"Bad" movies you will defend with your life.

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Victim of The Night
The quickest way for me to explain why, as a Shyamalan hater, his movie's don't work for me, is that most of them expect me to contend with their human element. Like Spielberg, he expects us to recognize our own humanity in his characters, their families, their reality. But Shyamalan, not even remotely, does not understand how to articulate any of these things. He never offers any proof that he is anything but an alien observing us. He understands people as much as a 'keep hanging in there' cat poster understands the human condition. So when he lifts all of his influences from a Spielberg film, he only thinks to crib the most surface elements of the characters in them. Maybe, if I could engage with his work as camp, or as some kind of demented fever dream, or with at least a sense of humor at what a weirdo he is, I could give his early movies a pass. But from my perspective, only a movie like The Happening gives me this option of watching it from an emotional distance. I feel I might have permission to laugh at it (actually, probably not, but it's so weird and stupid I am taking that right for myself)



I agree with you that The Village probably isn't that much worse than Sixth Sense or Signs. I don't know why it gets excluded from their company by fans of those two much more popular films. In my eyes, they are about the same.


But, also from my eyes, all three are pretty bad movies. Regardless of the technical craft he frequently shows off, I just cringe when I watch them. They make me want to revoke his citizenship to this planet.
I understand. I know you don't like him. And your explanation is good. I don't share your feelings, though I think he has made some incredible stinkers. I think his run of Sixth Sense through The Village was excellent. I like The Visit and Split.
It's funny you make the Spielberg comparison because I think I may actually just be the flip side of your coin. I really loathe Spielberg for how much I feel like he overdoes "the human element". I find the rest of his filmmaking usually excellent, obviously, but I always find his sentimentality (and I don't just mean when the emotion is sentimental, I mean his sentimentality in portraying characters) nauseating. One of the things I like so much about Shyamalan's better work is the way he reigns in his actors to get quiet, measured performances that actually feel much more genuine to me than what Spielberg does. To me, getting subtlety out of Mel Gibson is a near-miracle. Honestly, until I saw Phoenix in Signs I hated him as an actor for his overracting (IMO). But Shyamalan got something believable out of him to me.
Just thinking as I type though, I think the reason that I liked Bridge Of Spies so much was that I got this overwhelming feeling that Spielberg/Hanks wasn't actually overdoing it for a change (a feeling I also got from Fiennes in Schindler's and of course Scheider/Shaw/Dreyfuss in Jaws before Spielberg was really putting his stamp on everything). It felt like there was genuine human subtlety to the characters and the performances instead of the usual Spielbergian toomuchery. Which unfortunately has come to define the work of so many other filmmakers.
Again, I'm meandering here but you've made me think as I hadn't really compared the two before and I'm certainly NOT saying that Shyamalan is better than Spielberg so let's just get that off the table completely, but would I rather watch performances in Shyamalan movies than Spielberg movies? With a few exceptions, yeah, absolutely.
I certainly like your point that The Village isn't significantly worse than his "best" films even if you think his best films are total crap.
My days of defending Shyamalan are long over but my days of defending a specific subset of his films will likely never end.



Victim of The Night
Speaking of Shyamalan, I quite like The Happening, even if I wouldn't throw myself in front of a lawnmover to defend it.



Really, nicely done.



I really loathe Spielberg for how much I feel like he overdoes "the human element". I find the rest of his filmmaking usually excellent, obviously, but I always find his sentimentality (and I don't just mean when the emotion is sentimental, I mean his sentimentality in portraying characters) nauseating. One of the things I like so much about Shyamalan's better work is the way he reigns in his actors to get quiet, measured performances that actually feel much more genuine to me than what Spielberg does. To me, getting subtlety out of Mel Gibson is a near-miracle. Honestly, until I saw Phoenix in Signs I hated him as an actor for his overracting (IMO). But Shyamalan got something believable out of him to me.

It always gets down to taste and such, but I'm obviously on the other side of the black hole than you on this one. I get Spielberg plays 'sappy' from time to time, and he definitely has some treacle moments over the years, but the family dynamics of something like ET or Jaws or Close Encounters or Poltergeist are about as close to reality you can get while still retaining a clear strain of 80s Hollywood Blockbuster in the blood.



Richard Dreyfuss and his mashed potato obsession plays both as being comically strange and clearly deeply upsetting to the family who is sitting at the table with him. Very much like this kind of behavior would be seen as in reality if such a thing presumably happened. Or the way the kids sit around and argue over eachother and have random asides as they talk shit in ET has a lived in moment that feels completely unscripted compared to almost anything else at the time. Or when Heather O'Roukes explains the TV people in Poltergeist, it is articulated in the exact appropriate cadences of a child barely old enough to understand what she is talking about. There is both an innocence and a confusion and an underlying dread in her depictions of what she has been seeing. And then, of course, there is the classic scene of the child mirroring Roy Scheider in Jaws. Pure poetry. Delicately rendered as if observed from a distance, even though it is composed mostly in close ups. A very private moment that we have somehow been invited to intrude upon. Sure, there are probably some other crimes Spielberg commits in these movies that seem artificially rendered, but for these particular scenes, I see little emotional sensationalism. They are simply observed and committed to tape. Fantastic. At his best I would probably place Spielberg somewhere in the range of Ozu at getting these kinds of family dynamics on screen. Obviously, a higher compliment can probably not be found.



Shyamalan, on the other hand, always feels like he sat watching these exact scenes over and over again, and while he understood the framing and the editing well enough, he never understood what made the people in front of the camera so compelling. He forgot to let his actors have space to live in the moments he is giving them. Everything seems controlled under his thumb. Absolutely nothing seems spontaneous or natural, even when it is clearly meant to feel that way. Stuff like the tinfoil hats and the obsessive water drinking in Signs, just feel like clumsy jokes he inserts or obvious plot contrivances that are manipulating their behavior, and nothing is born naturally out of these people just behaving. I can hear the screen play in all of their mouths. I see the plot forcing them to move this way in that. They just become robots underneath his guidance. And considering he's also definitely a robot, or an alien, or simply just completely dead inside, this is not a good thing.



So yeah, Spielberg is a rosey shaded dork a lot of the time, but I think the movies he makes pulled from the best of what he saw in real life from his family. Even if sometimes the music starts swelling up in the background in order to jerk some emotions out of us, what he is getting on screen seems to be guided by an invisible hand. He understands his actors as people and lets them continue to be people when the camera is rolling. MKS, on the other hand, seems to have never observed real life at all. That he got all of his parenting from characters on screen. He only understands people in two dimensions. I almost feel kind of sad for him. There seems to be a deep loneliness to how he depicts life. I can't entirely explain it, but when I'm not laughing at how artificial and weirdly his characters behave, I start feeling uncomfortable.



People generally agree that the characters in The Happening behave very strangely, and the performances are both weirdly muted and exaggerated in all the wrong places. If someone doesn't laugh at Marky Mark's stupid expressions and reactions shots in this movie, I can only assume they too are pod people. But, if I'm being honest, I think there is only a few degrees of separation between the amazing catastrophy that is The Happening, and his more seriously considered movies. So I guess I knew all along he had a masterpiece like The Happening in him. He just had to make it so it was impossible to take his movie serioulsy then...Magic!





Uncontroversially, I think Haley Joel Osment probably gives the only not insufferable performance in any of his films



It's funny you make the Spielberg comparison because I think I may actually just be the flip side of your coin. I really loathe Spielberg for how much I feel like he overdoes "the human element". I find the rest of his filmmaking usually excellent, obviously, but I always find his sentimentality (and I don't just mean when the emotion is sentimental, I mean his sentimentality in portraying characters) nauseating.
Hell, yes to all that. I find the “humanity” in Spielberg nauseating at times. Am a fan of his to the end, but the sentimentality is exhausting. And no matter how much people accuse Nolan of being “soulless”, that’s exactly what I like about his work.



MKS, on the other hand, seems to have never observed real life at all. That he got all of his parenting from characters on screen. He only understands people in two dimensions. I almost feel kind of sad for him. There seems to be a deep loneliness to how he depicts life. I can't entirely explain it, but when I'm not laughing at how artificial and weirdly his characters behave, I start feeling uncomfortable.
You probably meant MNS, right? I mean, it all still applies...but I'm just clarifying.
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Victim of The Night
It always gets down to taste and such, but I'm obviously on the other side of the black hole than you on this one. I get Spielberg plays 'sappy' from time to time, and he definitely has some treacle moments over the years, but the family dynamics of something like ET or Jaws or Close Encounters or Poltergeist are about as close to reality you can get while still retaining a clear strain of 80s Hollywood Blockbuster in the blood.
I would mostly agree with you in that I think that Spielberg was very good with this when he was young, up until about ET. Then it all went to shit.
The scenes that take place inside the Brodys' kitchen are arguably the best scenes in the whole film. And it's a damn good film.



He forgot to let his actors have space to live in the moments he is giving them. Everything seems controlled under his thumb. Absolutely nothing seems spontaneous or natural, even when it is clearly meant to feel that way. Stuff like the tinfoil hats and the obsessive water drinking in Signs, just feel like clumsy jokes he inserts or obvious plot contrivances that are manipulating their behavior, and nothing is born naturally out of these people just behaving. I can hear the screen play in all of their mouths. I see the plot forcing them to move this way in that. They just become robots underneath his guidance.
I actually admire this about him. I like that his films are distinctive that way; they feel like they're made by the same guy. He has a "stamp", so to speak.



I actually admire this about him. I like that his films are distinctive that way; they feel like they're made by the same guy. He has a "stamp", so to speak.

I don't disagree, even though there is something about that stamp that ultimately puts me off.



I imagine this is also the reason I've made a point of seeing most of his movies up until now. And why I will almost certainly end up watching Old.



The scenes that take place inside the Brodys' kitchen are arguably the best scenes in the whole film

You remove those few minutes of footage, and you end up removing a huge chunk of why the movie lingers with me as more than just a series of shark attacks.



The scenes that take place inside the Brodys' kitchen are arguably the best scenes in the whole film.



WARNING: spoilers below
Sorry, I couldn't resist.



You know what? I'm gonna say it.








Ed Wood is a very good movie, but I also feel Batman Returns is almost as good, to be honest with you; I mean, you have the overall Gothic aesthetic, which, while expected from Burton, is still executed with a ton of pizzazz throughout, which adds a lot to the experience (that scene where the camera's sweeping through the abandoned, snow-covered zoo, man...). And on top of the great style, I'd say that there's also a good deal of substance to it as well, whether on a thematic front (like the duality of every major character having multiple sides to their personality), or with the characters, like the way that Selina is constantly torn between a vengeful vigilante, and falling in love with Bruce as a normal woman; it's just a good movie with a lot of great stuff in it all-around, you know?
I think Ed Wood is Tim Burton's strongest work as a director.



For me, it is easily the magnificent XANADU.

For a while, I was watching this daily with my toddler, who had no idea what was going on, but loved the music numbers and the silly effects. It was definitely all for her, as I wasn't enjoying it at all! What? You saw me watching it while she was taking her nap?





On the surface, it's a really stupid movie, but if I run into it channel surfing, I will watch. Gene Kelly is great and I love the finale.



On the surface, it's a really stupid movie.

Not good for a film without a lot of depth.



Victim of The Night
You remove those few minutes of footage, and you end up removing a huge chunk of why the movie lingers with me as more than just a series of shark attacks.
No doubt.
Best scene of the whole film, to me, is Mrs. Kintner.
I cannot deny that that is a moment of filmmaking I genuinely admire the matinee-maker for.



Now, I think we both know that the best scene is really his son copying him at the table, but Mrs. Kintner just breaks my heart. If he had continued on like this instead of becoming so cloying in the 80s and then just so slick to boot, I'd be a huge fan.
Instead I have to satisfy myself with the terrible lack of humanism of Shyamalan.





Victim of The Night



WARNING: spoilers below
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Wait, I can't see the image. I even tried Chrome.



Wait, I can't see the image. I even tried Chrome.
It's Larry David giving his "Eh, I don't know about that..." face.