Friday, July 2, 2010

into the woods

I have fevered and festered over a dissertation on the works of M Night Shyamalan.  There were drafts covering everything from studio politics at Disney to the recurring motifs in Shyamalan's often redundant twist endings.  I experimented with a shot by shot exploration of his specific choices in DPs (always the best in town) for each project.  Along the way I realized something I never understood before - something much more important than critical analysis:

The Village (2004) is actually quite good.

"Be cautious, you're holding the bad color."

"Sometimes we don't do things yet others know we want to do things so we don't do them."

"I find dancing very agreeable."

"Christop, you needn't be scared.  We have the magic rocks.  They will keep us safe."

"We can move towards hope - that's what's so beautiful about this place."

There has been a lot of smack-talk about M Night Shyamalan and justifiably so.  For all intents and purposes, he's an egomaniacal prick.  Shyamalan gets so caught up in his ideas (and he has a lot of ideas) that he has no concern about communicating them to the audience.  That's not good.  He did, however, buy his assistant a house.  Unlike the earlier films, based solely upon their twist-endings which do not play well in second viewings, The Village is the gift that keeps on giving.  Bryce Dallas Howard gives a breathtaking performance and Adrien Brody plays a retard without ever being offensive.  Get into it!


  1. Really? Seriously?

    Well, if you say so, maybe I'll give 'er a whirl....


  2. listen. i realize that i have a penchant for bad movies... go into The Village knowing that the last 5minutes are crap. watch it after having walked out of The Last Airbender. watch it after remembering what a manic disappointment Signs is. The Village is totally best one (not counting The Happening, which is close behind Showgirls as a big budget movie that veers so far off the rails that it actually achieves perfection)!

  3. You talk, I listen.

    No, seriously. I do. Listen.