Favorite M. Night Shyamalan Film

[mojorizen7]

My favorite is "SIGNS"

 

[Linderbee]

Sixth Sense...by default. Only one I've seen...but it would be hard to beat it. I loved that movie.

 

[abomb]

Only seen SS and Unbreakable.

 

[Pariah]

I've seen all but The Happening. I thought The Village was just barely okay, Signs was terrible, but The Lady in the Water was a slight recovery but not up to the level of SS or Invincible. I hear The Happening is pretty bad, though.

Seems he blew his wad early and now is getting blockbuster budgets based on only his name/rep. JMHO.

 

[Heucrazy]

I haven't seen the Happening but Lady in the Water is my favorite. It's his most fun movie.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Sixth Sense is one of the best movies of all time. This one shouldn't be close.

 

[Bada0Bing]

Haven’t seen The Happening. Both Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were outstanding movies. I thought Signs and The Village were OK, and I didn’t care for Lady in the Water at all.

 

[Shane]

Sixth Sense by far!

Lady in The Water was just a terriblle movie.

 

[Mulli]

I stopped watching his garbage movies after Unbreakable.

 

[SuperSpck]

I've seen all but The Happening.not up to the level of SS or Invincible. I hear The Happening is pretty bad, though.

... now you're just juggling M. Night and Marky Marky.

 

[Pariah]

... now you're just juggling M. Night and Marky Marky.

bah.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

I haven't seen the Happening but Lady in the Water is my favorite. It's his most fun movie.

I agree!

 

[mojorizen7]

IMO, Hitchcock meets Rod Serling and you get "SIGNS."

"SIXTH SENSE" was a close second for me because it's simply brilliant story telling and one of those rare films that really creeps me out.

I stood in line to go see "The VILLAGE" and when the credits rolled at the end i was like...."are you kidding?....terrible." After further viewings i've come to like & appreciate it very much.

"UNBREAKABLE" was good till the last scene IMO. The freeweights scene with his son is one of my favorite. In the end it was a little too hokie for me....it deserved a better ending.

"LADY in the WATER" was terrible IMO. It's almost as if M. Night was throwing darts while writing this one.

I haven't seen "The HAPPENING" yet.

 

[Zeno]

Signs is my favorite, Sixth Sense is a close second the other ones are on a scale from blah to awful.

 

[Chaplin]

IMO, Hitchcock meets Rod Serling and you get "SIGNS."

"SIXTH SENSE" was a close second for me because it's simply brilliant story telling and one of those rare films that really creeps me out.

I stood in line to go see "The VILLAGE" and when the credits rolled at the end i was like...."are you kidding?....terrible." After further viewings i've come to like & appreciate it very much.

"UNBREAKABLE" was good till the last scene IMO. The freeweights scene with his son is one of my favorite. In the end it was a little too hoky for me....it deserved a better ending.

"LADY in the WATER" was terrible IMO. It's almost as if M. Night was throwing darts while writing this one.

I haven't seen "The HAPPENING" yet.

You think Lady in the Water is terrible, but you now like The Village?? The Village is a straight-to-video movie masquerading as a theatrical release. Adrien Brody should be ashamed of himself for appearing in that sorry excuse for a movie.

Good God, his last 3 movies have been terrible. Just awful. Unbreakable was his best technical achievement and Sixth Sense as definitely his best crowd pleaser and certainly the most solid story.

 

[mojorizen7]

You think Lady in the Water is terrible, but you now like The Village?? The Village is a straight-to-video movie masquerading as a theatrical release. Adrien Brody should be ashamed of himself for appearing in that sorry excuse for a movie.

Good God, his last 3 movies have been terrible. Just awful. Unbreakable was his best technical achievement and Sixth Sense as definitely his best crowd pleaser and certainly the most solid story.

Yeah Chap, i was literally cursing to myself when i left the theatre following "The Village." I thought that had there been one final quick scene or image that told us that there actually was something in the woods despite the hoax that it would've satisfied me. After re-viewings i came to better appreciate it for a couple reasons.
-Bryce Dallas Howard puts on quite a performance here IMO, as well as William Hurt in a smallish role.
-I really like some of the visuals as well as James Newton Howards score.

If you only saw it once and hated it i'd suggest revisiting it.
As far as "Lady in the Swimming Pool" ......i've re-viewed it many times and other than Paul Giamatti's usual greatness ,this movie goes nowhere over and over again IMO.

 

[Chaplin]

Yeah Chap, i was literally cursing to myself when i left the theatre following "The Village." I thought that had there been one final quick scene or image that told us that there actually was something in the woods despite the hoax that it would've satisfied me. After re-viewings i came to better appreciate it for a couple reasons.
-Bryce Dallas Howard puts on quite a performance here IMO, as well as William Hurt in a smallish role.
-I really like some of the visuals as well as James Newton Howards score.

If you only saw it once and hated it i'd suggest revisiting it.
As far as "Lady in the Swimming Pool" ......i've re-viewed it many times and other than Paul Giamatti's usual greatness ,this movie goes nowhere over and over again IMO.

You're probably right, I probably do need to revisit it, but I've been to hundreds of movies in the theater and never was I as close to walking out than I was when I watched The Village. Just thinking about some of the things in that movie makes me nauseous.

And if you think about it, a movie that has that many big time actors in it (Adrien Brody, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Joaquin Phoenix) and it's THAT bad? It's not so much the acting, but the direction that is absolutely pathetic. Pretty much the same exact problem that Lady in the Water has, except those problems are magnified because he cast himself in such a big role.

 

[Cheesebeef]

You think Lady in the Water is terrible, but you now like The Village?? The Village is a straight-to-video movie masquerading as a theatrical release. Adrien Brody should be ashamed of himself for appearing in that sorry excuse for a movie.

Good God, his last 3 movies have been terrible. Just awful. Unbreakable was his best technical achievement and Sixth Sense as definitely his best crowd pleaser and certainly the most solid story.

agreed on his last three movies - just flat out, unadulterated pieces of drek. My favorite above all was definitely The Sixth Sense - beyond the fact that it's twist blew me away, I was completely engrossed in the characters and and story up to that point that even if there wasn't some big twist it wouldn't have mattered. Add in the fact that upon second viewing, the twist adds another entirely different layer to the movie and what is being said and done in each scene and it rises to the level of brilliance IMO.

I like Unbreakable a lot, but thought it was a little predictable. Great concept, but only good in execution.

With Signs, I thought it was a masterpiece of storytelling until the last ten minutes when the movie completely went off the rails, which is too bad, because I was completely enthralled by the majority of it but can't help but feel the last ten minutes trashes everything that came before it.

The Village was awful - twist was pegged within the first ten minutes and I was dreading the moment when I would be proved right.

Lady In The Water was possibly one of the most self-indulgent pieces of crap I've ever seen, not to mention incomprehensible/boring story wise. Imean, not only does Knight take complete pot-shots at critics in the movie, but he casts he himself as the man who will a write a book that will save the world. There's hubris and then there's just egomaniacal lunacy.

Didn't see the Happening, but I'm sure I will once it hits video.

 

[Shane]

Didn't see the Happening, but I'm sure I will once it hits video.

Save yourself the misery Cheesy! I agree with you 100% on every other film to a tee. The Happening was terrible!

 

[mojorizen7]

With Signs, I thought it was a masterpiece of storytelling until the last ten minutes when the movie completely went off the rails, which is too bad, because I was completely enthralled by the majority of it but can't help but feel the last ten minutes trashes everything that came before it

??? Explain.

 

[Chaplin]

??? Explain.

I think he was talking about the appearance of the alien, which was out of place.

And besides, why would an alien race that is hurt by water come to a planet that is 75% made up of it? Sorry, but that was the biggest problem of Signs for me. I mean, if some of them ended up in Florida, wouldn't they get off their ships and start screaming, "It burns! It burns!"?

 

[mojorizen7]

I think he was talking about the appearance of the alien, which was out of place.

And besides, why would an alien race that is hurt by water come to a planet that is 75% made up of it? Sorry, but that was the biggest problem of Signs for me. I mean, if some of them ended up in Florida, wouldn't they get off their ships and start screaming, "It burns! It burns!"?

Why would the appearance of an alien(the one left behind in the locked pantry) be out of place after an alien invasion? IMO there were no plot
"u-turns" so to speak. The appearance of the alien in the end was vital to completing the films theme of faith vs coincidence.
As for the water, i believe that the purpose of the invasion(per the radio voice in the basement after the aliens left) was "a human harvest." Humans are going to habitate planets that contain water. The aliens didn't come to invade and take the Earth from us. We were here.....and they came here for us. Regardless, the whole alien invasion was essentially just a backstory(a scary and interesting one) to a film about a much deeper subject matter.
Group #1 or group #2.
Which one are you?

 

[Chaplin]

If the film is supposed to have a much "deeper subject matter", then why put the cheap thrills of the alien in their house in the first place? The strength of the film is what you don't see, much like the faith issue, which is also unseen. Then he sticks a special effect at the end and it seems like he's pandering to the teenage audience--not the sign of a director who wants to make a good point.

And interesting that you ignore the crux of what I was saying about water. Sure, they were there to harvest humans, but that doesn't mean that the atmosphere of a planet that is 75% water wouldn't hurt them.

 

[mojorizen7]

If the film is supposed to have a much "deeper subject matter", then why put the cheap thrills of the alien in their house in the first place? The strength of the film is what you don't see, much like the faith issue, which is also unseen. Then he sticks a special effect at the end and it seems like he's pandering to the teenage audience--not the sign of a director who wants to make a good point.

And interesting that you ignore the crux of what I was saying about water. Sure, they were there to harvest humans, but that doesn't mean that the atmosphere of a planet that is 75% water wouldn't hurt them.

The appearance of the alien in the house was critical to two things.
1) The dying words of his wife in relation to Mel's decision on how to deal with the alien.....which directly relates to the subject matter.
2) The boy's asthsma saved him from the alien's poison which directly relates to the subject matter.
It's not a difficult concept in my eyes and was hardly a gimmick. If the film had ended after they woke up in the basement after learning the aliens had left what would you have? "The Village?" JK.

Again with the threat of water....OK. So i suppose that due to the possible threat of the physically and technologically inferior human race discovering that water is their kryptonite that the alien race should have reconsidered their mission? I think it's safe to say that intersteller invasions always carry a fairly high rate of risk involved.

 

[Chaplin]

The appearance of the alien in the house was critical to two things.
1) The dying words of his wife in relation to Mel's decision on how to deal with the alien.....which directly relates to the subject matter.
2) The boy's asthsma saved him from the alien's poison which directly relates to the subject matter.
It's not a difficult concept in my eyes and was hardly a gimmick. If the film had ended after they woke up in the basement after learning the aliens had left what would you have? "The Village?" JK.

Again with the threat of water....OK. So i suppose that due to the possible threat of the physically and technologically inferior human race discovering that water is their kryptonite that the alien race should have reconsidered their mission? I think it's safe to say that intersteller invasions always carry a fairly high rate of risk involved.

I'm obviously not going to change your mind, and vice versa, but you complete miss the point of the whole water thing. The MINUTE the door opens to their ship, wouldn't the water that's in the atmosphere (humidity) be lethal to them? I mean, that is a basic tenant of these aliens. The human race didn't need to discover that water is their kryptonite--the very physical nature of the planet makes their weakness implausible. To me, this is simple common sense logic.