M. Night Shyamalan and the Career Arc of a Director

No, I haven't seen The Last Airbender yet.

And I'm not gonna.

Know why?  Two words - The Happening.

I loved Sixth Sense - liked Unbreakable - loved Signs - tried to like The Village - was totally unimpressed with Lady in the Water.

I figured I'd give M. Night one more chance with The Happening.  But do you know what happened at The Happening?...  He took my 10 bucks and spit in my face.

Really.

That movie is an affront to filmmaking - either one of the worst, most tone-deaf movies made in the last 30 years, or the most brilliant satiric self-immolation ever put to film.  I seriously thought he was trying to purposefully trash his career so he could get out of his current contract by making the worst movie ever.

Then he made The Last Airbender... and it's getting even worse reviews.  I don't need to see it.

How can this be possible?  How can the same guy who made Sixth Sense and Signs, two of my favorite movies of the last decade, slide steadily into absolute dreck? Has he totally lost his mind?  Does he not care anymore?  Did someone else write and direct his first three movies for him?

I wanted to see just how bad it really was, so I did what I always do...

I made a chart:

This chart shows the ratings (per Rotten Tomatoes) for every M. Night directed movie.  As you can see, it looks like a big ol' slide to wretchedness.

That got me thinking... What do other director's charts look like?

Top Things Horror Movies Taught Me

Or things I actually still do as a grown-up man because of horror movies:

- I never sleep with my arm dangling off the edge of the bed.  I don't even like to have my hands exposed.  Do you really want to wake up with the sensation of someone holding your hand when you're the only one in your bed?

- I never walk into a dark bathroom and look at the mirror while turning the light on.  I always walk in, look down, turn the light on... wait.. and then look into the mirror.  You never know what you'll find looking back at you.

- I never swim at night- oceans, lakes, pools, hot tubs - I don't care.  Even bathtubs are suspect.

 (dinner is served)

- I always sit facing the entrance when I'm at a restaurant (oh that one could be because of too many Scorsese films...)

- I never pick up hitchhikers.

 (wanna see something REALLY SCARY??)

- I never walk around a dark forest at night. (I actually had to do this once to search for my lost dog and it was not pretty - I kept hearing snapping twigs echoing from the canyon walls).

- I never EVER play around with Ouja boards or seances - you're just asking for trouble.

(see - I told ya)

And things I always keep in mind (though they haven't actually happened to me yet):

- If you're with a group of friends in a dark and spooky place, and you're the one cracking jokes - you're probably going to die soon.  If you're also a minority - forget about it... you're already dead.

- If you're in a foreign country and some unbelievably hot model chicks ask you and your buddies to spend the night in their room - run away.  If you've already spent the night in their room... you're already dead.

  (eh - maybe it was worth it...)

- Always try to be extra nice to elderly eastern-European grandmothers.  Especially those with really nasty teeth and bad eyesight.

(yeah - like that)

- When you have a choice between a flashlight and a chainsaw... please... I mean c'mon people!

- Never trust a clown.

(now just think about this a sec kiddo - just why would a clown be living in a sewer...?)

- When someone specifically tells you not to go into a particular room - you might want to heed their advice.

- If your littler sister gets sucked into the tv - sorry... tough break.  I mean mom always told you not to sit too close...

 (you're on yer own beatch)

- Always shoot for the head - and puh-leez kick the gun/saw/knife/chainsaw/sawed-off-shotgun away from the madman/zombie/monster's hand, or better yet, use it to shoot/slash/decapitate.

(yeah - what he said)

- Never go back for the cat.

 (oh Jonesy... here kitty kitty...)

Spook Hunt - Scene 2 notes

We shot scene 2 recently, and it was a challenge to get this baby to work.

Charles gears up for the spook hunt - Canon 7D 17-55mm f/2.8 ISO 800 - all shots not color-graded

First, it is a dreaded exposition scene - in other words a scene in which I just need to give the audience some bits of info - mostly through dialogue.  Basically, the boys are gearing up for their spook hunt,  I introduce the infrared night vision camera that they are using (more on that in the next post), and we explain a bit more motivation behind why Charles wants to do this.

 

View from the Infra-Red POV cam (shot later with lights out)

 Some basic rules of exposition scenes:

1) Don't do 'em.
2) If you must do them, at least give the actors some other action to be doing while they are talking.
3) keep it short
4) Get out on a beat or a key bit of dialogue - DO NOT LINGER.

After fiddling with the scene a bit with my actors Rob & Charles, we managed to accomplish 2, 3 & 4.

Also making it tough was the challenge of shooting in a plain bedroom and trying to make it somewhat interesting.  I'm not sure we succeeded tremendously in this respect, but given our limited time constraints, and zero budget, we had to do the best we could and move on.  

Sometimes these are the hard decisions for a director - knowing when to cut your losses and not burn out your actors and crew on scenes that in the end are really not that crucial. 

Kubrick has been quoted as saying that to make a great movie, "All you need is six non-submersible units. Forget about the connections for the moment..."  What he means by this is to focus on the six or so essential core scenes in your movie that tell your narrative and your thesis.  Do your hard work in these scenes. If they are made well and hold up under scrutiny, then they will become the foundation upon which your movie is made.  Everything else is window dressing - don't blow your creative energy and budget on the window dressing.  This is where most Hollywood films get it wrong.

AVATAR: Style Over Substance - Oh, but what style

 

The first 90 minutes of James Cameron's latest little personal film, Avatar, are jaw-droppingly beautiful.  One of the things that cinema is uniquely able to do is transform you into a place you've never imagined before - and Avatar does this amazingly.  The advanced motion capture technology and fully-realized CG alien realm, combined with the latest in 3D allow the viewer to enjoy a fully immersive experience - kind of like, well, controlling one's own personal avatar through Cameron's movie.  Within it you are able to experience moments of pure cinematic bliss.

And then... reality steps in.  The reality that Avatar eventually has to unwind its pedantic, cliche-ridden story - basically Last of the Mohicans/Dances With Wolves, with a touch of white-man guilt thrown in for good measure.

Now, this story is well-known and well-used for a reason. It works. We want to root for the underdogs. We want to believe in a world in which nature has inherent value and we are nourished by it. We want to feel a deeper connection to all things - and embrace the mysticism inherent to that connection. We want to fight against corporate greed and militaristic evil. Those are all good things and so we willingly follow down the well-worn path of this story because it is heart-felt and it is comforting.

With this film I realize what the problem I have with Cameron is - he is an incredible craftsman, but not an artist. And Avatar shows this with great clarity.

Cameron plays it so safe here, that he sucks all the magic out of this world that he has conjured for us.  It's as if he is so visionary, so far-reaching in his technical achievements that he has nothing left for the actual story, which is what ultimately frustrates me because having spent the $400 million on the tech, he had an opportunity to do something really ground-breaking, something truly revolutionary.

Instead, we have the basic soldier goes native and winds up fighting with the natives and against his own country. Now this might be interesting if there was an actual difficult choice to be made here - like having to fight against his former friends and comrades, but Cameron obliterates any inherent drama in that decision by allowing everyone he cared about go AWOL with him, and also making the remaining soldiers and corporate goons paper-thin "bad guys" so they can be easily disposed of without any internal conflict. Gee, nothing like eliminating any tension and drama from the last 3rd of the movie where it sorely needs it, eh?

And as far as this being a visionary Sci-Fi flick - forget about it. This is Kindergarten-level Science Fiction - everything is spoon-fed to the viewer with very little mystery allowed. The viewer never has to "catch up to the film" because they are seeing it clearly in their rear view mirror.

And really, do I need to see yet another exo-skeleton battle in the 3rd act - like, oh I don't know...

Aliens?


Ultimately, I just want to smash Cameron's head against a wall and scream - "Hey dipshit, you had me in the palm of your hand - now spend the extra scratch and have a real script doctor polish up your story so I don't see every single thing coming my way!" How about throwing me a freakin' bone - like oh I don't know, like a little twist, or a misdirection, or hidden meaning - how about letting me bathe in the air of mystery a little bit, eh? How about some actual art beneath your amazing matrix of CGI - how about some fucking poetry!

Oh well - if I want that I can always throw this baby in the DVD player:

Now there's a master craftsman AND master artist!

---

As far as Avatar goes, if you want to see this movie, you really must spend the extra cash to see it in a big-ass theater with 3D glasses - it's all about the wow factor.

This movie is so schizophrenic, I have to give it two different ratings:

Special FX/Art Direction

Story