on.
Terrible movie. I had really hoped for more, and it could have been. I thought it was going to be a good social comment on American puritanism, or even religious symbolism gone awry. That is, ok, they decided to make the color red "bad," much like some religions think dancing or the number 7 is bad or some other arbitrary thing, and the lesson would be that hey, "red ain't so bad, see, we live fine with red in our lives." But no, not this movie. This movie gave us nothing intelligent or even much to think about-- and what kills me is that is should have! Even with this tired old Twilight Zone plot that is evident in the first 3 sleep inducing minutes!
Also saw Bourne Supremacy which was cool. Kind of like Spiderman meets Bond, but in a good way.
If you have Signs and watch the "Making of..." extras, M. Night and the cast and crew have an impromptu memorial service for the victims of 9/11, as it occurs during the filming of Signs. The guy has a heart and he didn't rant about "chickens coming home to roost," like the rest of Hollywood.
We are supposed to care about all this / this affects how one judges his movies, because...? Oh, sorry, I see this was published in Slate. This type of discussion here probably makes sense to its hundreds of readers.
Wasting no time, Shyamalan graduated NYU early.
Sure he didn't graduate FROM NYU?
He next wrote and directed a movie called Wide Awake (1998) for Miramax. It was the story of a sports-loving nun, played by Rosie O' Donnell, who helps a boy find God after his grandfather dies. The rough cut was too treacly even for Harvey Weinstein (a soft-touch for little kid movies, especially foreign ones), who unleashed a legendary speaker-phone tirade that humiliated Shyamalan and made O'Donnell cry.
I enjoyed Wide Awake. I wonder if the author has actually seen it.
The discussion of the writing of The Sixth Sense is strange, because I think the author thinks it should make us admire Shyamalan less, but it does just the opposite for me.
...what does M. Night do with his newfound power? He stays put in Philadelphia, refusing to move to L.A. and play ball. He creates a local film industry around his productions.
Won't move to Hollywood? The selfish bastard! ;-)
M. Night could not control the audience, however, and he was unhappy with the poor performance of his sophomore thriller, Unbreakable (2000).
Unbreakable, by the way, is my favorite Shyamalan movie.
The result was Signs (2002) and a teary Mel Gibson. It became a modest hit, but only after it was adopted by Christians as movie [sic] about the power of faith.
This is a little like saying Animal House was a hit, but only after being adopted by comedy-loving young people as a hilarious send-up of fraternity exploits. Um, news flash: the power of faith IS what Signs was about. It was about that and nothing else! What the hell is the author's point? (And where the hell is his editor BTW?) The mind boggles here.
M. Night was making fragile, sealed-off movies that fell apart when exposed to outside logic.
I don't know what the hell this is supposed to mean.
Viewed from the theatre lobby, the twists in both Signs and Unbreakable seem like rejected Twilight Zone episodes. Think about it: [..]
So the author has a problem with "the twists". The twists should be cleverer (or something). Whatever.
Think about it: A fragile comic book collector (Samuel L. Jackson) believes that his mission in life is to discover a real superhero, so he starts killing huge batches of people in airplane crashes and train wrecks in the hope that there will be a miraculous survivor?
Yes - that was the basic concept of Unbreakable. Your problem with that, Mr. Agger? Notice that his "criticism" here has absolutely no content.
Signs is even flimsier: An intelligent alien species that is killed when doused with H20 decides to invade a planet that is two-thirds water?
I'm tempted to just point out that for all we all, the Signs aliens had no choice but to invade Earth because it was the only planet they could get to which could support them. But to criticize Signs for the plausibility of its science fiction is to so miss the point of the entire movie. Yes, let's have a conversation about whether those aliens would or would not invade earth, that's so the point of Signs! I'm beginning to think this writer is just kinda dumb.
Without a believable plot, Shyamalan was exposed as a high-class purveyor of old-fashioned movie scares.
Look, Signs used "aliens" as a plot device. Given that, it's going to have a non-believable plot! There's no such thing as a movie about "aliens" which, simultaneously, has a "believeable plot". This is a facile criticism. Did Star Wars have a "believable plot"?
As for his own acting appearances, Slate's David Edelstein has said that Shyamalan's Signs cameo was so creaky the director should have fired himself.
I thought he was good in the role. I guess I have to defer to the expert, Slate's David Edelstein, however.
No one likes to be a cynic, to be the one laughing when Mel Gibson, as an ex-minister in Signs, has a lugubrious conversation with his wife as she lies dying in a car accident.
Except you (apparently).
My guess is that when he writes these wrenching scenes of father and daughter, or husband and wife, Shyamalan is striving for some universal and lucrative language of cinema
"universal"? Gee what a crime for a filmmaker to attempt to make films containing universal human emotions.
As for "lucrative", I think I'm starting to see where all this animosity is really coming from. Shyamalan has made lots of money. The author of this piece thinks that Shyamalan is trying to make money. What a no-no!
With the release of The Village, Shyamalan has more power at a younger age than any contemporary filmmaker, but it's unclear yet if he has anything to say.
At least not if you don't actually watch, or don't understand, his films, and spend most of your time obsessing on and jealous about Shyamalan's success, it's not.
Instead of making vibrant, relevant movies, he's created his Pennsylvania fiefdom and explored his own mind.
How dare he explore his own mind.
Dang, this writer is all over the map. Shyamalan's trying too hard to be universal, Shyamalan's insularly exploring his own mind. Which is it? Depends on the paragraph of the piece.
It's easy to understand why he's attracted to setting a movie in a period where people proclaimed their emotions in full and heartfelt sentences, or why he enjoys building a village that's impenetrable to the outside world. He's not making movies. He's making cocoons.
Where the hell is the "case against M. Night Shyamalan"?
All I really see here is a bunch of sour grapes. Let me guess, Michael Agger entertains notions of being a filmmaker/screenwriter in his spare time.....
A friend just saw The Village. She said it was great.
Wow....I also see a mean critic.
My definition of a critic is an jealous, lazy, narrow-minded, arrogant, schlub....who for lack of any actual talent.....makes his living by critizing those with talent and drive.
I have liked M. Night's movies. I haven't seen this latest but plan to see it soon. Besides it was filmed in Chadds Ford which is a five minute drive from my home.
I happen to agree that The Village is not his best movie (his previous three are all better IMHO) and that there are some problems with it. But even Shyamalan's worst film is better than 95% of movies that are released. It seems to me that ever since The Sixth Sense certain folks have had the urge to take him down a notch. If he makes a film that's not a $300 million phenomenon that literally rewrites the rules of filmmaking in a way no film has done since Pulp Fiction, Star Wars or Psycho, suddenly it's "crap" and "horrible"? What the hell is that? Save words like that for White Chicks or something. Give me a break.
Even more galling, and in fact somewhat disturbing, is the overt envy of Shyamalan's success and fame on display in articles like this. Why, with the language used here about him being "hermetic", silly cheap shots about him wanting "money" and "success" (like, who doesn't?) and that he doesn't "play ball", you'd almost think Shyamalan was... well, Jewish or something.... ;-)
What a dumb question. How is that any different from Spielberg?
I saw this movie last night and really liked it. I expected a twist ending and the spookiness but what I didn't expect was to feel a little sadness for the people in the village because the "elders" decided to continue with their deceit. It's like a form of torture keeping these people in constant fear just so that they could preserve the way they lived. Kids were dying when a couple of miles away they could get medical supplies. After all is said and done it's not the "creatures" that make the movie creepy it's the people in the village themselves.
Gosh, that was a bitchy review!