Shyamalan documentary... WTF?

[Menocchio]

I rather enjoyed it, even (especially?) knowing it was fake. It had some nice subte touches (ie, it didn’t hit me until this morning that Raven5 was Night himself, I also like how Kahn’s screename rank went up as he dug deeper). Most documentaries like this are vapid content-free fluff hyping the director and films. Why not have some fun with it and make something worth watching? It was a mini Shamalan film (although it was longer than his actual movies).

Also, if you didn’t figure out it was fake pretty fast, you deserve to be fooled. It’s not like they his the secret until the last fiftenn minutes.

[Banquet_Bear]

@GuanoLad

Famous Peter Jackson mockumentary Forgotten Silver was played in New Zealand like that, and a ood percentage of the viewing public were really angry. They got mad at Peter Jackson, and at the TV channel, when really it was clear they were embarrassed that they were so easily duped by something that was, if you watched it, blatantly obviously fake.

So if there’s a backlash about this thing, then it is not unprecedented. Some people do not like practical jokes like this.

…that was really, really funny… I cottoned on quite early that it was fake-when they started talking about some flower on some island… I remember saying to my brother “its fake!”… and he didn’t believe me for a few minutes… then it clicked…

…the great thing about how Forgotten Silver fooled everyone was how it just ratcheted up the craziness: the opening half hour was quite believeable-but the story just kept getting more and more bizarre… talkback on the radio was really funny the next morning!!! (Calls ranged from the really, really angry old ladies, to people who actually thought it was a true story!)

[SpoilerVirgin]

I thought it was tremendous fun, and I have never seen one of Night’s movies (although considering how much I enjoyed the mockumentary, maybe I should.) I had read a little about it, but nothing about it being a hoax, and I came in somewhere in the middle. The bit with Johnny Depp and Adrian Brody and the quotes was hysterical and extremely clever. It was only when they got the obviously fake parts about Night’s big buried secret (and the hokey Polaroid shot stuff) that I realized that it was all just a three-hour infomercial for The Village.

[murky]

I agree with Menoccio. I thought it was fun and a nice change of pace from those fluff pieces that normally come out before a big movie premieres.

That M. Night was apparently in on it increases him in my esteem. At least he is up for some fun and can take a joke. Especially considering they didn’t make him look that great.

Also - how hilarious were some of those home movies from back in the day? Gangly teen M. Night walking around with his collar up… I was cracking up.

[lissener]

@Cosmopolitan

I came up with the same theory as soon as I saw the commercial.

Ditto; I think it’s hilarious that journalists were “fooled” into reporting on it as fact. Whatta bunch of idiots.

[GuanoLad]

@Banquet Bear

…that was really, really funny… I cottoned on quite early that it was fake-when they started talking about some flower on some island… I remember saying to my brother “its fake!”… and he didn’t believe me for a few minutes… then it clicked…

…the great thing about how Forgotten Silver fooled everyone was how it just ratcheted up the craziness: the opening half hour was quite believeable-but the story just kept getting more and more bizarre… talkback on the radio was really funny the next morning!!! (Calls ranged from the really, really angry old ladies, to people who actually thought it was a true story!)

Unfortunately, the surpise was partially ruined for me because I was friends of the actor who played Colin Mackenzie. But even going in, I just assumed he was only playing the real guy in ‘re-creation’ footage.

The moment that clicked for me was when they kept talking about going back into the forest to make this huge film that kept getting delayed, each time they needed a thousand extras… and it occurred to me that if over 3000 people were involved in this film, how can it be that nobody has ever heard of Colin Mackenzie?

[KidCharlemagne]

I just assumed that this was going to be something “controversial” to stir up interest for his upcoming release “The Village.”

[sidle]

“This marketing strategy is not consistent with our policy at NBC,” said Rebecca Marks, NBC entertainment spokeswoman. “We would never intend to offend the public or the press and value our relationship with both.”

I don’t really get this. Hasn’t the general rule been, since War of the Worlds, let the consumer beware?
I find it quite amusing that NBC’s suddenly playing the sanctimonious “truth in advertising” card. There is no such thing on TV anymore.

I still loved the show.

[Kaitlyn]

“This marketing strategy is not consistent with our policy at NBC,” said Rebecca Marks, NBC entertainment spokeswoman. “We would never intend to offend the public or the press and value our relationship with both.”

Of course it’s not consistent with NBC’s marketing strategy. NBC’s basic marketing strategy is to cram every significant moment from any important upcoming show into a 30 second spot, then run that spot over and over until every person who spends 5 minutes watching NBC knows everything that’s going to happen. Their marketing department wouldn’t stand for something being kept secret to increase the suspense of actually watching the show.