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grrgoylSome movie reviews, since my connection is down and I can't work anyway (which is the grownup equivalent of a snow day!)
I finally got to see Lady in the Water, but first some words on M. Night Shyamalan. I pity Night, I really do. His first movie hit a home run out of the ballpark, and it's all been downhill ever since. Now everything he does is expected to have a big wow twist at the end and, in my opinion at least, he hasn't been up to the challenge. His movies are enjoyable to watch, but all of them have a serious flaw in continuity or logic that ruins them for me.
Exhibit A: Signs. I've mentioned in the past how it makes no sense for the aliens to try to conquer Earth when their only weakness is water. Hello, 70%? One could argue that the real point of the movie is the nature of faith. I could then argue against couching this lesson in a nonsensical alien horror movie.
Exhibit B: The Village. Oh, where do I start? Fortunately I can save some time and just link you on over to my original review and all the ways I thought this movie stunk.
Exhibit C: Unbreakable. Saw it. Don't remember a single frame. Might have been masterful and well-crafted, but what good does that do you when the movie is completely forgettable? (Not that my piss-poor memory should be any indication)
Exhibit D: The Sixth Sense. Yes, even his opus has one tiny continuity problem that completely ruined the rest of it for me. And now I can ruin it for you. There's a scene that opens on Bruce sitting in Toni Colette's living room face-to-face with her. Neither of them are speaking of course because she can't see him. He doesn't think that's a little odd? And for that matter, how did he get in the house in the first place? I didn't even notice it until the third or fourth viewing, but once I did the movie was completely ruined for me.
So I didn't rent Lady in the Water expecting great things. I just had curiosity.
Quickie plot summary: Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) is a superintendent for a building full of quirky character studies, none of whom get the screen time they deserve. He discovers the nightly splashing in the pool is caused by a renegade sea nymph, sent from a race of beings who used to help mankind all the time before we moved farther and farther from the water. It falls to Cleveland to get the nymph home before she is killed by the evil Scrunt, a wolf that looks like a grass-covered hillock to the untrained eye. He can't complete the mission alone, however, and must figure out which of his eccentric tenants fit the archetypes dictated by the myth. Wackiness ensues.
Not really. In fact perhaps what earns the movie the most criticism is that it appears to take itself entirely too seriously, and critics lose sight of the fact that this is nothing but a bedtime story made up by Night for his two girls. Towards this end, I believe the most important scene in the movie that conveys this message is about mid way through. Cleveland learns the details of the myth gradually by way of translation from the building's elderly Asian resident, kind of a neat device to keep from just laying out the whole story in one scene and destroying the mystery. But then the woman's daughter tells Cleveland that her mother refuses to tell him any more because she thinks he has lost his childlike innocence, which is crucial to understanding the tale. This prompts a very humorous scene with Cleveland trying his best to show that he IS still childlike. So too the audience has to shed its jaded, adult perspective to appreciate the film for what it is, not for what they expect it to be.
There are things I loved about this movie. The very first scene of Cleveland slaying a monstrous (off-camera) bug while the (mostly female) family shrieks in terror behind him had me LOLing and filled me with high hopes for what would follow. In fact, Paul Giamatti in general was just mesmerizing, and I'm not normally a fan. The way in which we are introduced to all the players was very Hitchcockian/Rear Window-ish. And like I said, the tale unfolds slowly and leisurely with lots of opportunities along the way for people to think about things and smell the roses.
Which isn't to say the movie is perfect. Considering one of my biggest peeves about The Village was that the monsters weren't real, you'd think I would embrace this movie because they ARE. For some reason though, they only distanced me from the story. Other flaws: Cleveland convinces all the tenants to play along that fit into the various roles required by the myth off camera - a time-saver, true, but creating the unrealistic impression that no one at any time stopped to question the man's sanity for believing in fairy tales come to life. The bathroom scene of trying to extract information from the nymph without her communicating directly was tedious and went on entirely too long. The Interpreter reading the signs off the sides of cereal boxes was a bit too silly and inexplicable, and the speech given by the film critic, reciting a formulaic plot cliché as rationale for why he won't be killed by the Scrunt, was painfully awkward and heavyhanded. And why is the Scrunt, who earlier in the movie crashes through a window in a door to attack the nymph, trapped inside by a mostly glass door at the end? Because Night needs it to be, and he wrote and directed The Sixth Sense so who are we to question him?
But like Signs, at its heart the movie is actually about a man's soul being saved by the events and people surrounding him, in this case Cleveland finally coming to terms with the loss of his family in a positively heartbreaking performance by Giamatti. As much as the rest of the movie had me pretty much thinking WTF?? this scene had me crying my eyes out.
There was also fuss made about Night giving himself a fairly big part in his own movie. Big deal. No one complained when Kevin Costner did it, and from where I'm sitting Night isn't that much worse of an actor.
Speaking of Costner, according to IMDb the role of Cleveland almost went to him, but he fortunately had prior commitments. I think that would have made it an entirely different movie and this an entirely different post.
When it was over I honestly didn't know what I thought about it. I emailed Ryan the next day, who amusingly had the exact same impression. I will say that in the spectrum of Night's movies, this one when taken at face value as nothing more than a bedtime story probably holds up the best logistically and continuity-wise. Towards that end I found a very cheap used copy online and plan to watch it again. {Final score pending}
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: VERY quick review. Hilarious. Believe whatever quotes they stick on the case to sell it. I totally fell for the disc, which looks like a cheap bootleg copy. However, I've seen enough of a morbidly obese, hairy, naked man wrestling and rolling around on the floor to last me the rest of my life.
~*~
A natural extension of my Snarry obsession would be the world of action figures. However, before now I haven't indulged for obvious reasons. This was what I had to choose from:
I'm not sure which is goofier looking, Harry or Snape. Okay, definitely Snape. Not at all sexy.
But good news! NECA finally noticed that there might be a market for it, and will be putting out these bad boys very soon:
I think the temperature on my work desk is going up a few degrees.
I finally got to see Lady in the Water, but first some words on M. Night Shyamalan. I pity Night, I really do. His first movie hit a home run out of the ballpark, and it's all been downhill ever since. Now everything he does is expected to have a big wow twist at the end and, in my opinion at least, he hasn't been up to the challenge. His movies are enjoyable to watch, but all of them have a serious flaw in continuity or logic that ruins them for me.
Exhibit A: Signs. I've mentioned in the past how it makes no sense for the aliens to try to conquer Earth when their only weakness is water. Hello, 70%? One could argue that the real point of the movie is the nature of faith. I could then argue against couching this lesson in a nonsensical alien horror movie.
Exhibit B: The Village. Oh, where do I start? Fortunately I can save some time and just link you on over to my original review and all the ways I thought this movie stunk.
Exhibit C: Unbreakable. Saw it. Don't remember a single frame. Might have been masterful and well-crafted, but what good does that do you when the movie is completely forgettable? (Not that my piss-poor memory should be any indication)
Exhibit D: The Sixth Sense. Yes, even his opus has one tiny continuity problem that completely ruined the rest of it for me. And now I can ruin it for you. There's a scene that opens on Bruce sitting in Toni Colette's living room face-to-face with her. Neither of them are speaking of course because she can't see him. He doesn't think that's a little odd? And for that matter, how did he get in the house in the first place? I didn't even notice it until the third or fourth viewing, but once I did the movie was completely ruined for me.
So I didn't rent Lady in the Water expecting great things. I just had curiosity.
Quickie plot summary: Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) is a superintendent for a building full of quirky character studies, none of whom get the screen time they deserve. He discovers the nightly splashing in the pool is caused by a renegade sea nymph, sent from a race of beings who used to help mankind all the time before we moved farther and farther from the water. It falls to Cleveland to get the nymph home before she is killed by the evil Scrunt, a wolf that looks like a grass-covered hillock to the untrained eye. He can't complete the mission alone, however, and must figure out which of his eccentric tenants fit the archetypes dictated by the myth. Wackiness ensues.
Not really. In fact perhaps what earns the movie the most criticism is that it appears to take itself entirely too seriously, and critics lose sight of the fact that this is nothing but a bedtime story made up by Night for his two girls. Towards this end, I believe the most important scene in the movie that conveys this message is about mid way through. Cleveland learns the details of the myth gradually by way of translation from the building's elderly Asian resident, kind of a neat device to keep from just laying out the whole story in one scene and destroying the mystery. But then the woman's daughter tells Cleveland that her mother refuses to tell him any more because she thinks he has lost his childlike innocence, which is crucial to understanding the tale. This prompts a very humorous scene with Cleveland trying his best to show that he IS still childlike. So too the audience has to shed its jaded, adult perspective to appreciate the film for what it is, not for what they expect it to be.
There are things I loved about this movie. The very first scene of Cleveland slaying a monstrous (off-camera) bug while the (mostly female) family shrieks in terror behind him had me LOLing and filled me with high hopes for what would follow. In fact, Paul Giamatti in general was just mesmerizing, and I'm not normally a fan. The way in which we are introduced to all the players was very Hitchcockian/Rear Window-ish. And like I said, the tale unfolds slowly and leisurely with lots of opportunities along the way for people to think about things and smell the roses.
Which isn't to say the movie is perfect. Considering one of my biggest peeves about The Village was that the monsters weren't real, you'd think I would embrace this movie because they ARE. For some reason though, they only distanced me from the story. Other flaws: Cleveland convinces all the tenants to play along that fit into the various roles required by the myth off camera - a time-saver, true, but creating the unrealistic impression that no one at any time stopped to question the man's sanity for believing in fairy tales come to life. The bathroom scene of trying to extract information from the nymph without her communicating directly was tedious and went on entirely too long. The Interpreter reading the signs off the sides of cereal boxes was a bit too silly and inexplicable, and the speech given by the film critic, reciting a formulaic plot cliché as rationale for why he won't be killed by the Scrunt, was painfully awkward and heavyhanded. And why is the Scrunt, who earlier in the movie crashes through a window in a door to attack the nymph, trapped inside by a mostly glass door at the end? Because Night needs it to be, and he wrote and directed The Sixth Sense so who are we to question him?
But like Signs, at its heart the movie is actually about a man's soul being saved by the events and people surrounding him, in this case Cleveland finally coming to terms with the loss of his family in a positively heartbreaking performance by Giamatti. As much as the rest of the movie had me pretty much thinking WTF?? this scene had me crying my eyes out.
There was also fuss made about Night giving himself a fairly big part in his own movie. Big deal. No one complained when Kevin Costner did it, and from where I'm sitting Night isn't that much worse of an actor.
Speaking of Costner, according to IMDb the role of Cleveland almost went to him, but he fortunately had prior commitments. I think that would have made it an entirely different movie and this an entirely different post.
When it was over I honestly didn't know what I thought about it. I emailed Ryan the next day, who amusingly had the exact same impression. I will say that in the spectrum of Night's movies, this one when taken at face value as nothing more than a bedtime story probably holds up the best logistically and continuity-wise. Towards that end I found a very cheap used copy online and plan to watch it again. {Final score pending}
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: VERY quick review. Hilarious. Believe whatever quotes they stick on the case to sell it. I totally fell for the disc, which looks like a cheap bootleg copy. However, I've seen enough of a morbidly obese, hairy, naked man wrestling and rolling around on the floor to last me the rest of my life.
~*~
A natural extension of my Snarry obsession would be the world of action figures. However, before now I haven't indulged for obvious reasons. This was what I had to choose from:
I'm not sure which is goofier looking, Harry or Snape. Okay, definitely Snape. Not at all sexy.
But good news! NECA finally noticed that there might be a market for it, and will be putting out these bad boys very soon:
I think the temperature on my work desk is going up a few degrees.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-09 06:47 pm (UTC)Borat was good, but it was ruined for me by seeing it in the theater with a bunch of morons who laughed at every. single. scene. It was like being around a bunch of hyenas.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-09 06:56 pm (UTC)I can see that happening. It teetered very dangerously on the line between Spinal Tap and Jackass. I'm glad it was just me and Tery watching.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-09 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-09 07:33 pm (UTC)*blush* Thanks very much. It is a dream job of mine.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-09 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-13 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-13 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-14 12:27 am (UTC)