Sunday, July 23, 2006

Bad Night, and bad luck.

I can't feel too bad for M. Night Shyamalan. Not only is his surname the spelling bane of my life, he also makes terrifically 'self' movies. That meaning self-righteous, self-involved and frightfully self-indulgent, unless of course he's being tamed by Disney (as I assume he was with The Sixth Sense and, to lesser extent, Unbreakable - films at least penetrable to us not of the faux-pseudo-intellectual brat variety). Critics have ripped him a new one with his latest Lady in the Water, which makes me happy, but I am assuming it'll still be making oodles of cash.

Here are the reasons I will not be subjecting myself to Lady in the Water:
  • Just like Signs and The Village, the premise is stupid as you like.
  • Just like Signs and The Village, it squanders a perfectly good cast (Question: how do you fuck up the delectable prospect of Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt sharing the screen? Answer: make them stupid, mongoloid-like automatons caught up in apparent genre fiddle-faddle; and whose zero emotional relevance is only capitulated by an equally dour grasp on what people should be saying in these ridiculous situations, only they don't, and never will).
  • Therefore I don't wish to see Paul Giamatti violated in this way.
  • And just like Signs and The Village, it's being sold as a supernatural thriller, when we all know -third time's a charm!- that it'll be a bunco attempt at forced melodrama, and with an unwelcome splash at subverting non-didacticism flung in for the sake of it.
If Shyamalan was quietly wanking away from the limelight, I doubt I'd mind so much at these delusions of grandeur and the even more horrendous allegations of Spielbergian proportions.

A watery tart in your swimming pool does not supreme executive power wield. I'm just happy a sizeable backlash has begun. Let the drubbing commence.

P.S I excitedly recommend Joe Morgenstern's to-the-point and hilarious critique of Lady in the Water - listen here, if you will.

1 comment:

sushiandrice said...

actually it's not making a lot of money at all but i'm not changing my glorious literal poetry.