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yes a im not crazy there was a plane

 

does anyone see a trend in Deakins latest movies (the house of sand and fog , the lady killers ) and now village. is like he creating some sort of style but i can't put my finger on it. all vary beautiful movies i think,

 

 

did anyone find the ending lacking a lot or am i just too picky.

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... did anyone find the ending lacking a lot or am i just too picky.

Yeah, but I really tried not to expect anything.

 

Let's face it, he's never going to come up with as good an ending as Sixth Sense, or maybe anyone else, for that matter.

 

I was definitely let down with the ending of Signs.

In fact, really cheesy if you ask me, and I saw it coming about 45 minutes in, and just groaned "oh jeez, you're not going to make them allergic to WATER, are you?".

 

I don't think he's the next Hitchcock, and I think we should all be aware that it's clever marketing that made us all see him that way.

Good writer.

Good director.

Bad actor.

But not the next Hitchcock, at least not so far.

 

Matt Pacini

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M. Knight is really under a lot of pressure nowadays. I'm pretty sure that from now on, all of his films are going to "let down" most people.

 

Moviegoers need to understand that there are only so many twists, so many surprises you can do in a movie, and Sixth Sense was the motherload. Like Matt Pacini said, there's probably not going to be another twist as good as the one in Sixth Sense. However, as soon as people see the name M. Knight Shyamalan on a movie poster, they have the most extreme expectations. They expect to be in for a huge, unexpected surprise every time.

 

But just the very fact that these are M. Knight films, you go into the theatre already thinking about what possibly could be the twist. You sit and try to figure it out because you know one is coming. That in itself will ruin the surprise, even if you don't get it right.

 

Still, though, with all of this I think M. Knight's films are a lot better than almost all of the crap that makes it onto the bigscreen these days. I'd much rather spend the 10 dollars on one of his films than whatever else.

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All this talk of M. Knight Shyamalan's movies not being as good as the first remind me of a conversation I had with a record exec I was chatting with recently. We were talking about some band or the other and how their second and third records weren't as good as their first. His explanation made a lot of sense to me. He said, "These guys spend their whole lives writing their first record, and then when it's a hit they are pushed to write another one very quickly to capatilize on their popularity, and they end up writing a whole album in 6 months or a year. They just haven't had the time to write as good a record as they did the first time."

It strikes me that this could be what has happened with Shyamalan. I know The Sixth Sense wasn't his first movie....but it was his first hit.

Sorry if this is a bit off the subject, but it struck me as an interesting parallel.

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It strikes me that this could be what has happened with Shyamalan. I know The Sixth Sense wasn't his first movie....but it was his first hit.

Sorry if this is a bit off the subject, but it struck me as an interesting parallel.

That's an interesting parallel,but I don't think it's the same thing.When I saw Village,I wasn't looking for a carbon copy of The Sixth Sense,I was looking for something as intriguing and suspenseful maybe.Movies by the same director don't have to copy one another,but they can contain the director's signature.Rear Window was nothing like The Birds,but both films were successful and carried the same impact.

The story didn't work for me.I didn't connect with the characters,didn't feel their fear of the monsters in the woods and didn't find the so called twist to the story surprising at all,which is why I didn't think much about giving the ending away.I felt it was given away very early on in the film when they were talking about medicines for the character that suffered ADD.To me the story was weak and fell apart.

On the plus side I thought it was well lit.The night scenes were some of the most motivated and believable I've ever seen,yet some of the handheld shots and lens choices used in the scene where the blind girl was being stalked by the "monster"just served to give away the illusion.Almost laughable.Even thought we knew who this "monster" was,the illusion could've been pulled off better to at least keep an element of doubt in the audience's mind.

Marty

Hey didn't mean to spoil the ending by my earlier post,I just felt that I wasn't giving away much.

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I felt it was given away very early on in the film when they were talking about medicines for the character that suffered ADD.To me the story was weak and fell apart.

Yes, but why does every synopsis about the film say that it plays in 1799? To me that just isn't being honest with the audience.

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It strikes me that this could be what has happened with Shyamalan.  I know The Sixth Sense wasn't his first movie....but it was his first hit.

Sorry if this is a bit off the subject, but it struck me as an interesting parallel.

That's an interesting parallel,but I don't think it's the same thing.When I saw Village,I wasn't looking for a carbon copy of The Sixth Sense,I was looking for something as intriguing and suspenseful maybe.Movies by the same director don't have to copy one another,but they can contain the director's signature.Rear Window was nothing like The Birds,but both films were successful and carried the same impact.

Well, I wasn't intending to say that all of his films should be just like his first hit. I'm just saying that there's a possibility that his films have suffered because he's been churning them out faster. Obviously, one film can be completely different from another and be just as good or better. And really, it's just a theory, it's not based on any facts. I was just thinking out loud.

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Yes, but why does every synopsis about the film say that it plays in 1799? To me that just isn't being honest with the audience.

I haven't read any of the synopsis on the film,but last week the trailers were running on the other screens.The way the trailers looked,you would've thought they were hyping a Halloween type film.

Marty

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If one regards Shyamalan as a humanist director, I would call this film his best yet. I found this film to be profound, but, should I have come for a horror film (which is what this was misleadingly marketed as), I would have been let down only by the ending.

 

Also, the stabbing scene was nothing short of brilliant. Of course, the MPAA was going to give the film an R rating because of a nasty flesh-ripping sound in the scene, so, to keep the PG-13, he made it silent.

 

For once, the MPAA had a good idea. It works better silent.

 

I feel that this film will be regarded more as an astounding allegory about our times and politics, but, the beauty is that, by attempting to prevent the "world" from spoiling these people, the elders (government) have comitted perversness and willfulness of attitude. One can easily draw parallels about terror alerts and their color coding, and I think that it a relevant interpertation.

 

The original ending was going to be Shyamalan (in his cameo) saying "Crazy fu**ing White People" when he came across the villagers, but, instead of going for the cheap laugh, he wrote that heartbreaking voice-over where the characters tell their story, but in a slightly different way that speaks to everyone who has suffered a tragedy. It's only correct that one has mixed feelings about this film, but I blame that on the marketing, not the director.

 

Getting back to the cinematography, that scene where William Hurt is making an argument to the other elders would have been garbage should they have used a still camera. The handheld shots were few, but very effective.

 

Which, in a way, brings me to Barry Lyndon. Nearly the entire film is polished and still, but the shot where Lady Lyndon posions herself, and the camera goes to handheld and begins to spin around is, IMHO, the best in the film. I have always loved handheld shots, but I force myself to use them sparingly.

 

The dialouge was forced at times, except for Hurt, who is just astonishing. I don't think the oscars are worth anything, but I would love to see this film get a Cinematography and Actor nomination.

 

Going onto yet another subject, why in the hell did Elephant and Irreversible not get Cinematography nods? Two of the best shot films in probably 15 years, and nothing?

 

If you take the dead people out of The Sixth Sense, and the monsters out of The Village, what one finds is a beautiful portrait of people coping with tragedy. I only hope the public doesn't view him as a suspense/horror guy forever. Otherwise, we'll be missing a good deal.

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I feel that this film will be regarded more as an astounding allegory about our times and politics, but, the beauty is that, by attempting to prevent the "world" from spoiling these people, the elders (government) have comitted perversness and willfulness of attitude. One can easily draw parallels about terror alerts and their color coding, and I think that it a relevant interpertation.

 

 

If you take the dead people out of The Sixth Sense, and the monsters out of The Village, what one finds is a beautiful portrait of people coping with tragedy. I only hope the public doesn't view him as a suspense/horror guy forever. Otherwise, we'll be missing a good deal.

Very perceptive ,the moral I got from the story was that innocence has it's price.Yet I still felt no connection with the people and their plight with the so called threat.In the scene where the "monsters" are invading and the male protagonist is hiding and we see the red robed figure in the BG,I kept wanting to say,"Just get a 12 guage and shoot him square in the ass!"

The handheld shots I was referring to were closer to the end where the ADD kid,disguised as the red monster was stalking the blind girl.That sequence almost had a student film look to me.

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The handheld shots I was referring to were closer to the end where the ADD kid,disguised as the red monster was stalking the blind girl.That sequence almost had a student film look to me.

I did not enjoy the slow motion in that scene either. I felt it was completely unnecessary, and a bit distracting (I'm not a big fan of the "sub-24fps-slo-mo" look).

 

Anyone agree?

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I don't recall slow motion being used in that particular scene, however, I really enjoyed the scene in which Ivy is holding her hand outside of the house and Lucious grabs it just before a "creature" intervenes. Lucious leads Ivy down into the cellar underneath the floor. I thought that was great, and that was in slow-mo.

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The handheld shots I was referring to were closer to the end where the ADD kid,disguised as the red monster was stalking the blind girl.That sequence almost had a student film look to me.

 

 

Anyone agree?

I did not enjoy the slow motion in that scene either. I felt it was completely unnecessary, and a bit distracting (I'm not a big fan of the "sub-24fps-slo-mo" look).

 

I loved the way the slow motion looked. I thought it was perfect. He also slow-moed that way at the end of Signs. It has a totally different feel than shooting in camera slow motion, but I thought it was necessary.

 

Corey

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Hi,

 

I saw it projected soft, so I can't really comment on that - but I fully agree with the Twilight-Zone comment, particularly in the treatment of disability. Once more, helpless wilting-flower blind girl turns out to be tough enough to save the day. She didn't even act the condition convincingly.

 

There's also the sustainability issue with the plotline as a whole. It seemed to me that it was implied that the village had been there for at least fifteen or twenty years. There were not enough people, was not enough land and certainly insufficient industry depicted to make the isolationist way of life sustainable. Where were they getting the wax for their candles? Where's the tannery? Where's the agriculture?

 

Phil

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I wanted to refine my opinion on this film (and I had 6 hours by myself when my wife's parents blessedly kidnapped her) so I watched The Village again over the weekend. To my suprise, there were a great deal of soft shots, something I didn't vididly remember from the first screening.

 

Overall, the second viewing did annoy me in a greater way than the first, but I went to admire the camera work, and, due to a nearly empty theatre, I took notes with a pen light.

 

I would give the Cinematography an 8/10

 

I wouldn't know how one rates directions, but everyone remembered their lines so I give that a 10/10.

 

The story (which I have read is the concern of a lawsuit over a twilight zone episode) I would give a 3/10.

 

The concept still gets high marks.

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... "These guys spend their whole lives writing their first record, and then when it's a hit they are pushed to write another one very quickly to capatilize on their popularity, and they end up writing a whole album in 6 months or a year. They just haven't had the time to write as good a record as they did the first time."...

This "seems" to make sense, but there are significant differences, so I don't really think it does.

 

In music business, most bands write their own songs, and also they have contracts with the record companies that has a lot in common with the old studio system in films.

They are pretty much "owned" by the record company, with the expectation that they will crank out new material in that particular style. They can't all of a sudden switch styles, even if the new stuff is excellent. A director can do lots of different types of films and nobody thinks anything of it, as long as the films are good.

So the pressure on a music act is quite different.

 

Shyamalan isn't going to get "dropped" from a deal if he doesn't make a film every 6-12 months, for instance, and unlike most rock groups, he has had damn near any script written in the last 3-4 years at his choosing to make a film from, yet he's stuck with his own material.

That's fine, but like I said, he should do something completely different like a comedy if he wants to break the "Shyamalan curse" that is the audience expectation of a big twist.

At this point, I think he's to blame, because he could be directing other kinds of stuff, and in fact, it would be good for his career, because it would shatter this expectation that's haunting him. (excuse the pun!)

 

Matt Pacini

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I also disagree totally with you guys on the handheld shots.

 

It pulled me completely out of the story, and I thought it was really out of place, especially for a period movie.

Made no sense at all to me that he would do that, espceially in the opening graveyard scene where he tilts up to the headstone.

Really jerky too.

The fact that EVERYONE here noticed it, to me is proof that it called attention to itself too much.

Even my wife, who knows and cares little about film technique, said something like "what's with the "COPS" filming style?"

Was he trying to make it look like NARCS or something?

Just no logic to this whatsoever.

Someone tell me excatly WHY you think it was necessary or helped the scenes?

 

Matt Pacini

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In music business, most bands write their own songs, and also they have contracts with the record companies that has a lot in common with the old studio system in films.

They are pretty much "owned" by the record company, with the expectation that they will crank out new material in that particular style. They can't all of a sudden switch styles, even if the new stuff is excellent. A director can do lots of different types of films and nobody thinks anything of it, as long as the films are good.

So the pressure on a music act is quite different.

 

Shyamalan isn't going to get "dropped" from a deal if he doesn't make a film every 6-12 months, for instance, and unlike most rock groups, he has had damn near any script written in the last 3-4 years at his choosing to make a film from, yet he's stuck with his own material.

 

 

Matt Pacini

Well, none of us know what Shyamalan's contract or deal says, so we don't know what will happen if he decides to change styles or doesn't make a film for a while. I'm sure he's had plenty of pressure applied to him to keep churning out films as fast as possible, to take advantage of the fact that he's a hot director right now. I know he had a multi-picture deal with Disney, so that's one place where the pressure would be coming from. Disney may be saying, "You have to make a movie every two years or we'll drop you from your deal." Or maybe not.....but we don't know.

I wasn't trying to say that it's the exact same thing, only that it was an interesting comparison.

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