After I saw Signs I kind of felt like I'd been raped and had hot beer poured in my face, then really liked The Village, up until its crushingly disappointing and stupid twist ending. I just got back from seeing Lady in the Water with my mom, and by the time the eagle flies in at the end, I wanted nothing more than for it to pick up Shyamalan himself (in perhaps the most unabashed egotistical self-casting since Woody Allen actually somehow managed to convince people that a 17-year-old Mariel Hemingway would even give him the time of day, much less be sexually attracted to him, in Manhattan; gross) and tear him limb from limb while we all got to sit and cheer him on.
What a fucking phony and cry-baby. Get over yourself, Mr. Shyamalan, and stop worrying so much about critics picking on you and try to make a decent movie, you fucking schlub. I know you have talent, and you have boatloads of creativity, so I don't understand why you feel the need to subject all the rest of us to your little hissy-fit with a 100 million dollar budget, or however much you wasted on this pile of fucking garbage you call a movie.
You spend so much time building up this elaborate plot about narfs, and scrunts, and grass monsters, and people finding their true callings in life, but ultimately, your movie is flat, your metaphors completely meaningless, and you have nothing to say about anything. So forgive me if I fly into a fucking livid rage for feeling so emotionally manipulated when Paul Giamatti starts crying about his dead family, and it's revealed that.... Oh hell, who cares. What does any of it this convoluted, arrogant, overblown crap mean??? Nothing, ultimately, I'm afraid. You can speak of wars and strife, and sadness and carnage, and represent the world's innocence in a naked Hollywood starlet all you want, but I'm not buying your gibberish Mr. Night. Not for a minute.
You seem to think that you were put on this Earth to change things, to illuminate humanity's ability to see the good in all that exists, but you offer nothing. The only reason Lady in the Water is so confusing and drawn-out, and dumb, and just plain boring, I feel, is to try to take away from the fact that it's meaningless and you want everybody to think you're some deep, profound philsopher. Well, call me when anything you say makes any kind of sense or has any reason whatsoever. In the meantime, please stop wasting my time and maybe tune down the self-importance a notch or two. Maybe, eventually, someone besides me will get sick of being Shyamalaned.
6 comments:
I really liked the film. I can't really figure out why it's been getting this kind of reaction from people. I have honestly never heard such hostility from both audiences and critics. The film is certainly flawed, but this degree of vehemence is totally absurd and out of proportion. Why is it that when shitty films like "Silent Hill" come out, everyone gives it a get out of jail free card? That movie sucked shit and it was created with no sense of style or personal voice whatsoever. Yet since the film was made by a nobody and was forgotten about by Sunday, the film passed with a shrug. Is it because Shyamalan has had big hits in his career? He can't make a film that's less than stellar? Paul W.S. Anderson can continuously assault our senses with shitty, middle of the road crap. The Dukes of Hazzard part 7 can come out and everybody says "Oh, it had a few laughs." But someone comes out with a film that's really trying to do something fresh and everybody rips it to shreds. For my money, I would always rather see an artist attempt something personal, something fresh - even if they go down in flames - than see some middle of the road, TV remake, talking black baby, plastic-faced Sharon Stone, third rate ironic-horror, Owen Wilsonified bullshit.
M. Night Shamalamadingdong
i loved this film. i cried. a couple of times. but maybe i'm just one of those stupid people who get suckered into films about humanity and hope and community.
This post is included in Austinist's best of the blogs for this week! You'd have to pay me to see Lady in the Water . . . but I laughed through Unbreakable.
He’s no Hitchcock, but Unbreakable was the total shit. And aside from the brilliant “faith-based-life” allegory behind Signs, the patented M. Night Shama-"What A Twist!"-layan plot bend was utter shite. Double that for the floater dubbed "The Village" (which admittedly had some really great creep-out scenes with the blind chick and the emotionally crippled fellow in goblin drag).
If it weren't for Giamatti, I would take your rocks-crashing synopsis and not bother with this flick at all. But, I feel compelled to follow Mr. American Splendor wherever he plies his trade.
Sham sucks. Every one of his movies that I've seen (refuse to see any after Signs) is a piece of crap. Why anyone continues to give this guy money to make films is beyond me.
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