M Knight Shamalayan

[swerb]

Man, Mitch and Hiko warned me, but I had to see "Lady In The Water" anyway. Good God that movie sucked.

WTF happened to this guy? Ever since the Sixth Sense, this guy has failed to impress me.

Unbreakable did nothing for me, mabe more because I can't hanle Travolta as an actor. Signs was OK ... I actually didn't hate that as much as most people. And now The Village and Lady In The Water have been ginormous flops.

[consigliere]

Willis was in Unbreakable.....and I actually sort of liked that movie.

I have Lady in the Water on the computer but haven't watched it yet, but may avoid it now.

[swerb]

That's right, I was thinking of Phenomenon. Unbreakable was OK ... nothing great.

Lady in the Water actually got a 6.2 and some good reviews on IMDB. It falsely built back up my expectations after Mitch correctly broke em down for me.

Not worth the hour and 49 minutes IMO ...

I will say this though, Paul Giamatti is an incredible actor. Quickly ascending to my Top 10. He was solid, the story just sucked.

Man, Giamatti's last three major roles (Sideways, Cinderella Man, this piece of crap) have all been very, very solid. A quick look at his IMDB bio shows he has 5-6 movies about to be released, filming, or in pre-production. He is officially a hot commodity, and for good reason.

[consigliere]

Yeah, I'll officially take Lady off the viewing list and just delete it. I should have done the same with The Omen and The Descent, two movies I watched last week. The Omen remake was bad.....and The Descent wasn't that bad if you like that kind of stuff (I've grown to be particularly claustrophobic (sp) over the years, and the first half hour of them cralwing through the caves and descending had me about to hurl.

[Guest]

Sigh...I talk and talk, but people don't listen...lol.

Some people just have to learn the hard way.

It was "Clarissa Movie Night" last night from Netflix, so I was subjected to Antonio Banderas in "Take the Lead".

Not really a bad flick as far as unrealistic chickflicks go. Probably one I would have destroyed in a review, but it wasn't that painful to sit through.

Next on my Paul Giamatti list is "The Illusionist", which I have sitting at home. He plays the police inspector trying to deal with Edward Norton.

Swerb's right, he's fast becoming an actor near the top of the list.

[docstank]

Has anyone out there seen the prestige?
I thought that flick was pretty solid.
stank

[Guest]

2nd Worst Film of the year after Lady in the Water.

The sci-fi ending was stupid, illogical, and out of whack from the rest of the movie, and both lead characters showed that they'd rather screw over each other rather than screw Scarlett Johansson, which is unforgivable.

[swerb]

I have the Black Dahlia coming via Netflix, again going against Mitch's urging.

I'll be honest though, I can only dislike a movie with Scarlett Johannson in it so much.

[Guest]

Technically, you're not going against my recommendation on that one...I'll end up renting it as well.

The buzz wasn't great on that one...the most negative thing I heard about it was that it was pretty slow at some places.

OK, I did rip on it in the Crystal Ball...mostly because it's fun to ridicule Josh Hartnett, but it may not be that bad.

Let me know what you think.

[swerb]

Will do Mitch. And for the record, you took shots at it twice in The CB, once when it came out on film, and again on DVD. No respect for Scarlett, I tell ya.

And normally, I agree with you on Hartnett, I've hated everything hes done, and see him as the poor mans Keanu Reeves, the ultimate insult coming from me.

However ... I actually liked him in Lucky Number Slevin. You see that yet? I really liked that flick. It was actually the perfect role for his pretty boy, airhead persona.

Scarlett, Hartnett on a career high one film hot streak, I've done it again: inflated expectations from a film likely to be junk. I'm the king of doing that.

[furls]

I have the Black Dahlia coming via Netflix, again going against Mitch's urging.

I'll be honest though, I can only dislike a movie with Scarlett Johannson in it so much.

This movie is sooo bad I actually shut it off in mid movie. It takes a lot for me to do that, but I did. Scarlett Johannson or not, it is a miserable, miserable movie.

THe movie is shot in that old police story, 1940s style, and the story is just not interesting. The movie was so slow that even after 45 minutes, I felt that I had so little emotionally invested in the movie that it was not worth watching.

By all means you can try it out; hell the ending may be fantastic, but I couldn't tell you. Yes, it was that bad.

[Mr. MacPhisto]

I haven't watched Lady in the Water due to the poor reviews, but I actually have liked most of M. Night's movies. Sixth Sense is actually the one I like least. I saw that ending coming from a mile away and the rest of the film, while good, just never really captured my imagination.

Unbreakable I found riveting. I loved the concept of it and the acting. The camera work was exceptional - not odd for an M Night film.

Signs was fantastic and a wonderful deceit on the part of a filmmaker. Everyone goes to the theatres expecting an alien invasion film and they get one that revolves around lost faith and the recovery of it. There's a nice homage in there to War of the Worlds too with the aliens getting killed by water. The air got 'em in HG Wells' vision, so I thought that was well done.

The Village was also good, a strong story featuring a premise I can sympathize with.