# Am I supposed to laugh at the preview for the new M. Night Shamalayan movie?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763 "2006-06-30T15:58:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/101 "2006-07-03T19:58:14Z")
Yes, that wasn’t a very well-fleshed-out post was it?! I guess what I meant was, if the stories are really about people and characters, and he is a great director, and the “gimmick” of twists and spooky music has run dry, he could turn to true character studies and more realistic drama. The character stuff gets lost in the rest of the junk, and I tend to ignore it when faced with the feature-length-Twilight-Zone-ness of something like The Village. And I can’t stand to sit through it again to pick up on the character stuff!! Or come up with a more sophisticated way to show allegory and characters through fables. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/102 "2006-07-03T20:17:15Z")
You’re all off-track. The movie closest in spirit to _Fight Club_ is _Falling Down_. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/103 "2006-07-03T20:31:22Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] You’re all off-track. The movie closest in spirit to _Fight Club_ is _Falling Down_. [/QUOTE] _Falling Down_ is _Fight Club_ without the benefit of a hip, funny or cryptic ending. I greatly preferred it. ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/104 "2006-07-03T20:34:27Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] Then why are they there? Why the interminable “suspense” when the answers are found? Why, when we look into the shed where I knew those animal costumes were hiding did they spend about two minutes panning the camera as slowly as they possibly could if they weren’t trying to build suspense for the big reveal? He certainly shot _The Village_ as a suspense film, with all sorts of long pauses right before revealing some new detail. Why, if those plot twists were unimportant, did he follow the conventions of that genre so precisely? I don’t buy this idea that just because he fails so dramatically at doing half the tasks of filmmaking, he must therefore have _meant_ to fail. He did a terrible job at that movie, and trying to say that he did it on purpose is completely unconvincing. If, in fact, he _had_ set a convincing period and atmosphere, it _would_ have been an interesting development (although I don’t believe he could have without rejiggering the plot a whole lot, and getting rid of the wolfy-things entirely in favor of some more subtle evil.) [/QUOTE] I’m not saying that the plot twists were unimportant. They absolutely were important because of what they meant to the characters. That is how I interpreted the movie. I’m not saying that he “meant to fail” insofar as putting in very obvious twists. Rather, the obviousness of the twists did not detract from my enjoyment of the movie. And my argument is that all you need to do to enjoy the movie is to believe that the _characters_ don’t know the twists. That’s not hard at all. The suspense is then used because it’s the buildup to the characters’ realizations of the truth, not to make you jump out of your seat. ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/105 "2006-07-03T20:46:22Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] Yes, that wasn’t a very well-fleshed-out post was it?! I guess what I meant was, if the stories are really about people and characters, and he is a great director, and the “gimmick” of twists and spooky music has run dry, he could turn to true character studies and more realistic drama. The character stuff gets lost in the rest of the junk, and I tend to ignore it when faced with the feature-length-Twilight-Zone-ness of something like The Village. And I can’t stand to sit through it again to pick up on the character stuff!! Or come up with a more sophisticated way to show allegory and characters through fables. [/QUOTE] To a large extent, I agree with you. IMO, he’s a great director saddled with his own so-so material. But I still enjoyed the movie because I _did_ focus on the characters (maybe because I already knew the twists?), so I focused on their reaction to the TZ stuff rather than my own. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/106 "2006-07-03T21:24:08Z")
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp] _Falling Down_ is _Fight Club_ without the benefit of a hip, funny or cryptic ending. I greatly preferred it. [/QUOTE] _Falling Down_ is directed by Joel Schumacher and therefore is a bad film by definition. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/107 "2006-07-03T21:25:12Z")
[QUOTE=MilTan] To a large extent, I agree with you. IMO, he’s a great director saddled with his own so-so material. But I still enjoyed the movie because I _did_ focus on the characters (maybe because I already knew the twists?), so I focused on their reaction to the TZ stuff rather than my own. [/QUOTE] That’s basically what I came in to write. MNS the director is very good and talented. MNS the screenwriter much less so. I think he did write a very good screnplay for _Sixth Sense_, but has failed to maintain that quality in his screenwriting since, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/108 "2006-07-03T21:28:05Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] _Falling Down_ is directed by Joel Schumacher and therefore is a bad film by definition. 😉 [/QUOTE] I know, I know. What’s the old saying? Even a broken clock is right twice a day? Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while? (and the rest of the time, it finds _Batman and Robin_) ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/109 "2006-07-03T21:43:15Z")
[QUOTE=MilTan] I’m not saying that the plot twists were unimportant. They absolutely were important because of what they meant to the characters. That is how I interpreted the movie. I’m not saying that he “meant to fail” insofar as putting in very obvious twists. Rather, the obviousness of the twists did not detract from my enjoyment of the movie. And my argument is that all you need to do to enjoy the movie is to believe that the _characters_ don’t know the twists. That’s not hard at all. The suspense is then used because it’s the buildup to the characters’ realizations of the truth, not to make you jump out of your seat. [/QUOTE] Sorry, but I don’t buy it, partially because of the misdirection at the beginning of _The Village_, in which we see on a gravestone that the movie was set in the 19th century. There’s no reason for that at all, from a plot perspective - there’s no conceivable reason to fool the residents of the village into thinking it’s a different year than the movie was actually set in. Moreso, it was a bit of a cheap trick - done, I think, because the movie’s setting wasn’t convincing at all. But at any rate, his deliberate audience misdirection was obviously an effort to fool his viewers. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/110 "2006-07-04T00:24:48Z")
Just saw the tv trailer for Lady in the Water. It is indeed a laughably bad trailer. Yikes. I still can’t wait to see it…on cable, the same way I see all movies. ---
**Author:** ![Carlyjay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Carlyjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carlyjay)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2006, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763/111 "2006-07-04T01:17:10Z")
Looks like the market audience doesn’t like the trailer as a whole. They’ve put a new one on here, which is completely different, and no stupid kid talking. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-supposed-to-laugh-at-the-preview-for-the-new-m-night-shamalayan-movie/362763.md?page=5)