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Topic: Has Shyamalan DEFIED or DEFINED Convention?

Mike Schindler
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1039
From: Oak Park, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 07-08-2006 10:43 PM

In the new trailer for LADY IN THE WATER, I can't make out what the narrator's first sentence is. He either says "His movies have DEFIED convention," or "His movies have DEFINED convention." The way I see it, Shyamalan has done both. The problem is he defied then defined, instead of the other way around.

Either way, isn't it kind of a weird statement to put in a piece of advertising?

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 07-08-2006 11:01 PM

No, because Shyamalamayalan has done neither. He is a fairly conventional mainstream film maker who poses cunningly as a non-conventional "auteur" type of film maker. Hollywood just loves to wallow in how not mainstream and courageous they all think they are while it really is a huge macdonaldized consumer entertainment machinery. "What a courageous movie Brokeback Mountain is".
Next question, please.

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Mike Schindler
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1039
From: Oak Park, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 07-08-2006 11:34 PM

quote: Michael Schaffer
Next question, please.

All right. This is something that I've been wondering for a few years now. Slightly off topic. When keeping score of a baseball game, does a passed ball count as an error? [Smile]

But seriously, does it?

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 07-08-2006 11:51 PM

Baseball is a completely irrelavant game. You should watch football ("soccer") instead.
Next question, please.

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Steve Scott
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1300
From: Minneapolis, MN
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 07-08-2006 11:58 PM

I do give a considerable dose of blame to Buena Vista in misleading audiences into coming to see his films for what seems solely to be the twist; or trying to draw him too broadly into the horror genre. Outside of Wes Anderson's films, BV seems to be trying to cleanly sort its films into genres.

Shyamalan's films always have beautiful locations, shot with good detail to their stories. He's made a good chunk of change off what are, IMHO, "idea stories".

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 07-09-2006 12:00 AM

quote: Mike Schindler
He either says "His movies have DEFIED convention," or "His movies have DEFINED convention."

Probably the first one. The second doesn't really make sense, unless the trailer's putting him down. Conventional implies routine, dull, boring, unimaginative...

Baseball is THE All-American sport. [beer]

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Dick Vaughan
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1032
From: Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 07-09-2006 03:42 AM

quote: Michael Schaffer
You should watch football ("soccer") instead

Michael

Congratulations on Germany coming 3rd in the World Cup [Wink]

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 07-09-2006 11:11 AM

Well, Night does not reside in Hollywood and Warner Bros is releasing "Lady"

I really like Night's films...I don't feel like I've seen them before, which is unlike today's Hollywood.

His locations are often around the Philly area. He also is a rather nice guy.

And Baseball is definately the best game.

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Aaron Mehocic
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 804
From: New Castle, PA, USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-09-2006 02:10 PM

Last fall I gave an extensive lecture on the Thirty-Years War and the subsequent Peace of Westphalia. Afterwards a student approached me and asked if these events were the basis for "The Village". [Confused]

I didn't think the lecture sucked that much.

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Jim Bedford
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 597
From: Telluride, CO, USA (733 mi. WNW of Rockwall, TX but it seems much, much longer)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-09-2006 02:22 PM

A passed ball is indicated on a scorecard as "PB" while an error is indicated with an "E." They may seem similar but are kept as separate records and are not the same.

Baseball, often played by the most red-necked guys in sports is one of the most intellectual of the team sports.

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Mike Schindler
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1039
From: Oak Park, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 07-09-2006 03:13 PM

Thanks, Jim. So does that mean if a runner's on third and he scores on a passed ball, it counts as an earned run? Because that would suck.

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 07-10-2006 05:03 AM

quote: Dick Vaughan
Michael

Congratulations on Germany coming 3rd in the World Cup

Thanks, Dick. But I can't accept your congratulations - I really didn't have anything to do with it! But I am happy for them that they got this far, after all the changes and restructuring Klinsmann had to make, and for which he was massively criticized. But he made the right decisions.

Right now, I am still puzzled by what Zidane did. What a shame! He more or less handed the Cup to Italy. Well, not quite, still, what a shameful exit.

BTW, I was in Berlin for the first two weeks of the WC, not actually *for it*, it was more a timing coincidence. But the athmosphere was fantastic, a giant party, super-relaxed and unaggressive.

Sorry England sucked - but then they always do, don't they? [Wink]

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 07-10-2006 09:33 AM

quote: Steve Guttag
Well, Night does not reside in Hollywood and Warner Bros is releasing "Lady"

I really like Night's films...I don't feel like I've seen them before, which is unlike today's Hollywood.

His locations are often around the Philly area. He also is a rather nice guy.

And Baseball is definately the best game.

I agree with Steve in the above quote.

I think Night's films have something going for them. When all this crap is coming out from the film companies - an 'idea' film is at least entertaining and thought provoking. I liked all his films so far. The only one I didn't care for too much was "Unbreakable" - however - it was a great idea for a film. Most movies out in the last ten years wish they were that good.

Also - Baseball is the best sport. Of course, I am an American and from the Mid-West. The sports we like come from the area of the world we are from. If I was Canadian - it'd be 'Ice Hockey', if I was from South America or Europe - 'Futbol', India- "Elephant Polo", Austrailia - 'Crocodile Thumping' - stuff like that. [Razz]

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 07-10-2006 04:57 PM

Dennis is totally right. Baseball is just a local tribal game, like Elephant Polo. That's what I said [Wink]

I believe the most popular sport in Australia is Koala Kicking, though.

I also liked most of the Shyamalan movies, except for "Unbreakable", but I don't find them, if not quite the same as the typical mainstream sauce, not particularly revolutionary. Well written and made, usually with some surpise in stock. But I also find them very vain in style - "oh, look, how unusual I am. Look, look, really, I am so unusual." But then, they aren't *that* unusual. There are bazillions of films which are completely outside the Hollywood mainstream and much more "unusual" and "convention defying".

I find it kind of funny how the same marketing machinery which tries to sell us all those remakes and sequels and stillborn big budget movies emphasizes that little bit of "unusualness" - "This summer, one man will defy convention!"

On the other hand, it is interesting how slightly different movies can sometimes become huge surprise successes, so it would be good if they noted that and would be a little more daring and try to bring more movies into the cinemas which aren't remakes and sequels and all that. We would all profit from that.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 07-12-2006 05:16 PM

quote: Michael Schaffer
No, because Shyamalamayalan has done neither. He is a fairly conventional mainstream film maker who poses cunningly as a non-conventional "auteur" type of film maker.

It's worth remembering what the term 'auteur' actually signifies. It was first used by a group of French critics in the late '40s (André Bazin & François Truffaut, mainly) who were trying to describe their reactions to the first imported Hollywood films to be shown in France since the end of the Nazi occupation. Bazin in particular believed that a director's 'personal vision' was evident in a mainstream studio production, even though it was the work of hundreds of people, foregrounded the role of stars and was made within a rigidly controlled economic system. He cited examples such as Ford and Hitchcock, and really used the term 'auteur' to mean a director whose personal touch is evident within a commercial, mainstream form of film-making.

Of course, many of this generation of critics and writers later became film-makers themselves (e.g. Truffaut), and tried to put their ideas into practice: hence the reason why, to most people, 'auteur' signifies black-and-white, in a foreign language, at least 10 reels long, sad looking people in beehive hairstyles chain smoking and talking about philosophy etc. etc.

What Truffaut and his mates never saw coming was the post-1980s phenomenon of Hollywood studios marketing directors as stars in their own right. I suspect that M. Night Wotshisname wouldn't qualify, as he is deliberately being used as a 'product' for marketing purposes along with the actors, special effects etc. The original idea of a Hollywood 'auteur' was someone who worked behind the scenes.

quote: Michael Schaffer
Sorry England sucked - but then they always do, don't they?

Especially when the referee's Argentinian.

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