He seems to be getting better. Like someone else said, he was a victim of his own success, kept on trying to recreate the magic of Sixth Sense. The problem is, most extreme plot twists suck, he just happened to come up with an awesome one.
Now Nickelback, the problem with them is that they are the modern day equivalent of Winger, except with more staying power. They just latch onto whatever trend in hard rock is hot and make an album that’s a cookie cutter version of it. The one time they passed through my alley(80s-style hard rock) I actually liked it a lot. Mutt Lange produced that particular album. But before, when they were grungy, and now, when they are trying to sound like an indie pop band with lots of synth sounds and "woah oh oh"s, it’s just embarrassing.
If asked what is the worst single scene in any movie ever, the one from The Happening where the woman shows a video on her phone of a man being attacked by lions would be my answer. Hands down. Not even anything in Tommy Wiseau’s terrible masterpiece, The Room, equals that scene.
Feel like Shyamalan got really pretentious really fast, and he couldn’t back it up.
He made one great movie (The Sixth Sense), followed that up with somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of what might have been a great movie (Unbreakable), then at least a solid decade of bullshit, the entire time prefacing each spectacular failure with the super pretentious, “From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan…” which would have been fine if the previous movie(s) had been good, but when your last 3 were awful and you continue to use it, it’s not surprising that it’s a punch line.
I liked *Unbreakable *but you’re right: it would have been vastly improved merely by editing out all the scenes in which Bruce Willis just stands there looking constipated.
I think you’re absolutely right about that. It’s perfectly understandable to not like them - hell, I’m not exactly their biggest fan - but it just seemed there was an inordinate amount of hate, especially in light of how mainstream / bland they are. A local radio station actually had a contest called “My boyfriend is uglier than Chad Kroeger” wherein listeners would submit pictures of their unattractive boyfriends and the one who was ugliest in comparison to the singer won a prize (not Nickelback tickets, I’m assuming). It’s kind of funny and very odd to me.
I agree: The Sixth Sense was huge in its time and deservedly so, and Unbreakable is a wonderful origin story but it needed a few more movies to round out the narrative and it never got them, so it feels unfinished. Well, no duh: It’s Part One. Part One always kinda sucks, because it’s all setup and very little pay-off. Shamalamadingdong shoulda pulled a Lucas and told the whole story in Part One, even if it meant he’d re-tell it in long form later on.
Look at this paragraph. Every time I do, it makes me laugh. You know, there’s a reason people come to hate the popular stuff: You can’t escape it. It’s omnipresent. Now that stores play real music instead of Muzak, stuff like Nickelback is inescapable even if you never listen to FM radio or watch network TV.
If nothing else, it’s bonding. It’s a shared experience, somewhat negative, but shared nonetheless. You can not watch sports. You can not watch TV without being a weirdo these days, believe it or not. You can damn sure escape the radio. So what’s left? Video games are expensive and fragmented, streaming TV shows on Netflix are fairly niche as well, but that fucking Nickelback song is watching, waiting, so you can do your commiserating. (Wrong band? Say it’s not so!) It becomes a one-upsmanship game, the humor of exaggeration.
I’ve always thought it was unfair that Shyamalam’s name has somehow become synonymous with “Twist”. Maybe I don’t know enough about storytelling, but doesn’t nearly every movie/novel/play/whatever have a twist?
Also, I can’t help but think that if it wasn’t for The Sixth Sense being a massive cultural phenomenon, he wouldn’t get nearly the amount of hate. Imagine an alternate timeline where the Sixth Sense was never made… I doubt we’d have a thread full of people claiming that Lady in the Water and the Village are the worst movies ever made.
Hmm … trying to do what Rose McIver does so brilliantly on iZombie.
Reminds me of Angus Young being asked for his response to a critic who had accused AC/DC of making (at that time) “12 albums that all sound alike”. Angus’ response was along the lines of, “That pisses me off. We’ve made fourteen albums that all sound alike!”
There’s a bit of misdirection about which character in Devil is the Devil, but I wouldn’t actually call it a twist. They stated early on that one of the characters in the elevator had to be the Devil, and the way they apparently eliminated the one who was was not something the Devil couldn’t easily bypass, so it’s not really any more of a twist than any other red herring.
I haven’t seen The Visit, so I can’t comment on that.
No argument here from me about Bay. The thing is, I really think he’s making movies for China, which seems about a generation behind the US in terms of what people find entertaining, on average. I imagine a lot of people out in the boondocks who just haven’t seen all that many movies yet in their lives in the theater, so a Bay production feels like an amusement park ride. Not that there aren’t plenty of unsophisticated people in the US who enjoy them for the same reason. But, from what I hear, Chinese tastes are really driving what gets made these days, and it’s not about intricate plots and sophisticated characterization.
He made the movie Pain & Gain a few years back. I would say The Island is a pretty respectable, non-stupid movie, though there was some controversy about the story having been lifted from a previous flick.
I think Bay is a competent director who has become the go-to guy for big, dumb action pictures. He does bear some of the blame for the taste fails, however.
Ha, yes. Another thing is that I don’t feel his movies are ever sold as anything but what they are. I’m much more frustrated with the superhero schlock that as peddled as something artistically or culturally meaningful (not that superhero movies can’t be, but I’ve been very unimpressed with the past few years’ crop).
This is a really important point, and can be illustrated though a simple thought experiment; how would the movie play out if the twist didn’t happen? Imagine if Bruce Willis just reconciled with his wife.
The movie would still be pretty good. The climactic scene in the movie isn’t REALLY the twist. It’s the scene with Cole and his mother in the car.
I’ve heard his name a bazillion times before, but was unsure which of his movies I’ve actually seen. Looking at IMDB, but other than Bad Boys (which I may have seen, or may not have, I’m not sure) I’ve never watched a single movie that he is credited for producing or directing.