Re: Lady in the Water -- The Movie Board

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Subject: Re: Lady in the Water

Author:
Jimmy

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Date Posted: 19:19:40 09/04/07 Tue
Author Host/IP: c-71-197-21-170.hsd1.mi.comcast.net/71.197.21.170
In reply to: Kylopod 's message, "Lady in the Water" on 10:54:59 09/04/07 Tue

"Not long ago, I watched an old Shyamalan film, "Wide Awake" "from 1998. It was not great, but it was passable and interesting (with an early appearance by Julia Stiles)."

She had so much potential; she grew up to one UGLY bitch.

"Unlike his other films, it was not a thriller or a fantasy, but a coming-of-age tale about a boy in Catholic School."

I sold him the rights.

"Still, I could see many of the elements that would come to define Shyamalan's later films, including his ongoing obsession with religion and faith. He tends to handle the subject simplistically, but he's one of the few Hollywood filmmakers to tackle it at all."

Of course he handles it simplistically, he refuses to make any choices which may offend anyone.

"I still consider "The Village" excellent, and I can defend it against any of the numerous critics who saw it as a poor or mediocre film."

You're gonna lose street cred if you keep that shit up.

"Unfortunately, I cannot defend this film. The best I can say about it is that on some dumb elemental level, I enjoyed watching it. But it is plagued by flaws, and I am not even sure it could ever have worked. The storyline seems intrinsically artificial and contrived."

Succinctly stated.

"Shyamalan has had his ups and downs,"

He's goin' DOWN!!!

"...but all his previous films have been dependable in at least one sense: no matter how confusing the story became, it always ended up revolving around a simple idea. Not so with "Lady in the Water." This film is convoluted from beginning to end, with one arbitrary idea piled upon another."

I totally agree. He projected himself into it and that subjective approach came at the expense of unity and cohesiveness. This thing's a FUCKING Mess. Add to that the fact that he doesn't dazzle and he's exposed as the fraud he is.

"The premise is quite simple: a mythical creature, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, has entered our world and must make her way back to her dimension (which the film unwisely calls "the Blue World") but there is some wolf-like monster standing in her path. She comes into the life of a lonely superintendent (Paul Giamatti) by appearing naked in his swimming pool. Any disturbing sexual overtones this may elicit in us are kept in the background at best. This is supposed to be a bedtime story, after all."

Fuck that, he played that for all it was worth. He's a pervert obsessed with white girls. And he's a racist. How come there were no blacks in this movie? We're there. With some of these people nowadays it's hard to tell just what in the fuck they are. At any rate, there were no hip-hops type and Knight is clearly implying they would have raped her.

"How does Giamatti sort all this out? This young Korean-American girl..."

How do you know they were Korean? They didn't look Korean to me. Chinese was my guess. Clearly not Japanese and certainly not Thai.

"...and her mother just happen to know some old fairy tale that explains all the details of where Howard's nymph-goddess came from. Shyamalan makes the exposition gradual by having the mother be a non-English speaker who must speak through her daughter, and who's too stubborn and suspicious to lay it all out for Giamatti."

I enjoyed that as well as the scene where Giamatti, acting as a child, wins her over. Very well-played. I'm going to try that with the old Asian lady down the hall; confidently walk into her apartment, drink some milk and lay down on her couch.

"Howard's character is called a "narf," the wolf-like thing is a "scrunt," and they have to wait for a monkey-like creature called a "Tarturic" before Howard can return to her realm."

How do you remember all that?

"Plus, they have to make use of the apartment's tenants to find a guardian, a guild, and a healer, which at one point involves piecing together clues in a crossword puzzle--or maybe not."

Now all that shit should have appealed to a mind like mine. But it's flat and tired and boring and saturated. As we both noted, Kaufman succeeded in keeping his script fresh by employing this approach; Knight seems like a copycat but I have to admit it does help the sagging storyline.

"Unfortunately, "Lady in the Water" has precisely that problem. It's not predictable, exactly, but it seems to be making up the rules as it goes along."

I agree. But if the script and actors were conveying this sense of spontaneity the Audience would have been carried along on the wave. Ultimately, they look like a bunch of CREEPS trying to revive her in the basement and the indignant/effete shut-in doesn't come close to rallying any viewer. Fucking Rob Schneider does a better job. I was disappointed in that dude's role. Knight does NOTHING with him after setting him up and the actor playing him is a hack. And what the fuck was the POINT of STEALING the one-armed weightlifter? That was laughably gay.

There's another serious problem. All fantasies set in the contemporary world have to deal with the fact that most people today do not believe in the supernatural. The usual conceit is that the main character goes through some period of skepticism before realizing that what's happening is real, and then he has to convince everyone else, who first assume he's crazy. Curiously, "Lady in the Water" never addresses this problem at all. Giamatti never doubts that Howard really is a sea-nymph, and the people he enlists seem to come around to his story awfully quickly."

Yeah, I kind of liked that aspect. For Christ's Sake, YOU know she's some kind of supernatural hero so why waste our time Fooling around with skepticism that will eventually subside? It's frustrating is what I'm saying. Let's just get on with the Fucker...dont' waste my Time!

"It gets even worse. There's a film critic character played by Bob Balaban, brought on for some rather unsubtle digs at film critics everywhere. His presence eventually leads to a "Scream"-inspired moment of self-referential horror, which seems intended to be funny but completely shatters the movie's believability. If "Adaptation" represents the best that the genre of self-aware cinema has given us, "Lady in the Water" is at the bottom. It shows how awkward this conceit can become if handled clumsily."

I said the exact same thing but am proud to say "Scream" never came into my mind...you see, those were forgettable films.

"Giamatti is a fine actor,"

Listen Ebert--with that 'fine actor' bullshit before dropping the hammer--Giamatti is a pimp and he's been bringing it for ten years now.

"As for Howard, she disappointed me, especially after her promising turn in "The Village." In that film, her clipped and stilted speech was a part of creating the faux-19th-century effect that the movie deliberately wanted to evoke. Here, it's out of place, and made her character seem distant and hard to relate to, which is fatal to her relationship with Giamatti."

She was a Witch. They're mysterious, creepy and sexy. She went 3-for-3 there. I wanted to crawl right up her milky white, bony thighs...

"Shyamalan has a fairly big role in this film, and considering the acting skills he demonstrates here (sarcasm alert), we now have a good understanding why he was wise to limit his appearance in his other films. It's amazing how someone who's so good at directing his actors seems so stone-faced whenever he appears on screen."

I always enjoy his acting. He's being serious, man. Come on, he's only going to live long enough to see TWO of his nieces.

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Lady in the Water	Kylopod	00:43:55 09/05/07 Wed
Re: Lady in the Water -- Jimmy, 04:15:10 09/05/07 Wed