Shyamalan's "The Visit"

[Doctor Cringelord]

The Last Airbender was wrong on so many levels. They tried to cram an entire season's worth of story and character development into a 2 hour film.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

You just have to watch the reboot of The Road Warrior compared to the original to re-kindle your love of Mel.

Road Warrior and the original Mad Max were top notch for B movies. He has done other really good things, but Road Warrior was just solid.

I've heard good things about M. Night's latest. Maybe I will check it out although straight up jump scare horror movies aren't right in my wheelhouse.

I never liked straight up horror, either....

I did like Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and to a lesser extent Signs though. These day his main claim to fame is how fast and consistently his movies went downhill from there on. It almost takes a special kind of skill to do that.

Bingo! I really wish he could have made his planned Unbreakable sequel. I relate to well to the Bruce Willis character .... not being unable to get hurt (though I have never broke a bone in my body) and not in the sensing evil intent (even though I do have my INFJ super powers). No, I relate to being middle aged and finally waking up to who you are.....

 

[ceecee]

Lady in the Water was pretty awful. Which annoys me, because I really like Paul Giamatti and Bryce Howard, and their talents were totally wasted in that movie. Don't get me started on Shyamalan casting himself as the savior of the world. What kind of delusional egomaniac does that?

The Happening? Yikes. Just no.

The Last Airbender... its 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes speaks for itself.

I watched After Earth out of morbid curiosity, because Sony actually hid the fact that it was a Shyamalan film. I guess they thought people wouldn't bother seeing it if they knew. It was predictably bad. And I don't know who thinks that Jaden Smith can act. Other than his overzealous father.

So yeah. Shyamalan has been batting zero for a while now. Come to think of it, I'm not sure how he keeps getting work. My only theory is that everyone who gets involved in his films foolishly tell themselves, "This is going to be the one, I just know it!"

I just remember going.....it's the fucking TREES! Who does this??

 

[Totenkindly]

I took one for the team and saw this as a matinee for under $6.

I really liked it. Probably one of the least pretentious things he's done, which helps immensely. I'll post more later on laptop.

EDIT: It's not anything with long-term dramatic resonance (like The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable), but it just does what he wanted it to do, it's entertainment. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's just kind of unsettling/creepy, and he actually makes some gutsy choices with music and humor that somehow work. And yeah, there's a twist, but you're expecting it -- you want to understand what's going on, and finally it does make sense.

IOW, he basically blew a wad of his own money to prove he can still make an effective movie, on a shoestring budget. So... he accomplished that. He even does generally stick with the found-footage convention consistently (compared to some found-footage flicks that break the convention). He also opens some various threads and backstories that he manages to completely weave together by the end, and fairly organically rather than noticeably forcing them as sometimes he does.

The boy (Ed Oxenbould) is actually rather amusing. Olivia DeJonge as the girl and budding documentary-maker exudes a bit of the dramatic pretension (in beautiful teenager girl style) that Shyamalan is accused of and at times seems to poke fun at himself. Dunnagan and McRobbie do well in the role of the grandparents, and Hahn is a down-to-earth, unsophisticated but accessible and warm mother just doing her best.

 

[Tellenbach]

I liked The Village, Lady in the Water, and even the Last Airbender (It's not that bad if you don't compare it to the TV series, but I didn't see the point in a live-action version.). I'll try to catch "The Visit" next week. Shyamalan takes risks with story telling; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but I respect him for it.