Lady in the Water

[Kuro-Mizu]

i saw it last night at the screening and was severly disapointed, almost as disapointed as when i saw the village. its hard to imagine how a guy who made the sixth sence and especilly unbreakable could produce so much crap. lady in the water's plot line is so unbelieveable that its like he has to force you along through the story. and the worst part is he casts himself as one of the main caracters, quite posibly the most important caracter! it just strikes me as arrogant to cast your self in a movie like that. and its a huge distraction too, your constantly watching the movie thinking "what the heck is doing as a main caracter?", he's allways like a bit caracter much in the style of alfred hitchcock. also be prepared to be amazed at the spinkler system that seems to constantly be comeing on and off with no continuity just so you can hear a sudden sound to shock the audiance. -_-

edit- Sorry i didnt realize this was a double post!

He cast himself as the main character cuz the movie is about him... its his own interpretation of himself... Thats what he said in interviews anyways! and it makes sense to!

and the sprinklers come on and off for a very specific reason if you didn't catch it you obviously weren't paying attention to the movie!

I am thinking that is probably why you didn't like the village... you weren't paying enough attention!

[Shinja]

no i didnt like the village for alot of the same resons i didnt like lady in the water, first being the very blatent socialistic nature of both movies, somthing you can clearly see at the beginging of lady in the water when, cartoony story plays telling of how man seeks to own all things and it is this that turns him evil, ie capitalism is mans enemy. i also picked up on this in the village which is a paradigm of comunism itself. this would have been fine had the point of the story been comunism is bad, instead it turned out to be the opisite where the ends justify the means. another big part of my lady hate, is shamilyans complete arogance casting him self the role of a wrieter whos word will change the fate of man. how blatently egotisical this is, considering he wrote the thing him self, the entire movie does nothing but glorify is image from start to finnish, it came as no suprise that the film critic would be killed and speaks loudly of his hate towards the critics who trounced the village.
disney was right for not making this movie and it may end up being the movie that destroys his career.
aslo the biggest thing that i hated about the village was the father in the movie sends his blind daughter out into the woods facing the posiblity of serious injury or death so they can get the medicine, i cannot imagine what kind of man would do such a thing just to keep his little world from crashing in on itself. it defies all sence of morality to do such things. that is why i do not like the village.

[suribachi]

The point of The Village wasn't the glorification of their communal life. It was about fear and the pointlessness of trying to hide from the world. The sin that lurks in the human heart is still there. The father wasn't a hero -- he was fearful -- the same fear that caused them all to move there caused him to send his blind daughter out to try to preserve what they had.

I don't know why it's arrogant for him to be in his own movie. Mel Gibson starred in and directed Braveheart. John Wayne produced and directed some of the films he starred in. It's pretty common.

[jon_jinn]

i saw the preview for this movie and thought it looked very freaky. i'm not a big fan of suspenseful/horror/thiller type movies so i suppose i'll stay away from this one.

[Shinja]

its not that he was arrogant for being in his own film, i had no problem with his being in his other films, but its the caracter he chose for himself. to use the words of disney its self serving. and theres a big differance from staring in a film you direct and staring in a film you direct write and produce.

[Mangafanatic]

its not that he was arrogant for being in his own film, i had no problem with his being in his other films, but its the caracter he chose for himself. to use the words of disney its self serving. and theres a big differance from staring in a film you direct and staring in a film you direct write and produce.

Being a bit of a writer, would you mind if I chimed in here and made a tiny comment?

M. Night Shamaylan writes all this own scripts. Having written some myself, I see his choice to take a large part in this film in an entirely different light. When you create characters, you see them in a very specific way. Their physical mannerisms, their appearance, their attictude, ect-- everything about them is cemented in your mind. With that said, I can imagine creating a character, then looking for someone to play that character, but then realizing that, in truth, no one knows exactly how that character should be played except you. You created them, you know who they are, and the only way you can guarantee that their character is in line with what you imagined for them in your head is to do it yourself. Plus, I thought he was perfect in this part. Sure, he's not gonna get an Oscar nomination for it, but he played the character very well, IMHO. I don't see how it's vain casting yourself in a part you can play quite convincingly.

[bbboy21]

...the new trailers made the movie so uninteresting...seriously, they should of kept the same atmosphere that the first trailer conveyed.

[Rocketshipper]

I enjoyed this movie a lot. I thought it was a pretty original story idea, and had a good amount of humor and seriousness to it. The "Scrunt" looked awesome and reminded me of the "gmork" (sp?) from the Neverending Story; the scene where the main character challenged it was very tense, and the scene where [spoiler] it ate the film critic [/spoiler] was my favorite part in the movie. That was the best monologue ever, and I enjoyed it even more since I'm a horror movie fan. Overall, this is probably my second favorite movie of his, after the Village.

[The Last Bard]

I watched this movie last night, and I must say, I really enjoyed it! I was really worried at first, but it turned out to be a good movie.

[Linksquest]

OK! I saw it tnt at 9:20 no less! XD YAY for late night movies!!! and for overly buttered popcorn!!!

Anywhos, I liked the movie! It was pretty much what I expected from the maker of THE VILLAGE. I knew it wouldn't be as suspensful as the commercials made it out to be. I think that the morals of the story (pun... sorta intended ) were good ones.

Four morals that stuck out to me were:

1.EACH PERSON HAS A PURPOSE.
2.FIND YOUR PURPOSE
3.ACCEPT YOUR PURPOSE
4. EACH PERSON AFFECTS THE OTHER

[SPOILER] I thought that the ending could have been better or at least the time before the ending could have been better. They should have chopped that underwater scene completely out or shortened it to a more believable time. HE COULDn't HAVE HELD HIS BREATH THAT LONG!!! At least without stuggling more for air. He seemed like he was taking his sweet time to get what he was looking for. By chopping out some other parts which took too long, they could have made the realization of who each of the characters really was in the middle of the movie and then the second half of the movie could have better shown more situations where the special characters could show off their abilities.

The part with the writer was really good... Story knowing his future and telling him about how he would write something that would affect others... and that even though he will die because of it he still decides to write the story. [/SPOILER]

I would give it a B: being something better than the critics have given it... but not a perfect movie by any means.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Four morals that stuck out to me were:

1.EACH PERSON HAS A PURPOSE.
2.FIND YOUR PURPOSE
3.ACCEPT YOUR PURPOSE
4. EACH PERSON AFFECTS THE OTHER

The whole thing where each person was some sort of "role" just struck to me as cliched in comparison with fantasy-like stories. Like with knights and stuff. More than that though, it's pretty much anti-capitalism. Plus when it says that we can't live without the guidance of another. (that isn't even divine or claiming devine status, the water ladys were not devine in anyway nor will I believe they represented something divine)

[Ingemar]

This is coming quite late from me, but...

What we learned from this movie is...

>1.EACH PERSON HAS A PURPOSE.
2.FIND YOUR PURPOSE
3.ACCEPT YOUR PURPOSE
4. EACH PERSON AFFECTS THE OTHER<
5. M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN IS GOD

Praise aside, this movie was such a massive insult to my intelligence. First of all, the amount of suspension of disbelief required to stomach this movie makes Superman's flimsy disguise as Clark Kent believable.

Paul Giamatti: HAY EVERYBODY, LET'S GO HELP THIS CREEPY NUDE GIRL I FOUND IN THE POOL.
Everybody: All right.
Paul Giamatti: I know what I am doing because of a Korean chick's bed time story that involves creatures that aren't remotely Korean-sounding! Hey you, you're the Guild so do stuff for me! Us!
Rambling stoners: Fine.

...et cetera....

I don't really mind M. Night casting himself as an important character (for once). Other directors have done it before (Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood). What I DO mind is casting yourself as a character you yourself created that happens to be some Messianic world-shaping influential author that even is prophesied to die for his beliefs! Does M. Night think he is Jesus or something?

The movie also fails to deliver upon its own frakkin premises, which is a huge no-no. I guess I should be greatful since doing so would have given an utterly cliched storyline about how the human race really sucks because of war and a whole host of things. I just the film could have been consistent.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Also to note that the "Korean girl" didn't sound 1 bit korean at all.