What The Hell Happened To M Night Shyamalan?

He came on the scene from seemingly out of nowhere in the cinematic banner year that was 1999. The film that put him on the map became a cinematic event and received a Best Picture nomination. He was being regarded as “the next Spielberg”.

Last year he released a big-budget summer sci-fi movie. Upon release, the studio tried to hide his name in the promotional materials fearing it would be box office poison.

What the hell happened to M. Night Shyamalan?

Manoj Shyamalan was born in 1970 in Mahe Pondicherry India. After six weeks, his parents moved back to Pennsylvania.

After receiving a Super 8 camera at a young age, Shyamalan began focusing on film as his passion. By the time he reached the age of 17 he’d made forty-five home movies.

Following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Oliver Stone, Shyamalan went to New York University Film School. While there, he made his first feature film Praying With Anger.

shyamalan - praying with anger

Praying With Anger got a very limited release in 1992. Not many people saw it (myself included) and indeed I’d wager that most don’t even know it exists.

Shyamalan moved on. After Praying With Anger he went on to write and direct his second film Wide Awake. It was released in 1998.

shyamalan - wide awake

Wide Awake was about a ten-year-old boy who struggles with questions of life and death after he loses his grandfather played by Robert Loggia.  Dennis Leary and Dana Delany play the boy’s parents.  Rosie O’Donnell played a nun who teaches at his school

That trailer sells the movie as a heart-warming coming of age comedy.  Shyamalan has described Wide Awake as a comedy that he hoped would also make people cry.  To that end, he wrote and directed scenes like this one:

Wide Awake was filmed in 1995, but wasn’t released until 1998.  Even then, Miramax only gave it  a limited release. Reviews were mixed to negative.  Roger Ebert openly wondered “who the movie was made for.”  I got around to watching it a few years ago and found it to be not bad. It’s an anomaly of sorts in Shyamalan’s catalog. But it also proves that the painting into a corner that happened later on didn’t need to happen.

A year later, Shyamalan would release his next film and his life would change forever.

In 1999 Shyamalan co-wrote the script for Stuart Little. That film was a modest success at the box office. However, it was another film that would reveal itself as a cinematic game changer for both Shyamalan and Hollywood.  According to Shyamalan:

“I guess I would say that I manage it in the sense that I try to make it more accurate. For example, you’re saying the audience’s relationship started with me with The Sixth Sense. That same year I wrote Stuart Little. That combination is pretty accurate. The breadth of that and my interest in that, the family-oriented nature of that story — somewhere between there is where a lot of my movies fall, but if you don’t take that side of it into account, it’s probably more limiting than what my tastes are.

By the way, I ghost-wrote a movie that same year that would even add to the breadth of it all, but I don’t know if I want to tell you which movie I ghost-wrote.”

she's all that

Most audiences didn’t realize it at the time, but in 2013, Shyamalan revealed that he was a ghost-writer on the teen comedy, She’s All That.  She’s All That helped launch a wave of teen comedies in the late 90’s and earlier aughts.  It also featured perhaps the least-convincing nerd-to-babe transformation in the history of teen movies.

she's all that before and after

Clark Kent does more to hide his identity.

The extent of Shyamalan’s involvement is actually up for debate.  Some claim Shyamalan actually wrote the script while others claim he merely polished it.  Like taking a hot girl and saying, “hey, what if we loose the glasses and overalls?” to reveal a beautiful swan.  Reviews for She’s All That were mostly not “all that”.  But it was a hit with audiences.

shyamalan - the sixth sense

Buzz for The Sixth Sense was slow at first. Then it picked up steam. The movie was released in August. By October, it had become the year’s must-see movie.

Bruce Willis starred as a child psychologist who was dealing with marital problems.  Haley Joel Osment played a sensitive little boy who comes to Willis for help because he “sees dead people”.

I saw The Sixth Sense before the hype really took off and had mixed feelings about it. On one had, the story was genuinely entertaining and Bruce Willis proved he had more range as an actor than many of his action contemporaries (Schwarzenegger, Norris). On the other hand, it was too dependent on its much discussed final plot twist.

SPOILER WARNING!!!

See Spoilers
My father, who I went to see the film with, figured out the plot twist midway through. Recall the scene where Willis is talking to Haley Joel Osment in the kitchen. Osment’s mother is there too. But she never acknowledges Willis’s presence. That’s tip-off number one that Willis is dead people.

END SPOILER

Anyway, The Sixth Sense went on to become a phenomenon of sorts. It was far from the best movie of the year. But it was entertaining enough, even if it didn’t totally live up to the hype.

The Sixth Sense was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. No win. But it did announce that a new filmmaking talent had arrived.

In 2000,  Shyamalan quickly released his follow-up to The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable.

Unbreakable reunited Shyamalan with his Sixth Sense star, Willis.  Willis played a working-class Joe who is the sole survivor of a train accident.  Samuel L. Jackson played a man who takes an interest in Willis and his against-all-odds survival.  Jackson’s character suffers from a condition in which his bones are as brittle as glass.  Together, they try to figure out how Willis survived.

Expectations for Unbreakable could not have been higher.  Disney fully expected the movie to perform as well as The Sixth Sense.  The marketing campaign did not reveal the true nature of the movie.  So audiences were expecting another supernatural drama.  Instead, they got a morose take on super heroes.  Despite mostly good reviews, Unbreakable got steamrolled by The Grinch at the box office.

Unbreakable fell just short of the $100 million dollar mark in the US.  That’s respectable box office, but not with a $75 million dollar budget.  Fortunately, the film performed well overseas and grossed almost $250 million worldwide.  Disney viewed the movie as a disappointment.  Shyamalan had intended to make sequels.  But after the first film under-performed at the box office, those sequels were cancelled.

I actually take a minority viewpoint on Unbreakable and say I like it better than The Sixth Sense. It’s not as dependent on the twist ending, the story itself is more original and more fun and the movie as a whole has more energy. To date, it stands as Shyamalan’s best film from my perspective.

Shyamalan returned in the summer of 2002 with Signs. It would star Mel Gibson in the era before his exposure as a bigoted anti-Semitic sexist. And Joaquin Phoenix before his own instance of going berserk and his eventual comeback.

Signs-Hess-family

Gibson played a preacher who was struggling with his faith after the death of his wife.  Phoenix played Gibson’s younger brother, a former baseball player who helps him raise his family on a farm.  Why a farm?  Because the movie is about crop circles.  Which of course can only mean one thing.  Aliens.  Aliens who are sophisticated enough to travel through space to a planet that is covered in a substance which is lethal to them.  Wait, what?

Signs was a bigger hit at the box office than Unbreakable had been and was fairly popular with critics. But like The Sixth Sense I have mixed feelings about it. It’s not too dependent on a plot twist, Gibson and Phoenix give good performances and the story itself is engaging. But some of the twists don’t work that well and one particular one seems borrowed from War Of The Worlds and completely illogical when you think about it.

Signs was another box office success. Around this time, Newsweek featured Shyamalan on its cover with a headline that must’ve done a number on his ego.

shyamalan - newsweek

At this point, it seemed as if Shyamalan could no wrong. Of course, as anyone familiar with storytelling knows, the minutes one says that something about to go wrong.

In August 2004 Shyamalan released his sixth film The Village. It starred Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard, Adrien Brody, William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver.

shyamalan - the village

It’s hard to write an accurate plot description of The Village without giving the whole thing away.  The movie hinges on Shyamalan’s most ridiculous plot twist to date.  Let’s just watch the trailer.

The Village did relatively well at the box office. But critical reaction was mixed to negative. Many felt that Shyamalan was spinning his wheels.  Once again, their were accusations of plagiarism.  This time, Shyamalan was accused of ripping off  the 1995 young adults’ book Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

I personally liked it. I thought the creepy atmosphere it gave off worked perfectly well and the twist ending didn’t give itself away halfway through the movie. At the same time, it also offered the troubling suggestion that Shyamalan may have painted himself into a corner.

Up until this point in his career, Shyamalan had a very close working relationship with Disney.  But when he pitched Disney his next project, they declined. Shyamalan was furious and went elsewhere (eventually Warner Bros released it).

When Lady In The Water was released in August 2006, the collective reaction among critics and film-goers was WTF.

shyamalan - lady in the water

Paul Giamatti played a maintenance man who discovers a beautiful young woman (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) in the swimming pool.  Not to give too much away, but it turns out Howard is a water nymph who needs to get back to her watery world.  Kind of like ET meets Splash.  Only Howard is being pursued by a horrible creature who is pretty obviously a stand-in for anyone who didn’t like The Village.

To much of the public, this was the definition of incoherent. Also it came off as an ego trip of sorts as Shyamalan had not only cast himself in a major role, he also included a scene where a scoffing critic gets killed.

I tried to figure it out when I finally got around to seeing it and my reaction was: Huh?

I will say in its defense that Lady In The Water did feature a good performance from the always dependable Paul Giamatti.

If you are looking for the tipping point in Shyamalan’s career, this is it.  Many of his fans were disappointed by The Village.  But they still made it a hit.  With Lady in the Water, all but Shyamalan’s most die-hard fans gave up on him.  Reviews were mostly negative.  Critics didn’t take too kindly to Shyamalan making an entire movie basically to give them the finger.

Shyamalan was nominated for 4 Golden Raspberry Awards.  Lady in the Water was nominated for Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay.  Shyamalan actually won Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor.

More importantly, Lady in the Water was Shyamalan’s first flop.  It earned back less than half of its production cost in the US.  Even with the foreign receipts, the movie didn’t break even when you take into consideration the substantial marketing costs.

After Lady In The Water flopped at the box office, Shyamalan licked his wounds and returned in 2008 with The Happening.

shyamalan - the happening

Marky Mark Wahlberg starred as a high school science teacher who tries to escape a cataclysmic event (or happening if you will) along with his personal Funky Bunch consisting of Zooey Deschanel and John Leguizamo.

[Note from Lebeau: Yes, there will be a Funky Bunch joke every time Wahlberg shows up in this series.  Why?  Because he has no sense of humor about it.]

Much was made of the fact that The Happening (or The Haps as the kids call it) was Shyamalan’s first R-rated movie.  Surely a more restrictive rating must equate to Shyamalan’s scariest movie ever, right?

Despite its title, it turned out there wasn’t much happening here. Many critics complained that it was (again) incoherent and it under performed at the box office.

The Happening was nominated for four Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Actor (Wahlberg), Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Screenplay.  Fortunately for Shyamalan, Mike Myers’ The Love Guru also opened that year and swept most of the awards.  Shyamalan “lost” Worst Director to the always deserving Uwe Boll.

Even Marky Mark hated the movie.  Years later, he said that Amy Adams who was in talks to co-star “dodged a bullet.”  He went on to describe The Happening as only the leader of the Funky Bunch can:

“It was a really bad movie… Fuck it. It is what it is. Fucking trees, man. The plants. Fuck it. You can’t blame me for not wanting to try to play a science teacher. At least I wasn’t playing a cop or a crook.”

Sounds like someone is a little grumpy.  Maybe this will help cheer him up.

I always found it to be a movie with a promising premise. But weak execution.

Perhaps sensing it was time for a change, Shyamalan next turned to other sources.

shyamalan - last airbender

In 2010, Shyamalan returned with The Last Airbender, based on the hit Nickelodeon show Avatar (name doubtlessly changed to prevent confusion with a certain James Cameron movie).

The movie was a hit at the box office. But critics ripped it and many fans of the show hated it. I personally have not seen it so I can’t directly comment on it.

The Last Airbender was also the subject of controversy when some people took to claiming that the casting of American actors in Asian roles was racist.

By this point, Shyamalan had a Golden Raspberry beat-down coming.  The Happening skated by with a handful of nominations.  But the awards really hammered Shyamalan on The Last Airbender.  It was nominated in nine categories and “won” five dubious honors:  Worst Picture, Worst Director (Shyamalan), Worst Screenplay (Shyamalan), Worst Supporting Actor (Jackson Rathbone), and a special award, “Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3D.

That same year, Devil, a film that Shyamalan produced and wrote the story for, was released. Reportedly, when a trailer for it ran at a screening, audience members booed when Shyamalan’s name came up. Apparently he was now box office poison.

Three years later came After Earth.

shyamalan - after earth

When this film was released in June 2013, it was seen as a Will Smith project. Shyamalan’s name was not used at all in the promotional materials for the film, most likely to prevent more booing.

It didn’t help as After Earth was a massive bomb at the box office. Shyamalan took a lot of heat for it, although a good majority was also directed at Will Smith. Many people saw it as a Smith vanity project.

Either way, After Earth was another bomb on a resume that was becoming crowded with them.

In some ways Shyamalan’s fall was faster than John Singleton’s or the other directors I plan to focus on.

So what the hell happened?

In my essay on Singleton, I put forth the possibility that he may have fallen victim to too much success too soon. That’s also a likely possibility here as well.

Shyamalan made two little seen films before The Sixth Sense. In some ways, I suspect that he would have remained a niche filmmaker (IE: Cronenberg, Lynch and The Coen Brothers) had that movie not become the blockbuster it did.

It could also be argued that Shyamalan got exposed as a one-trick pony after a certain point and that his ego did not help matters at all. There is some truth to this. After a while, the creepy stories with a twist ending approach was bound to get old. I can give Shyamalan credit for realizing that he’d milked that as much as he could. But when he tried to move on to other territories, the results were mixed.

As for his ego, that manifested itself in a fictional documentary about his life that Shyamalan made for the Syfy channel. Not to mention in the book The Man Who Heard Voices which depicted the struggles he went through to get Lady In The Water made. Or, for that matter, certain elements in the aforementioned Lady In The Water (the writer who’s the hero of the story, the critic getting killed).

If this continues, it might not be long before Shyamalan is making movies that go directly to DVD/On-demand. I’d suggest that he scale down. Make a small movie that means something to him. Stop trying to out Michael Bay Michael Bay. If he were to do that, he might be able to get back in touch with what made people like his work in the first place.

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Brad Mendenhall
10 years ago

Good article. I was surprised you didn’t mention his recent claim to have written the script for ‘She’s All That.’ When that happened, I kept thinking, ‘Who would actually take the blame for that pile of crap?’

lebeau
Admin
10 years ago

That was the response of most discerning viewers.
I have added a segment on She’s All That. Thanks for reading!

Craig Hansen
Craig Hansen
10 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

A little fix…. Unbreakable was released in 2000, not 2002. Sorry to be nitpicky.

lebeau
Admin
10 years ago
Reply to  Craig Hansen

Please continue picking nits. We strive for accuracy.

Craig Hansen
Craig Hansen
10 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

Ha ha! You just made me realize what a weird word “nitpicky” is. What the heck are nits, anyway? Ha ha

lebeau
Admin
10 years ago
Reply to  Craig Hansen

If you don’t know, you don’t want to.
Hint: It comes from lice.

Liz
Liz
10 years ago

Did you leave The Village out of this write up for a reason?

Liz
Liz
10 years ago
Reply to  Liz

Forget it. My screen, when minimized, somehow skipped over it. Sorry!

lebeau
Admin
10 years ago
Reply to  Liz

You were reading as I was editing. It may have gotten mixed up as I was updating something. Sorry bout that. Had to add the Marky Mark jokes.

T Os
T Os
10 years ago

Dang…the moody girl from She’s all That. Wasn’t she an ‘it’ girl..? or the ‘this is your brain on drugs’ <>? what happened to her? (Who cares…?!)

lebeau
Admin
10 years ago
Reply to  T Os

Rachel Leigh Cook was an It Girl for like a minute.

Shemp
10 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

Also, wasn’t Elisha Cuthbert an It Girl for 15 – 35 minutes? I guess that didn’t take either….sometimes when I reflect on the It Girls of the past few years, I kinda feel old. But then, imagine how a Former It Gurl might feel…”I was uh contenduh, but I got a ticket to Direct-to-DVD-ville.”
Say, while this not new, it DOES have some relevance to the WTHHT concept, on yr blog and in the greater world in which we live:
http://www.avclub.com/article/dispatches-from-direct-to-dvd-purgatory-the-manic–8286

lebeau
Admin
10 years ago
Reply to  Shemp

Hollywood is littered with the broken dreams of former It girls. 15 minutes is a pretty long time for an It girl these days.

JAMES
JAMES
10 years ago

They actually compared him to Rod Sterling. The “creepy story with the surprize twist” is what made the “Twilight Zone” so great. But M. Night was only able to pull it off once in “The Sixth Sence”

dwmcguff
dwmcguff
10 years ago

I think Unbreakable is his best film. Sixth Sense doesn’t quite hold up post-hype. He unfortunately made himself into the twist guy. Lady in the Water is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Ever. So is Airbender. And I’m a huge fan of the show. And he botched it. Dropped every ball on that one. After Earth was even worse. It was an atrocity. Will Smith basically directed the film himself. M Knight was in charge of setting up shots, that’s it. Smith “coached” the terrible performance from his son, and put in his own equally terrible performance.… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  jeffthewildman

11 Actors Who (Hopefully) Killed Their Careers In 2014: http://whatculture.com/film/11-actors-hopefully-killed-careers-2014.php/5 Nicola Peltz In fairness, it’s difficult to deny that Nicola Peltz blew up the box office this year (or rather, Michael Bay and Mark Wahlberg did) with the $1.08 billion Transformers: Age of Extinction, making it the highest-grossing film of 2014 worldwide. Still, the movie was widely panned by critics (18%), and while Age of Extinction had plenty more problems than its acting, her performance was criticised by a large quarter of critics, who didn’t just long for the days of Megan Fox, but considered Peltz’s flat and uninteresting work… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  jeffthewildman

I don’t know how much at fault M. Night Shyamalan was for the poor turn out for “The Last Airbender”. But it’s none the less, safe to argue that he was wrong for the material to begin. I mean, prior to this, Shyamalan was known for making small thrillers with low budgets. His movies usually have deadpan acting, dark lighting, and a slow pace. That isn’t quite a good fit for what was expected to be a fun, big budget, fantasy family adventure.

frug
frug
10 years ago

So what the hell happened?
…his ego did not help matters at all

Why do I have a feeling that will become a running theme in this series? (See also; Coppola, Francis Ford and Cimino, Micheal)

lebeau
Admin
10 years ago
Reply to  frug

I figure if you go into show biz without an ego, you are going to get eaten alive. You have to believe that you can make it against extremely long odds to keep at it long enough to succeed. So it’s only natural that all of these guys have egos. But then, when they do succeed, that ego is going to inflate. It’s just a matter of how they deal with it. In Shyamalan’s case, he didn’t handle it well. The man seemed to be completely consumed by his own ego. I will give him some credit. He clearly has… Read more »

Dorian
Dorian
10 years ago

The Sixth Sense ending was mind blowing to me, and that´s why I still can´t get over the fact that that movie came before The Others, because Alejandro Amenabar movie is vastly superior.
sigh
If only I had watched The Others first…

lebeau
Admin
10 years ago
Reply to  Dorian

I will admit to having had my mind blown by The Sixth Sense. I remember seeing it pre-hype. I was running late to the show and the person who sold me my ticket was in a hurry to get me into the theater. If I had stopped at the concession stand, I think they would have had a heart attack. Apparently, they were worried I would miss Willis getting shot. Which, if I had, would have lessened the entire experience. What I liked about The Sixth Sense was that it played pretty fair. The clues were there. Some people figured… Read more »

Mastro
Mastro
10 years ago

I stumbled into the After Earth after party in Philly. It was at a bar I go to in a private room. Shyamalan films most of his films in the area. I remember asking a friend of mine- “Hey is THAT M.Night…??”
I liked Unbreakable- too bad most of the audience was expecting the 7th Sense. Note that water was a weakness in that movie as well- M Night likes his water metaphors as much as Shakespeare in Anthony and Cleopatra.

Craig Hansen
Craig Hansen
10 years ago

For what it’s worth, I do consider The Sixth Sense a brilliant film. I actually just watched it again recently for the first time in several years, and I was impressed how the film still holds up after all these years. Lebeau is right in that the film doesn’t cheat to get to the surprise twist, the clues were planted there all along, though subtly. Unbreakable was a strong though flawed follow-up. After that, it was all downhill. Signs was a huge success, yet I walked out disappointed. Water? Really? And why are these aliens who are trying to kill… Read more »

lebeau
Admin
9 years ago

Lame!
The movie is about aliens. The first hour is all about crop circles. That means aliens.
I hate it when people come out with hair-brained theories about movies to try to generate traffic.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Nostalgia Critic Real Thoughts On: Signs:
http://channelawesome.com/nostalgia-critic-real-thoughts-on-signs/
WOOD!

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

10 Directors Who Should Never Be Trusted With Giant Budgets: http://whatculture.com/film/10-directors-never-trusted-giant-budgets.php/9 M. Night Shyamalan It’s hard to think of a high-profile filmmaker that has suffered a fall from grace quite like M. Night Shyamalan in recent times. A mere fifteen years after The Sixth Sense was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay and saw the writer/director lauded as the most promising talent of his generation, his last four movies were widely panned and have been racking up nominations at the Razzies instead: a return to smaller-scale film-making is well overdue. Made for $40m, The Sixth Sense… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

10 Terrible Films That The Wrong Person Got Blamed For: http://whatculture.com/film/10-terrible-films-wrong-person-got-blamed.php/10 M. Night Shyamalan – After Earth Who Else Was To Blame: Will Smith Figuring out who took the brunt of the blame for After Earth is a tricky task. The film, a hodgepodge of poorly thought out ideas presented in an illogical manner, all brought to life by rote acting, had two key players who were equally as culpable for bringing it to the screen. But as we’ve discovered, people want one person at fault, so was it M. Night Shyamalan’s direction or Will Smith’s general managing of the… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

After Earth – Nostalgia Critic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USsm9ea29-E

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

The Last Airbender – Nostalgia Critic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSu0HeRnG18

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Nostalgia Critic: Real Thoughts on The Last Airbender:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdDfvp2s58Q

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

M. Night Shyamalan Stupidly Explains Why No One Liked THE LAST AIRBENDER: http://geektyrant.com/news/m-night-shyamalan-stupidly-explains-why-no-one-liked-the-last-airbender To this day, I haven’t watched M. Night Shaymalan’s The Last Airbender all the way through. I walked out of the film when it was released in theaters, and I’ve had no desire to ever finish it. It was just one of those movies that I wasn’t going to waste my time on. The movie was bashed by critics, and I have yet to met a single person who has actually liked the movie. Talking to IGN, the director attempted to explain why people didn’t like the… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

The Last Airbender – what went wrong? http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-last-airbender/35673/the-last-airbender-what-went-wrong We look back at M Night Shyamalan’s much-vilified fantasy movie, and ask if anything could have saved it… “The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.” So began Roger Ebert’s review of The Last Airbender. It sounds harsh, but Ebert’s half-star verdict was fairly representative of the tidal wave of criticism that engulfed director M. Night Shyamalan’s most expensive and, ultimately, most derided film yet. But unlike other misfires from Shyamalan, this wasn’t based on his own original idea.… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

M. Night Shyamalan was literally called the next Steven Spielberg. But, unlike Spielberg, he insisted on writing all his own material and that was his undoing.

Purrlie
Purrlie
9 years ago

I liked Sixth Sense and was genuinely moved by it, but then it resonated strongly with what was going on in my own life at the time. And, I have to admit this in public so everybody can rag on me, I liked Signs. I liked that little family hunkered down against the terrifying unknown. Initial filming on Signs was interrupted by 9/11. The plane that went down in Shanksville, PA, was about 50 miles from where the cast and crew were assembled. Anyone who was alive and aware on that day will recognize the traces of it in Signs… Read more »

lebeau
Admin
9 years ago
Reply to  Purrlie

I enjoyed Signs quite a bit the first time through. But I have a hard time sitting through it now knowing how it is going to end. Plus, I have soured on Shyamalan and his style. So even the aspects of the movie that charmed me the first time aren’t as enticing now.
If it makes you feel any better, you have put the Good Vibrations ear worm back in my ear. Thanks!

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  lebeau

Nostalgia Critic – Signs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTx7wAvilgM

Charles
Charles
9 years ago

The aliens who hate water invading a water planet doesn’t bother me and I’m not sure why it bothers other people. What choice do they have? They’re probably scavengers who were running out of resources and attacked the first planet they came across that had food they could eat. And I don’t think Sixth Sense, Unbreakable or Signs relied on their twist endings at all. You could remove the twists from those movies and you’d be none the wiser. That was not true of The Village at all though. And only Sixth Sense and The Village had that Twilight Zone… Read more »

lebeau
Admin
9 years ago
Reply to  Charles

Regarding the aliens in Signs, we have no idea what their motivations are. I don’t recall anything in the movie that would support or negate your food theory. The aliens are just there. Clearly, they are not friendly. Beyond that, we don’t know much. They are sophisticated enough to travel through space. But apparently don’t wear clothes, can be easily trapped in a pantry and chose to invade a planet that is mostly covered with a substance that is lethal to them. Knowing that, they have not taken any precautions to protect themselves from liquid. Seems kind of dumb to… Read more »

Shemp
9 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

While I liked “Signs,” it was “plagued” by REALLY DUMB aliens (or lazy writing). “Hey, let’s invade a planet that’s AT LEAST 2/3 a substance that’s fatal if it touches us! What’s the worst that could happen?!?”

Craig Hansen
Craig Hansen
9 years ago

You would think the aliens in Signs would have better results from just scorching the Earth, or dropping their equivalent of a nuclear bomb on us to eliminate us, rather than getting out of their spaceships and going house-to-house to kill us. Travelling a hundred zillion miles and then going door-to-door to stab-murder-kill seemed kinda dumb for such intellectually superior aliens. I couldn’t help but think that when I saw the movie at the movie theatre back then.

lebeau
Admin
9 years ago
Reply to  Craig Hansen

Yeah. I was able to suspend a lot of disbelief on the first viewing. But they traveled further than mankind can even see. You would think they would at least have weapons. Or clothes.

Craig Hansen
Craig Hansen
9 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

Clothes! Ha ha. You’re right. For some reason that immediately made me think of the aliens in Close Encounters. No clothes. Then again, there’s also E.T. He’s walking around naked too the whole time, no clothes. Those aliens in Independence Day. Also naked, no clothes. Those aliens in The Arrival, yep, naked as the day they were born. I’m sure there’s plenty more examples. What is it with highly evolved aliens traversing the galaxy buck naked???

lebeau
Admin
9 years ago
Reply to  Craig Hansen

I guess if I were going to annihilate a species ala the aliens in Independence Day, I’d be freeballin’. But getting locked in a kitchen pantry in the buff is just embarrassing. It’s something your drunk uncle does, not an alien menace.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Where Jason Reitman Went Wrong: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/the-fall-of-jason-reitman/381044/ Once a critical darling, the Men, Women & Children director appears to be on the disastrous M. Night Shyamalan trajectory. The problem? Hubris. Five years ago, Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air was released to rave reviews, a slew of Oscar nominations, and box-office success. Critics praised it as a timely, heartfelt work that tapped into anxiety about the ongoing recession and the wave of unemployment beleaguering the nation. Now, though, he’s released his sixth film, Men, Women & Children, and it looks to be his worst-received yet, which is saying something after the… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

And the Worst Director in Hollywood Is…:
http://411mania.com/movies/and-the-worst-director-in-hollywood-is/
What it comes to M. Night Shyamalan, the biggest question is, “What happened?” A career that started out with Sixth Sense, Signs, and Unbreakable has delved into a last gasp to get funding. Perhaps his “Endings With a Twist” hurt him. Maybe he was a one-trick pony and he peaked early. No matter, he’s has a string of failures and things don’t look like they’re going to get any better for him.

Brad Deal
9 years ago

I can’t sleep so I find myself catching up on some of LeBeau’s articles I didn’t have time to read… M. Night Shyamalan seems to be a guy who forgot the basics. Somehow his ability to present a rational concept that could be believable was transformed over time, into irrationality. My ability to “suspend my disbelief” which was freely given in the early movies, was gradually transformed into “impossible to believe” to the point where I felt personally disrespected. My expectations were high because I thought this guy had a special talent for telling great stories, but for whatever reason… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Is There Another Good Shyamalan Movie? – Nostalgia Critic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr9pV7-whTE

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Superhero Rewind: Unbreakable Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGWogYeG6dw

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Films that you personally think, genuinely hurt a director’s career: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=10356380&postcount=173 I can’t even be that kind. I find Unbreakable decent enough but overrated (way too ponderous) and the rot already set in during the second half of Signs. I think Shyamalan is a talented director, he has a classic approach to movies in terms of pacing and editing which is a nice contrast to many of the ADD film-making we see today. It just appears that he only had 2.5 films in him (that said, I haven’t seen his first film, but it didn’t make much of an impact).… Read more »

Joboots
Joboots
9 years ago

Heard that Fox will air M. Night’s Wayward Pines May 14th!!!!!

lebeau
Admin
9 years ago
Reply to  Joboots

Looking forward to it. Even if I expect it to be terrible.
M Night’s Twin Peaks knock off is a lot less appealing now that we know David Lynch is bringing back the real thing in 2016!

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

10 Great Directors Who Haven’t Made Anything Good For Years: http://whatculture.com/film/10-great-directors-who-havent-made-anything-good-for-years.php/9 M Night. Shyamalan A few months after the release of Signs in 2002, M. Night Shyamalan was being talked about as one of the hottest new talents in filmmaking. His first film The Sixth Sense, though widely parodied, was considered something of a modern classic, and when his followup Unbreakable drew similar praise his next move was entirely his own to make. Instead of upping the ante or going off in a new direction to showcase his range, he tried to make another suspenseful and atmospheric thriller in The… Read more »

Leo
Leo
8 years ago

Top 10 Good Movies by Bad Directors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcSbn_f8k9g

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