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Post by indy2003 on Jun 22, 2008 16:46:25 GMT -8
You Shyamalamalan fans sadden me. Face it, the man had one good movie in him. ONE. I'm actually not a Shyamalan fan. I despised his previous two movies, and fully expected to hate this one. But I didn't. Yavar, I did see your post over on the Intrada board. Sorry, I meant to reply to it, and never got around to it. Back at ya later
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Post by Yavar Moradi on Jun 23, 2008 11:22:08 GMT -8
You Shyamalamalan fans sadden me. Face it, the man had one good movie in him. ONE. Unbreakable? Yavar
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Post by Jens Dietrich on Jun 23, 2008 11:23:11 GMT -8
We've talked about this.
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Post by Hermione on Jun 23, 2008 12:00:45 GMT -8
Hey, I liked Unbreakable....
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Post by Chris Tilton on Jun 23, 2008 16:31:43 GMT -8
You Shyamalamalan fans sadden me. Face it, the man had one good movie in him. ONE. I assume you are talking about The Sixth Sense? Unbreakable is my favorite though, with Sense and Signs close behind. None of them are flawless films, but I enjoy them a great deal. I also liked The Village, but I can easily see how one might completely despise it. Lady In the Water is one of the worst films in recent memory that I've seen.
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Post by Yavar Moradi on Jun 23, 2008 17:55:22 GMT -8
Here's how I rate Shyamalan's films:
Unbreakable The Village (yes, I heard terrible things about it so avoided it until recently but I thought it was quite excellent on multiple levels) The Sixth Sense The Happening Signs (the problems bother me more than his other films but it also has a lot that is superb) Lady in the Water (has its moments but really just a mess)
Yavar
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Post by Yavar Moradi on Jun 23, 2008 17:56:45 GMT -8
Unbreakable is my favorite though, Any more love here for Unbreakable? I thought it was superb. I had dreams about it for weeks after I saw it in the theater, and frankly I didn't see the ending coming. The score has some of the best stuff JNH has ever written. I would've loved a sequel or two, which at one point people were talking about... Yavar
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sdtom
Conductor
Posts: 1,109
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Post by sdtom on Jun 23, 2008 20:04:31 GMT -8
Overrated director but he must make money for Hollywood because I really doubt that he puts up his own money for these films. Having said that I thought the Howard score to Signs was one of the best efforts I've ever heard.
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Post by indy2003 on Jun 23, 2008 20:34:56 GMT -8
Unbreakable is my favorite though, Any more love here for Unbreakable? I thought it was superb. I had dreams about it for weeks after I saw it in the theater, and frankly I didn't see the ending coming. The score has some of the best stuff JNH has ever written. I would've loved a sequel or two, which at one point people were talking about... Yavar I think we've had a discussion about this, but I really like Unbreakable. A very rewarding film. Back at ya later
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Post by Jockolantern on Jun 23, 2008 23:10:25 GMT -8
My personal rankings of Shyamalan's films:
The Village (Remarkably deep film; unbelievably rewarding on multiple viewings, anchored by an all-star cast and their remarkably convicted characterizations of a town trying to escape from imperfection and sin; JNH's score is beautiful beyond words and adds an entire layer of elegaic hypnosis to the film itself)
Unbreakable (Another profound, somber masterpiece; doesn't get near the love it ought; Bruce Willis' performance is mesmerizing and Sam Jackson makes for a wondrously cryptic villain)
Signs (Shyamalan's direction in culmination with Howard's music makes for an engagingly emotional finale that always touches my silly little heart; Gibson, Phoenix, Culkin, and Breslin make this film what it is)
Lady in the Water (It's silly, heavy-handed, and incredibly off-kilter... yet I still have an inexplicable crush on this movie, which has actually aged better than I ever thought possible; there's something beautifully serene about the tenderness between Giamatti and Howard, not to mention the final fifteen-twenty minutes, which feel like something ripped straight from a children's picture-book)
The Happening (Despite a duo of poor lead actors, Shyamalan toys around with some intruiging ideas involving humanity: our utopic little worlds of technology and instant information and what would happen if those courtesies were abruptly stripped away from us by an earth-shattering event we had no idea how to comprehend, much less control; Shyamalan certainly understands the concept of Hitchcockian suspense ("the anticipation of the gunshot being much more scary and intense than the gunshot itself") and builds up some incredibly disturbing moments followed by sigh-of-relief, laugh-out-loud moments of calmed humor... but nothing about the film completely gels; ending it one minute after it should have ended also really hurts the overall impact of the film)
The Sixth Sense (With the "wow" factor of the ending long gone, I find this film to be a strong exercise in Shyamalan's directorial aspirations but not nearly as exhilerating as it was that first time around; incredibly well-acted and staged perfectly, the film's ultimate flaw is its reliance on the shock value of the finale)
-Jockolantern
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Post by Hook on Jun 24, 2008 14:35:43 GMT -8
Something I can't believe is how much flak Signs took for the whole water business and I don't see the internet in a similar uproar with Earth's revenge in The Happening. Signs had a preacher coming to terms with the death of his wife and regaining his faith. Unbreakable was about a man accepting who he was which would, in turn, help the strained relationship between his family. The Sixth Sense was about a kid becoming an adult at an early age and reaching to his mother. The Happening is about nothing else but shots of wind. Invisible and deadly gusts of wind. And that's pretty much it. It's like an SNL skit on itself.
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Post by franzridesagain on Jun 24, 2008 15:04:38 GMT -8
One good movie? Perhaps there's one great movie in there (but I suspect he hasn't made it yet), but most of his films have been pretty good, I have to say. And it's not as though I watch films with an uncritical eye. There is certainly one very bad movie, and that is LADY IN THE WATER. (Though even that has a couple of redeeming features.)
I know one film critic that would happily name SIGNS among the worst films ever made, which to me is just not being objective.
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Post by Southall on Jun 24, 2008 15:56:33 GMT -8
Having found Sixth Sense hugely overrated, and laughed out loud at the sheer awfulness of Unbreakable, I had given up on Shyamalan, but The Village was on tv the other day and I decided to watch it, with the lowest possible expectations - which were vastly exceeded. I've rarely so enjoyed a film I so confidently expected to dislike.
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Post by franzridesagain on Jun 24, 2008 16:11:12 GMT -8
There's a lovely scene between Brendan Gleeson and Joaquin Phoenix early in the film. Quite a short scene, but both play it very well.
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Post by christopher on Jun 24, 2008 21:18:11 GMT -8
Lady in the Water is actually the only one of his films that I haven't enjoyed (though I haven't seen The Happening and won't). The Sixth Sense is still my favorite, if for no other reason than that it was so original and so shocking (for me) at the end. That was an incredible experience. It was like watching Psycho for the first time, or The Sting. It was great. Next to that I liked Signs, Unbreakable, and The Village in that order.
Chris
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