[ QUOTE ]
This movie played out like a 5th grader's 1st attempt at creative writing. You could have put the best actors from all time in their prime in this film and it still would have been terrible. Paul Giamatti, wtf were you thinking? M. Night should never be allowed to make movies again after throwing together this piece of crap which he probably wrote when he WAS in 5th grade, had to meet a deadline, paid somebody to type it up for him, and handed it in.
I can see the meetings going on in my head...
Exec 1 : "this...this is terrible"
Exec 2 : "maybe we just don't get it. I never got that whole 6th sense thing and mackeraloony did that thing bank!"
Exec 1 : "you're right. let's move on this asap"
[/ QUOTE ]
This was originally a PM to Prior, but I didn't care enough to flesh it out into a Lounge thread. But I think its interesting how "Lady" and "Pan's" both dealt with an oral tradition in such different ways.
To start, I've never liked M. Night. At all. I thought "Sixth Sense" was completely boring after the first viewing, "Signs" made me roll my eyes, "Unbreakable" made me cringe, etc. I'm no filmie or educated critic, though, so I kept giving him a shot. Obviously I was missing something, right?
Two nights ago I rented "Lady in the Water." I thought it was horribly disjointed, confusing, and disappointing. There's a "narf," who's trying to avoid a "Dwight Schrute," and needs the help of Giamatti. We're given this line early, and then halfway through we're told that there are also Guardians, Guilds, Healers, and some sort of monkey creature that regulates the Schrutes, only they aren't this time because sometimes they don't. We get to know, oh so slightly, a group of stoners who turn out not to be anything than a way for Shyamalan to fit in stoner dialogue. To top it off, Shyamalan casts HIMSELF as a writer whose brilliance won't be understood until after his death. Christ.
I never really heard much about this movie, but I thought it was his worst of those I've seen, and since I've hated everything he's done, that's saying something. On the other hand, I'm under the impression people in general love his work, and none of my friends are film critics, so I thought I'd ask what you thought of him in general and "Lady in the Water" in particular.
If I'd just watched that movie, I probably wouldn't have sent you a PM. But, instead, by some weird quirk, I watched "Pan's Labyrinth" the night after I watched "Lady in the Water." A lot of comparisons jumped out at me right away. Both use fairytales and storytelling as central elements int he film. Both mix fantasy with reality. Both films discuss roles, obedience, and fate in connection with both reality and fantasy. But "Pan's" was so, so much better. I really thought that "Lady" used the mundane to explore the power of stories - and did so really badly - while "Pan's" used fantasy/stories to explore real life, to much greater effect. After I got done watching "Pan's," all I could think about was that the two movies used similar worlds to explore similar issues, but "Pan's" was light years ahead of "Lady."