This corpse has been picked over plenty, and while I'll stipulate that it's a bit undercooked and pretty silly, on a rewatch I think it's one of those things you just have to deliberately slide into, which makes sense given that it's all of a piece with SIGNS and THE VILLAGE in its depiction of an insular community or group united by belief. You can choose to read Bob Balaban's character as a snipe at all critics, or you can take it as a representation of blanket, unfeeling skepticism. Up to you. Anyway, Shyamalan may exhibit all manner of ill-advised creative hubris but that doesn't mask his exceptional capabilities as a visual filmmaker. It's hard to make an ugly movie…

Film #4 of Gustav's M.National Shyamalan-a-thon

I thought about it, but honestly could not arrive at an answer. I do not know what was going through M.Night’s mind when he came up with this idea. Even more baffling is what gave him the impression that this would work and be accepted. The concept is total bollocks. The juxtaposition of fairy tale elements along with reality simply does not work here, as all the characters are mere devices, cardboard-like, uninteresting, ill-conceived, and dreadfully executed. They come off looking utterly dim-witted as they are shown to comfortably believe in such fatuous happenings.

Part of my frustration stems from the fact that the film did not even deliver on the promise of an…

I often talk about how much I want an adaptation of Stephen King's Lisey's Story but Lady In The Water is pretty much the... exact vibe for me. Super important that almost every shot before the Lady is introduced is obstructed - there is something missing from the lives of everybody in this, the decreasing length of Shyamalan's shots slowly finding the core of what makes these people tick - but this isn't a film about people; it's about conflict (involving people). If the Water is purity/the capacity to imagine & believe/where all myth comes from then the Land - the location of our narrative - is a blight on the freedom of half-lit 'truer' perception. Just look at how this…

"He's hearing the voice of God through a crossword puzzle."

Acho que só o Apichatpong acredita tanto no poder sugestivo da história oral como o Shyamalan. E é uma crença no sentido de uma fé mística mesmo, fé em uma mitologia fantasiosa que foi perdida, uma mitologia essencialmente narrativa que parte da infantilização de alguns elementos justamente para revelar uma essência primária e poderosa das coisas.

O melhor de tudo é que o Shy faz isso com um humor tão espirituoso quanto excêntrico. Toda a deslocalização cotidiana desse filme parte de uma ridicularização meio frontal das coisas, mas é justamente a fé nesses elementos ridículos que os torna grandiosos. Fora todo um senso de união que o ambiente coletivo gera,…

Shyamalan's attempt to be del Toro is just...so confused. It's obvious that Shyamalan's film-making style just isn't suited to these weird sorts of fairy tales, and it's INCREDIBLY clear that he's not whimsically creative enough to make his ideas make sense or communicate them in any fashion outside of incredibly obtuse and silly sounding exposition delivered by a...pretty stereotypical Korean family. "Narfs" and "Scrunts" and "Tartootiks" and their rules and the rules of the prophecy and yadda-yadda-yadda. Shyamalan obviously did not understand that the first rule of fantasy storytelling is to show not tell, and that's ALL that 'Lady in the Water' is, a whole lot of telling and not really showing.

On top of that, a lot of the…

There’s a good movie to be made about fairy tales encroaching on the real world but boy howdy is this deeply arrogant, sloppy, confused mess ever not it. 

Shyamalan’s long series of appearances as a crucial character in this film should be an immediate red flag, one that waves ever harder when it’s revealed he’s writing something that will change the world. That dread is further heightened by Giamatti’s tortured stuttering, Bryce Dallas Howard’s weird dead-eyed monotone, and of course Bob Balaban as the awful movie critic who thinks he knows everything and exists only to be punished. 

It’s too bad, because there are kernels of a good movie in here: the idea of the power of writing, and myths,…

When I was in film school, one of my teachers told a classmate of mine that the film he turned in was like a photo album; It may be funny and provide you with a lot of laughs and tender moments but it’s the sort of thing that only your family would enjoy watching because they recognize the people in it.

That’s the vibe I get from “Lady in the Water.” reading about it one finds out that the plot is based on a bedtime story M. Night Shyamalan told his daughter when she was little and I bet she like this film a lot.

I am not his daughter. I don’t have nostalgia for his bedtime stories. Will the…