M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village"

I just love this guys movies! This looks pretty cool!

http://thevillage.movies.go.com/

 

Yeah, he does some pretty interesting stuff.

 

Sixth Sense: Loved it.
Unbreakable: Hated it.
Signs: Loved it.
The Village: ?? (to be determined)

Hope I don't sense a pattern here...

 

I knew it was one of his flicks when I saw the trailer. l definitely has a style.

Looks like a good movie. He always has some really great stories.

 

Jimbo, right on the money. Let's hope the new film breaks this trend.

 

Really want to like this guy; he is so great at setting a mood. But he's running the risk of looking like a one-trick pony with the mandatory 'shock' ending. 6th Sense is the one great film, diminishing returns since. Hopefully Village turns it around for him.

 

Except I loved UNBREAKABLE also. So either I'm slightly left of the money or the trend is looking up.

 

I dunno what it is about the movie, but I LOVE Unbreakable! Maybe my love for comics when I was a kid....maybe just the look and feel of it, but I love every minute of it.

 

UNBREAKABLE is his best work; actually, I think that was one of the best films of the 90s. SIXTH SENSE was very good, too.

SIGNS bordered on self-parody, like an episode of X-FILES done in the style of M. Night Shyamalan; I haven't been that disappointed with a film in a long time. I groaned at the flashback of the wife pinned between the car and tree, and the brother summoning his dormant baseball skills to pummel one of the aliens was, well, just awful.

 

The Village? I wonder if Rover and No. 2 will be there?

 

Exactly!

Sixth Sense: Admired it
Unbreakable: Love(d) it
Signs: Yawn

Don't get me wrong, Sixth Sense was extremely well done, but it relied too much (or rather, ultimately had too much emphasis placed--unavoidably) on the twist ending. Unbreakable is for me a more "complete" movie, with the careful and well done character development. Its use of sound, particularly the less-is-more music score, I find masterful. While people point to its twist ending as a poor second to Sense's, I don't Unbreakable is about the ending at all, nor about the supernatural/superhero aspects, but the metaphor of not living your life as a compromise.

John K.

 

The Sixth Sense was okay, but none of his other films have done anything for me.

 

This premiered yesterday, I think. Has anyone seen it?

 

I saw a sneak preview last Thursday. For the most part, I liked it. There's a flash of "Signs" in this movie (not just with Mr. Phoenix) but it doesnt completely overwhelm. The female lead is great, she's the daughter of Ron Howard. The best thing about "The Village" is that once the film is over, you have more questions than answers, more than any other of M Night's films combined. Of course, there are lots of great WTF?! moments...in other words, a perfect date movie!

 

I saw it last night, overall thumbs down. It's hard to talk about a Shyamalan film for fear of giving something away, but I'll just say that I wasn't at all surprised at the way things ended up. Some good acting by a great cast, Ron Howard's daughter gives a terrific debut performance. Nice moody cinematography. A few scary jolts, but much of the dialog is very silly ("What about the ceremony of the meat?"), not to mention contorted to preserve the plot. Watch for Shyamalan in a sly cameo that would do Hitchcock proud.

 

It was tight and well thought out as usual. It wasn't nearly as rich a ride though as was The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable. But it wasn't fatally flawed like Signs. Good movie but not great.

 

I know I'm in the minority about him, but I have yet to see a Shyamalan film that I've really liked. From the advance word I've heard re: Village, I ain't rushing out to see it...

 

I agree RDK. They're way too confusing for me. Sixth Sense was OK, but that's it.

I guessed the ending of that one half way through, BTW.

Evan

 

This new one has had a great ad campaign. It really seems to be a movie you have to see. Too bad if the hype isn't worth the $9.25.

I liked both The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Thought Signs was too Twilight Zone been there done that.

 

Sounds Monty Python-ish!

 

You got that right!!! All this guy's movies are like a Hitchcock parody a la Monthy Python.
Sometimes I got no choice but to painfully waste a couple of hours of my time on this kind of movies because of my kids. The sixth sense was so silly and predictable even my kids figured it out on the beginning, Signs, and now this.
I tell my kids all people should get together and send the movie studios a payment every month so they won't have to put out movies like this anymore and everybody would be happy, studios would make the money so desperately seem to need and I wouldn't have to sit thru bad acting, stupid plots and Bruce Willys, Dome More, Broad Pit, Chow Chow Fat..........

 

No need to send money. Just don't pay to see the stuff you don't wish to see...

 

M. Night's shaping up as a one-trick pony who's trick is not all that great.

Sigorney Weaver/William Hurt=faux legitimacy (Her role could've been handled with ease by a half-decent summer stock actor)

But of course, as long as he opens with blockbuster numbers (as he has with this), he will be bankrolled to "do what he does."

But I can't say Manchu. Cand. was any better.

Hooray for Hollywood.

 

You didn't get me, my kids make me go see all this crap with them!!!!!!!
I do need to send the money

 

One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Terrible acting. Aweful plot. Writing so bad that the dialogue was painful. The audience was actually laughing in deadly serious scenes because the writing was amateur-hour. Dull imagery gussied up to provide shock value. But the worst by far was the overt political overtone. I may as well have watched F911, as far as that goes.

The only thing I liked was Hilary Hahn's violin in the soundtrack, but the movie theater had a sound system that sounded like crap and the cell phones going off in the crowd didn't help. Wish I stayed home.