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Author
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Topic: Lady in the Water (2006)
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Don E. Nelson
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 138
From: Brentwood, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 2001
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posted 07-24-2006 03:25 PM
This film maker is near the top of my list of 100 film directors who made "super 8" films when they were kids. I have seen this movie 3 times,... before, they all had different titles but were similar in style. I read some where in People magazine that M. Night wrote, produced and directed this movie, he also acted in it and also helped the key grips move the dolly camera tracks and he handed gaffers tape to the gaffers and he also tried to adjust the big hulkin kleig lights on several occasions, to no avail. M. Night is also reported to have made original Philly Cheese Steaks for the cast and crew at the movies last and final wrap party. I saw this films "movie poster" in 2 different theaters on the same day it was released. I have seen everything this guy has done including his theatrical releases, and this is by far one of the best jobs he has done when it comes to selecting the Kodak movie stock he used for loading the 35mm cameras. Because of the low lighting conditions, he opted to use the same movie stock used to film E.T.(2750 neg.) If you only see one movie this year, you really should get out more often. Ron Howards daughter, yet again, appears in this movie. [She only has to act in 4 more of M. Nights films, and then his film school debt, that he owes to Ronnie Howard, will be paid in full] Every single frame in this film is a lesson in begining cinematography 101, and every camera angle is was set up using a plastic protractor to ± 2°. And as a final note, no animals were harmed during the panning and zooming of this film.
I enjoyed the reviews of this movie, but I have a few questions. 1) who kept turning on the sprinklers? this was symbolic of what? 2) What exactly was up with the 3 evil monkeys? 3) Who is this Guardian of the universe character?, 4) When the Narf is rescued by the eagle at the end of the film, where did the eagle come from? 5)Why are there so many charachters and individual speaking parts in the original script?, 6) Why were there little light green square matte lines on the ships when they were attacking the Deathstar? Can anyone enlighten me with some answers, or give me some opinions before I actually see this movie. Thanks.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 07-25-2006 03:44 PM
I doubt we'll ever play this because it's such a flop, but here's a paragraph from a review by Rex Reed. This is the baddest "bad" review I think I've ever seen for a movie.
If you want to read the rest, CLICK HERE
As vacation time nears, it is safe to say that no matter how rotten things get on the big screen during the rest of the summer, the worst of it is over. Hollywood cannot pollute the ozone with anything more idiotic, contrived, amateurish or sub-mental than Lady in the Water. This piece of pretentious, paralyzing twaddle is the latest in a series of head-scratchers by the incompetent, self-delusional M. Night Shyamalan. He’s the writer, producer and director, and terrible at all three, but if that isn’t bad enough, this time he has even gone one further and cast himself in one of the roles. I am here to tell you he is about as camera-ready as the corpse that Tommy Lee Jones dragged across the cactus in Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. In a war of wits, brains, imagination and talent, Mr. Shyamalan would be defenseless.
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Steve Scott
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1300
From: Minneapolis, MN
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted 07-25-2006 04:09 PM
Okay, WB dropped the ball. This, once again, was not supposed to be served up as a scary movie. The attempts at horror are irrelevant to the story. I viewed & enjoyed the film as a great sendup of Hollywood screenwriting.
A real expose of why screenwriting does not equal storywriting.
It also struck me that this is one of the few mainstream films to feature news footage of the Iraq war. That, paired with the element of the residents needing to realize their parts in the story to bring the hunting creature to justice seems to be an underlying social commentary.
Whether that's the desired relation or not is moot, though. The story can be as literal as it seems & there are still REAL characters to digest & track. It's a puzzle, and when it's completed it doesn't try to stand out as anything more than the story it was dealing with.
Shyamalan really visions himself as an outsider. I think it's the fault of moviegoers who try to hold him up high, demanding the highest caliber afternoon movie scare-fare when his films are so well shot and so full of emotional entanglements. If you walk into a film demanding it go through so many motions, expecting a certain path, then Shyamalan's films are not for you. He is clearly comfortable with his own storywriting formula, and I hope he makes many more films like this: rich pieces which expose small elements of the human condition without reaching for flashy dramatics or convention.
Too much convention & expectation is killing mainstream film. If someone doesn't knock the bar loose with a film like this at least ONCE each summer, we'll never hope to see higher box office numbers. At the least, it gets his dissenters into their formula films after he's already taken their money for the curiosity ticket. One can't deny that there's still great curiosity in his work. Perhaps, in decades to come, his work will be judged seperately from the typical films which surround it.
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