posted
A lot of people seem to think that he has made a bunch of bad movies lately. Sure the happening wasn't very good, but I thought Lady in the Water was a lot better than people gave it credit for. Now it seems that The Last Airbender is getting a some wary looks and words from people who expect M. Knight to make "another Stinker".
It seems to me that a director like Terentino gets a pass every time he makes a bad movie (and he has way more bad movies than Shyamalan), because he has made 3 really good ones.
Posts: 278 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
A lot of the people I've heard complain about his movies claim that every one of his films relies on a "twist" and they complain that they guess the twists fairly early, so the whole movie is ruined. The attitude seems to be that having twists is being tricky, and if he's going to play tricks, they'd better be good ones.
Personally, I'm a fan, and I think his movies should be enjoyed for the journey, not the twist, but I understand that the kinds of journeys he takes may not be to everyone's taste.
Posts: 368 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem was the first two movies had good twists, and everyone assumed the rest would also have twists, but the fact is the rest aren't twist-driven movies at all.
I see where people are coming from when they talk about Lady in the Water being a very egotistical movie. It kinda is, but I don't think that makes it bad or lessen it's "Truth™ value."
Dunno about the Happening (didn't see it).
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by String: It seems to me that a director like Terentino gets a pass every time he makes a bad movie (and he has way more bad movies than Shyamalan), because he has made 3 really good ones.
Does he really?
Tarantino
My Best Friend's Birthday Reservoir Dogs Pulp Fiction Natural Born Killers (writer) Four Rooms Jackie Brown From Dusk Till Dawn (screenplay) Kill Bill: Vol 1 & 2 (listing this as one entry) Grindhouse Inglorious Basterds
Now, be honest, in your opinion which one of those is "bad"? Which three do you consider "really good" (I can guess, but humor me)?
Shyamalan
Praying with Anger Wide Awake The Sixth Sense Stuart Little (screenplay) Unbreakable Signs The Village Lady in the Water The Happening
If you ask me, I think Tarantino's got the higher average, but that's just my opinion.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
The issue people have with m. night shamwow is that his movies have stopped being good. that's it. that's the long and short of it. He's just experienced an unprecedented fall as a filmmaker, who went from making timeless well-received works to making utterly self-indulgent whoppers full of terrible pacing and grating performances. If he'd just started out really bad or never gotten really good, people wouldn't care as much.
His last movie, The Happening, is just godawful. A disaster from start to finish. It's really hard to consider that he used to be making films like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. But at present he is a formerly great director whose most recent offerings were Razzies level trash.
quote:It seems to me that a director like Terentino gets a pass every time he makes a bad movie (and he has way more bad movies than Shyamalan), because he has made 3 really good ones.
None of what you just said is true. shamwow has more bad movies, tarantino has more good movies.
quote:Now, be honest, in your opinion which one of those is "bad"?
Well, Death Proof (Tarantino's segment in Grindhouse) could be considered the weakest of tarantino's offerings, but it was still better than Village, Lady in the Water, and The Happening.
Also, tarantino has never made a dud. Lady in the Water and The Happening were both utter duds.
Also also, the only two works in Shyamalan's retinue that can be measured up against the quality level of Tarantino's films are Unbreakable and Sixth Sense.
They are not comparable filmmakers. At least not until tarantino goes insane for some inexplicable reason and starts churning out garbage so bad that it eclipses his career and leaves people wondering what happened.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah the Happening and The Village were two M Knight movies I didn't like, but I thought Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense, and Lady in the water were really good films.
The only three Terentino movies that I really like are Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie brown. From Dusk... is probably a good movie, but not my kind of thing. But Deathproof was terrible, uneventful and sadistic, and has no value as film in my eyes at all, talk about self indulgence Death proof and the Kill Bill movies were nothing but Terentino masturbating.
Shyamalan is a hands down better storyteller than Terentino in my opinion (which of course is my opinion), who seems to get buy on death porn and shock value in some of his most recent movies. So, PF and RD, they are masterpieces, the rest of them are not my cup of tea.
I should note that I'm only talking about movies that were directed by Shyamalan, and Terentino, respectively.
Posts: 278 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I thought The Village was pretty decent. The story itself was mildly blah, but the acting was great. I liked Lady in the Water too. Interesting story, great acting, good movie.
I never saw The Happening, but I've yet to see a Shyamalan movie and say "that was garbage" afterward.
In general I think he's a good movie maker and I look forward to his movies. TLA I'm only a little hesitant about because this is his first foray into turning something already established into a movie, rather than playing around with his own work. It should be interesting.
The Sixth Sense absolutely blew me away with its ending. Unbreakable I didn't see until long after it came out, but I liked it. The circumstances around Signs weren't really important, so far as the alien invasion went. There wasn't really any shock value to it, or twists really, it was a character study, and I thought that part was interesting. The Village was pretty easily guessable as far as the twist went (well, halfway in anyway), but that didn't really concern me so much. There was a lot of other stuff going on in that movie that was entertaining for me. I don't remember Lady in the Water having a twist either, and I also enjoyed the story, the acting, and the movie as a whole.
I still want to see The Happening to see if it's really as bad as everyone says, or if it's just more "Oh yeah, he made ANOTHER bad movie" when it's really not that awful. People seem to have a weird sort of groupthink thing going on with media, and movies/directors in particular. A lot of people treat the Napoleon Dynamite type movies that have come out lately as the best thing since sliced bread but I could take or leave most of them. I didn't think they were anything special at all. A lot of it comes down to taste and personal preference, but for a lot of people, maybe not so much here, I think preconceived notions of whether you think you're going to enjoy it or not have some serious influence on how people judge movies. Hype is a factor too.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Village was pretty good, with a horrible, horrible ending. I'm not even talking about the "twist", but the final scene was miserable.
Lady in the Water was so bad - it told the story rather than showing it. Several times. It told the story several times and neglected all the other things (pacing, characterization, tension, an arc) that would make a good movie.
I didn't see The Happening.
I loved The Sixth Sense, and I liked Unbreakable and Signs, even if Unbreakable was a little facile and Signs was a LOT facile and the glaring plot holes were very distracting, they were still well put together. Then came The Village, which was...okay. And then the next two, which were not well put together.
Also, it's "Night", not "Knight." He seems like an egoist, but not THAT much of an egoist.
But I think a big, big part of the backlash is the "behind the scenes" book from Lady in the Water, which consisted largely of bashing Disney for failing to appreciate his genius, and then Lady in the Water turned out to not be that great. You read about the changes Disney wanted him to make, and it seems like all of them would have improved the movie. That he rejected those efforts anyway makes him out to have a raging ego; that he published a book trumpeting the fact makes him a bit of an idiot.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Lady in the Water was so bad - it told the story rather than showing it. Several times. It told the story several times and neglected all the other things (pacing, characterization, tension, an arc) that would make a good movie.
I thought it was slow paced, but that's different from bad pacing. As for "telling" rather showing, in this particular case I thought it was executed appropriately, since the whole point was to examine the process of storytelling.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
When I saw The Sixth Sense for the first time, I walked out of the theater unsure if I liked it or not -- but absolutely certain that it was a classic. Not completely to my personal taste -- but it was a movie I greatly respected. I wasn't giddy about it. But the craft of it was impossible not to acknowledge.
But then Unbreakable -- I thought that was just perfect. Loved it. And Signs -- just as good. Just as much.
When I saw Reservoir Dogs for the first time, I was laughing the kind of thrilled laughter that only overcomes you when you're absolutely floored with the impossible coolness of what you're seeing. It just worked on me. It was a crime fiction stage play. The influence of Elmore Leonard on Tarantino doesn't get the ink it deserves...... but anyway.....
Tarantino and Shyamalan are different kinds of creators. They're both good at what they do, but they're working with vastly different sets of skills and and they're making vastly different kinds of movies.
I've liked them both from the beginning. That said, I'm not thrilled about what Shyamalan has been doing lately. But I don't think Tarantino is as good as he used to be either. I'm not sure what exactly is wrong with Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds... They both contain some thrills for me. But it's not the same. Some of the life has gone out of Tarantino's movies.
I'm sorry to say, as far as Shyamalan goes, that The Lady in the Water was dreadful. And Turdpop -- I mean The Happening -- might outdo Robocop 3 as the worst movie I've ever seen in the theater. I saw it on opening night in a sold out theater. Everybody excited. Everybody ready for a scare. About 5 minutes in, the nervous laughter began: Could it really be as wretched as it seemed? By 30 minutes in, we were all laughing like we were watching The Three Stooges or something. It was one of the most communal experiences I've ever had at the theater: 400 people were all thinking the same thing. This is terribad. We were all looking around at each other for two hours like: is this really happening? I made secret friends with everyone on my row as we kept gazing at each other in some kind of state of disbelief.
It's honestly that bad.
I didn't like Deathproof either, but compared to The Happening it's Casablanca, man.
But I want Shyamalan to make good movies. I'm hoping for him to make a come back. When he makes a really amazing movie, like Unbreakable, it's a treat for everyone who loves cinema. I want him to be that director. I want to see more movies by that guy. It's like a pod person has taken his place.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I enjoyed Lady in the Water, and The Happening, but The Village was ruined for long before I saw it. And when it comes to Tarantino, yes Pulp Fiction is awesome, so are the Kill Bill movies, but they dont make up for how utterly boring Resevior Dogs was... and they had Steve Buscemi and I still hate that movie. Atleast Nights films are originals, not remakes.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Politely, with respect, and out of a sense of genuine curiosity: How? How could you like The Happening?
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by String: It seems to me that a director like Terentino gets a pass every time he makes a bad movie (and he has way more bad movies than Shyamalan), because he has made 3 really good ones.
Does he really?
Tarantino
From Dusk Till Dawn (screenplay) Kill Bill: Vol 1 & 2 (listing this as one entry) Grindhouse Inglorious Basterds
These particular Tarantino films are all pretty awful, IMO. In "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and "Jackie Brown," Tarantino made films in which the plot is actually ingenuous and the characters all had pretty compelling stuff to say...stuff that largely stems from the plot. With "Kill Bill" on the other hand all the characters are pretty thin, and the dialogue is goofy and ridiculous, and Tarantino wants to get away with such poor writing by claiming that he's paying homage to older films he adores.
In Reservoir Dogs, when Tim Roth's character gets shot in the stomach, it is a very brutal and unbearable thing. In "Kill Bill," when Sofie Fatale gets her hand chopped off, the violence is largely a joke.
The characters in "Death Proof" are all gasbags, and I wasn't particularly interested in what they had to say. Again, compare it to "Pulp Fiction." In the first scene of that film, when Vincent and Jules are talking about random stuff, it's clear that they aren't just talking about random stuff. A plot is being set up and things being made clear: Vincent just returned from Amersterdam, Marsellus Wallace asked Vincent to take Mia Wallace out, Marselus threw that guy out of a window for giving Mia Wallace a foot message (sets up that Marselus--a character we meet later--is supposedly a tough person, and also a conservation topic between Vincent and Mia later raised.) And so on.
Tarantino makes the characters in "Death Proof" talk on the other hand just for the sake of having them talk. Their talking scenes do not serve any purpose other than to keep things going slow until the two momentous events. "Death Proof" is a film with a very simple plot that with very over-written dialogue. And don't get me started on the other flaws. During the scenes from the first half, out of no where and for no reason whatsoever, Tarantino gives homage to De Palma's "Blow Out." It's the scene where one of the girls is texting someone, and a piano melody plays on the sountrack. Yea, that's from "Blow Out." But why allude to it right there and then in such a jarring fashion? And the second group of girls flat out murdered the villain after they had incapacitated him, making them no better than he is. Clearly, Tarantino has lost his mind.
Posts: 532 | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
The only Tarantino movie I disliked was Grindhouse because it was trying to be too schlocky for my tastes.
But his latest movie was Inglorious Basterds. Shamaylan is just making progressively more and more terrible movies and becoming more and more a victim of his own ego, while Tarantino is not experiencing the same decline.
Lady in the Water and The Happening were both terrible movies. if you liked them that's okay but weird. I don't know how you could not see that they were terrible movies.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
| IP: Logged |
These particular Tarantino films are all pretty awful, IMO. In "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and "Jackie Brown," Tarantino made films in which the plot is actually ingenuous and the characters all had pretty compelling stuff to say...stuff that largely stems from the plot. With "Kill Bill" on the other hand all the characters are pretty thin, and the dialogue is goofy and ridiculous, and Tarantino wants to get away with such poor writing by claiming that he's paying homage to older films he adores.
In Reservoir Dogs, when Tim Roth's character gets shot in the stomach, it is a very brutal and unbearable thing. In "Kill Bill," when Sofie Fatale gets her hand chopped off, the violence is largely a joke.
The characters in "Death Proof" are all gasbags, and I wasn't particularly interested in what they had to say. Again, compare it to "Pulp Fiction." In the first scene of that film, when Vincent and Jules are talking about random stuff, it's clear that they aren't just talking about random stuff. A plot is being set up and things being made clear: Vincent just returned from Amersterdam, Marsellus Wallace asked Vincent to take Mia Wallace out, Marselus threw that guy out of a window for giving Mia Wallace a foot message (sets up that Marselus--a character we meet later--is supposedly a tough person, and also a conservation topic between Vincent and Mia later raised.) And so on.
Tarantino makes the characters in "Death Proof" talk on the other hand just for the sake of having them talk. Their talking scenes do not serve any purpose other than to keep things going slow until the two momentous events. "Death Proof" is a film with a very simple plot that with very over-written dialogue. And don't get me started on the other flaws. During the scenes from the first half, out of no where and for no reason whatsoever, Tarantino gives homage to De Palma's "Blow Out." It's the scene where one of the girls is texting someone, and a piano melody plays on the sountrack. Yea, that's from "Blow Out." But why allude to it right there and then in such a jarring fashion? And the second group of girls flat out murdered the villain after they had incapacitated him, making them no better than he is. Clearly, Tarantino has lost his mind. [/QB][/QUOTE]
I can read this about Deathproof, but then I think of the scene in The Happening where the two thirteen year olds are killed with a shotgun for the shock value. Then I think of every other scene from that movie.
At least Tarantino hasn't done anything that bad.
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I haven't see The Happening, and really don't want to from what I've read.
One difference I see between Shymalan and Tarantino is that Shymalan is not afraid to fail. Yes, his films since "Signs" might all be all stinkers but at least Shymalan is TRYING. It's the same sort of effort and ambition behind those films that gave us "Unbreakable" and "The Sixth Sense."
Tarantino on the other hand seems deadly afraid of taking risk and getting rejected by critics and movie-snobs, so his new schlocky films are replete with little intellectual challenges to critics and cinephiles (guess the homage!) so that if you dislike what he's doing you're painted as someone who doesn't really appreciate movies as much as Tarantino.
posted
It doesn't help that Shyamalan has gained a reputation for colossal arrogance. "You're getting to read my screenplay, this is the high point of your miserable life, you should consider yourself lucky" arrogance.
Directors like M. Night Shyamalan, Quentin Tarantino, and Spike Lee all rocketed to fame fairly early in their careers. One cannot help but feel that they should recognize their own good fortune. Tarantino gets a pass in part because some of his sheer "kid-in-a-candy-store" glee shines through in his work. ("I get to cast Pam Grier! *squee!*") Shyamalan's later movies, by contrast, seem to show a kind of tone-deafness, a "you're coming with me because I am great and I say you will" rather than a recognition that you have to make the audience want to come with you.
Now, I really like several of Shyamalan's movies. And I'm certainly not rooting for him to fail. But I would hope at this point that he's learned the lesson that the movie carries the director, and not vice versa.
Likewise, "Death Proof" began to make me want to scream at the characters to stop trying to be clever and shut up. But I never doubted that Tarantino, however misguidedly, was trying to entertain. And I'm certainly curious about Inglorious Basterds.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Clive Candy: Tarantino on the other hand seems deadly afraid of taking risk and getting rejected by critics and movie-snobs, so his new schlocky films are replete with little intellectual challenges to critics and cinephiles (guess the homage!) so that if you dislike what he's doing you're painted as someone who doesn't really appreciate movies as much as Tarantino.
You sounds somewhat bitter. I think much of what Tarantino does does not need an understanding of homages. I think he risked a lot in many of his movies, so much so that many of his movies can be called nothing but Tarantino-esque. I think all you need to enjoy his movies is a love of movies.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:From TL: And Turdpop -- I mean The Happening -- might outdo Robocop 3 as the worst movie I've ever seen in the theater. I saw it on opening night in a sold out theater. Everybody excited. Everybody ready for a scare. About 5 minutes in, the nervous laughter began: Could it really be as wretched as it seemed? By 30 minutes in, we were all laughing like we were watching The Three Stooges or something. It was one of the most communal experiences I've ever had at the theater: 400 people were all thinking the same thing. This is terribad. We were all looking around at each other for two hours like: is this really happening? I made secret friends with everyone on my row as we kept gazing at each other in some kind of state of disbelief.
This is usually why I like midnight movies, because the crowd is always so into what they are watching, and it's so responsive. This particular experience I think was most strongly felt when I went to see the midnight showing of Snakes on a Plane. Everyone knew going in that this was going to be awesomely bad, and we were all richly rewarded in that department. I don't think I've ever had that much fun at the movies, and the crowd made up half of why it was so enjoyable.
I'm not saying anything about The Happening, just a little non sequitor related to crowd experiences.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TL: Politely, with respect, and out of a sense of genuine curiosity: How? How could you like The Happening?
The sadist in me was curious as to how people were going to commit suicide. I personnally see many violent and dangerous tools on the common landscaping truck, and laughed when the landscapers had opted to hang themselves from the trees.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
For me, an unabashed Shymalan fan, The Happening was fun, moderately creepy, and worth the price of a movie ticket.
I think the criticism of the movie stems from people trying to see either more or less than what was in the film. Shymalan took an unusual idea and made it into a movie that ended up being more about the people in the film than the events, as is always the case with his movies.
Lady in the Water is my favorite. I thought the story was beautiful, simple, and unconventional. I loved the fact that it was told and not shown. I loved the fact that skepticism was not a part of the plot. And I loved the characters.
I suppose it comes down to taste. Maybe when I see Lady in the Water 300 times I can then pay attention to the structure and plot holes. Right now, however, the story tends to distract me from everything else. I can’t stop watching it once I start, which--to me--has always been indicative of a great movie. It’s the same with Signs.
In that same vein, I've never gotten Tarantino. I can say that his films are interesting and entertaining, but I have no passion for them. There’s something impersonal about his characters. I find myself hard-pressed to care whether they live or die.
Posts: 407 | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
M. Night (might as well call him Midnight) Shyamalan did so well with Signs, Unbreakable, and The Sixth Sense, which left you wanting to see more (I would love to see a TV superhero series continuation of Unbreakable), that everything since then has been a really negative contrast. He tried to use his "twist" plot device with The Village, but it was so obvious from the very start what was really going on, and the idea was so unacceptably dumb and impossible that anyone would consent to such a situation being set up, that it failed completely as a story--and that is the most important consideration of all. It doesn't matter how good the acting is, or anything else. Nothing can save a bad story.
Midnight is good at telling his stories--but it only matters if they are good stories.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I stumbled into a screening of the village after watching YuGiOh the movie in theaters, I thought it was interesting even though I only saw the last half hour.
IP: Logged |
posted
Then, Blayne, you did not have to watch the first hour knowing full well what you were going to see in the last half hour. That's probably why it seemed interesting to you.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
One thing good about Midnight--it is fun to see when he is going to turn up in his customary cameo in his movies. He was actually really good in Signs. Had a talking part that was very convincing. But clearly, the man has an Alfred Hitchcock complex.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I still consider myself a Shyamalan fan, and look forward to his Avatar.
I think the reasons he's getting a lot of flak lately is:
(1) The expectations most audience members have; I love the fact that Shyamalan's movie trailers rarely reveal all that much about the plot, but at the same time they usually have this uber-suspenseful horror film feel to them. So I think a lot of people have gone into his films expecting more scares and, of course, a big Sixth Sense twist, so they end up disappointed. Me, I like the thrills and twists but I'm always more taken in by the characters and the performances and atmosphere he creates, so I'm usually satisfied (the only one that kind of disappointed me was Lady in the Water. And there was still a lot that I did like about it; it was just that, in the end, the story was little too weird and all-over-the-place for me to fully connect with it). I've gone into his movies basically expecting well-made Twilight Zone-ish stories, and that's what I get.
(2) His purported ego: I haven't read his book; I don't know tons about his personal life. But it does seem from what I have heard that he's a tad full of himself, and that doesn't sound too implausible to me (and casting himself in that martyr role in Lady in the Water doesn't help, especially since he's limited in his acting ability, anyways).
(3) Apparently, The Happening was total crap. I've actually never seen it, and don't plan to. But the verdict on it seems universal and from the plot synopsis I read on it it does seem pretty rediculous.
I still have hope for him though. With Avatar he's doing something completely different that's not based on his own material, and I think that's a good thing. People going to see it will be going to see the "Avatar" movie, not the "Shyamalan" movie, with all the expectations and baggage that comes with it. So, fingers crossed that he'll deliver.
Posts: 132 | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I thought The Village was pretty decent. The story itself was mildly blah, but the acting was great. I liked Lady in the Water too. Interesting story, great acting, good movie.
I never saw The Happening, but I've yet to see a Shyamalan movie and say "that was garbage" afterward.
In general I think he's a good movie maker and I look forward to his movies. TLA I'm only a little hesitant about because this is his first foray into turning something already established into a movie, rather than playing around with his own work. It should be interesting.
The Sixth Sense absolutely blew me away with its ending. Unbreakable I didn't see until long after it came out, but I liked it. The circumstances around Signs weren't really important, so far as the alien invasion went. There wasn't really any shock value to it, or twists really, it was a character study, and I thought that part was interesting. The Village was pretty easily guessable as far as the twist went (well, halfway in anyway), but that didn't really concern me so much. There was a lot of other stuff going on in that movie that was entertaining for me. I don't remember Lady in the Water having a twist either, and I also enjoyed the story, the acting, and the movie as a whole.
I still want to see The Happening to see if it's really as bad as everyone says, or if it's just more "Oh yeah, he made ANOTHER bad movie" when it's really not that awful. People seem to have a weird sort of groupthink thing going on with media, and movies/directors in particular. A lot of people treat the Napoleon Dynamite type movies that have come out lately as the best thing since sliced bread but I could take or leave most of them. I didn't think they were anything special at all. A lot of it comes down to taste and personal preference, but for a lot of people, maybe not so much here, I think preconceived notions of whether you think you're going to enjoy it or not have some serious influence on how people judge movies. Hype is a factor too.
Ditto to pretty much all of the above.
I'm not really sure what you're including in "the Napoleon Dynamite type movies". I did find that one in particular rather amusing, but I never thought it was anything more than just a good comedy - much like Super Troopers, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and Tropic Thunder.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
I never saw The Happening, but I've yet to see a Shyamalan movie and say "that was garbage" afterward.
YMMV, but that was my response after seeing Signs. I'm actually really surprised by how many people in thread liked it.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
5.87 My Best Friend's Birthday 7.40 Reservoir Dogs 8.90 Pulp Fiction 7.00 Natural Born Killers (writer) 6.30 Four Rooms 7.61 Jackie Brown 7.10 From Dusk Till Dawn (screenplay) 8.10 Kill Bill: Vol 1 & 2 (listing this as one entry) 7.90 Grindhouse 8.70 Inglorious Basterds
Shyamalan
5.35 Praying with Anger 6.20 Wide Awake 8.20 The Sixth Sense 5.90 Stuart Little (screenplay) 7.30 Unbreakable 6.90 Signs 6.00 The Village 5.90 Lady in the Water 5.20 The Happening
Let's consider >8 as really good and <6 as really bad. 3 of the 4 really good are T's and 4 or the 5 really bad are M's.
Posts: 571 | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't trust IMDB. Ever since movies could be vaulted into the top 100 in their opening weekend, and for that matter, the fanaticism of some fans (and utter hatred of others) means it's hardly a good indicator of what an average person thinks of the movies.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
A better measure is probably RottenTomatoes, which ranks Tarantino at 59% and Shyamalan at 50%. Not so far off each other. Their movies are as follows:
Tarantino
64% Death Proof Director, Actor, Producer, Screenwriter, Director of Photography 95% Reservoir Dogs Director, Actor, Screenwriter 15% Four Rooms Director, Actor, Screenwriter, Executive Producer 96% Pulp Fiction Director, Actor, Screenwriter, Story 82% Grindhouse Director, Producer, Screenwriter 85% Kill Bill Vol. 1 Director, Producer, Screenwriter 88% Inglourious Basterds Director, Screenwriter 85% Jackie Brown Director, Screenwriter 85% Kill Bill Vol. 2 Director, Screenwriter
Shyamalan
18% The Happening Director, Producer, Screenwriter 24% Lady in the Water Director, Actor, Screenwriter 42% The Village Director, Screenwriter 74% Signs Director, Actor, Screenwriter 68% Unbreakable Director, Producer 85% The Sixth Sense Director, Screenwriter 66% Stuart Little Screenwriter 41% Wide Awake Director, Screenwriter
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
That metric gives Tarantino a 77% average for his movies, while Shyamalan has a 52% average for his movies.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I love how this has turned into a Tarantino vs. Shyamalan showdown.
My own rankings match up pretty well with RottenTomatoes, but I'll admit Pulp Fiction is probably a bit inflated by the nostalgia I associate with it.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
People have really weird expectations for Shyamalan movies. When those expectations are met, they're disappointed that the movie was too obvious--when they're not, the movie is "stupid", "difficult", or "trying too hard".
Put up his body of work against of host of other directors who do cookie-cutter, by-the-book genre movies, and you have a director who has some VERY original ideas and approaches to film. While Shyamalan hasn't mastered the art of making a great film as a whole, he IS a master at creating a mood. His camera direction is some of the best in the business, and in this regard, he's been very consistent from The Sixth Sense to The Happening. People use broad labels of "good" and "bad" without noticing that the problem is that they have all kinds of expectations going into the movie. They're "on guard" so they can look for the twist or try to figure the movie out--instead of just watching it.
The Happening failed in a lot of places, but it also succeeded in many others. He captured "panic" and "disbelief" better than most other disaster films out there. All of his movies have characters in extraordinary situations, but they're behaving in a realistic manner--which I appreciate. It's all too often that a similar movie has charcters behaving UNrealistically, and there's nothing more annoying.
posted
I'd say that median is more indicative metric here than mean - which gives you a 85% for Tarantino & a 54% for Shyamalan. Basically, Tanantino has had one really crappy movie, one middling movie, and seven ranging from pretty good to amazing (according to RottenTomatoes, of course). While Shyamalan has had two stinkers, two pretty bad ones, three okays, and one pretty good.
That seems to match with my general feelings on both directors.
(Am too lazy to do any fancier statistics, although I am wondering about what sort of weights should be applied for the differing amounts of effort with the movies - i.e. director & screenwriter > just screenwriter.)
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
And while I like Tarantino movies, they're full of self-indulgent "Tarantino-isms" that have me saying "Oh, I see what you did there, Quentin"--instead of allowing the story to tell itself. His dialogue is notorious for getting in the way of the story. That said, Tarantino is, like Shyamalan, a master at camera direction and setting a mood.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by The White Whale: That metric gives Tarantino a 77% average for his movies, while Shyamalan has a 52% average for his movies.
Also worth noting that he directed less than a quarter of "Four Rooms" (arguably, the best quarter) and that's the single greatest drag on his average.
ADD: The respective ratings Alcon gives aren't based upon these alone, but seem to be an average of everything the person has been involved with- including, in Tarantino's case, cameos in "Little Nicky" and "The Muppets Wizard of Oz".
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Am I the only person who doesn't give a crap how much twist is in twist endings? Figuring out a movie before its conclusion makes me feel smart, but it has no bearing on my opinion of the movie.
It always surprises me reading critical reviews of M. Night Shymalan's movies. I tend to choose movies based on reviews and end up loving them for the same reasons the critics do. Shymalan's movies have the same feel as a lot of the movies the critics love. Original idea, unusual characters, unusual situations, but the critics don't just dislike the movies, they patently hate them.
It seems to me they're too busy judging the man and not the movie.
Posts: 407 | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
It probably doesn't help that "Water" essentially took a shot at the critics, from what I understand. (I haven't seen the picture.) But up through and including "Signs", Shyamalan's pictures got generally good reviews; I don't think it's necessarily fair to say it's the man and not the pictures that's being judged, beyond how the pictures reflect the influence and vision of the man.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:It probably doesn't help that "Water" essentially took a shot at the critics, from what I understand.
M. Night was using that movie to take petulant potshots at the critics. A subject mentioned in the AV club article "Mr Farber has been killed by a Scrunt"
It's a list of 17 films and TV shows whose writers and/or producers inserted foils for critics into them, either for funny reasons (Statler/Waldorf, The Simpsons) or to blatantly work off some steam by strawmanning individual critics or the nasty critics in general that beat up on their work (Tom Friend in Masked And Anonymous, Ellsworth M. Toohey in The Fountainhead, and Farber in Water)
quote:11. Harry Farber, Lady In The Water (2006) When Lady In The Water hit theaters, M. Night Shyamalan had something to prove. Though his previous film, The Village, did well at the box office, many reviewers panned its flat expository dialogue and ineffective third-act twist. So for Lady, a film with more expository dialogue than three Star Wars prequels combined, Shyamalan decided to teach his detractors a lesson. Not only did he cast Bob Balaban as Mr. Farber (tarnishing the late, influential film writer and scholar Manny Farber), a humorless, embittered newspaper critic who spends his time delivering condescending dissections of fiction and cliché (“There’s no originality left in the world,” he tells hero Paul Giamatti), Shyamalan even has Balaban’s commentary lead the main characters astray; his wrongheaded interpretation of symbolism nearly gets Bryce Dallas Howard killed by a murderous scrunt. (Don’t ask.) Balaban is slaughtered soon after, right in the middle of explaining how characters like him never get killed in this kind of movie. The moral being, critics get everything wrong. Too bad no one was listening; Lady bombed, and earned Shyamalan the worst notices of his career to date.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
