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Showing posts with the label m. night shyamalan

GLASS - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

THE VISIT - REVIEW

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M. Night Shyamalan had something of a mini-comeback with The Visit , a found-footage horror movie from 2015 about two kids going to live with their grandparents, whom they've never met, for a week. Audiences and critics didn't pan this one quite as much as the director's last few movies and it did well at the box-office so it was considered a success. The premise for The Visit sounded pretty silly and the trailers underlined that quite a bit as it showed two old people acting strangely and two kids being terrified of them for no real reason. The film itself, it turns out, mixes comedy and horror convincingly and is refreshingly self-aware. This was something The Happening attempted years prior but the whole thing ended up being unintentionally funny and the "scary" parts came off as goofy throughout, despite the sinister premise. The two kids who supposedly film the events in this movie, Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), are decent actors

LIVE STREAM #3 - TASTIN'...

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In this live stream, which is shockingly synced correctly, I try some unusual drinks & snacks. I also talk about M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit .

LIVE STREAM #2 - SPLIT VLOG

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I talk M. Night Shyamalan movies (including Split ) and eat licorice in this second live stream.

SPLIT - REVIEW

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Ever since The Happening , every new M. Night Shyamalan movie has been met with cynicism. His last film The Visit was surprisingly well received, however, and so was  Split , a horror thriller starring James McAvoy as a man with 23 split personalities who kidnaps three teenagers. The serial killer premise sets the tone for the rest of the film, which is easily one of Shyamalan's creepiest efforts. We follow Kevin (McAvoy) as he incarcerates three innocent girls while still attending his psychiatrist's sessions. Meanwhile, Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) and the other two teens try to figure out what's going on and look for a way to escape. Some of Kevin's personalities include a 9 year-old kid called Hedwig, the super intimidating Dennis and female mastermind Patricia. Your enjoyment of this film will depend completely on how you rate James McAvoy's performance which is both excellent but also wacky as hell. A lesser actor could have easily rendered Split either unwatc

THE SIXTH SENSE - REVIEW

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The film that kick-started director M. Night Shyamalan's career and established him as one of the most promising filmmakers in Hollywood, The Sixth Sense was a big hit with critics and audiences alike but how does it hold up today? Pretty well, actually. The film sees Bruce Willis play a child psychologist who, after a bad run in with a grown-up ex-patient of his, decides to help a troubled young boy (an impressive Haley Joel Osment) overcome his problems. At first, Willis' character suspects that his parents' divorce might be the cause of the boy's issues but when the latter reveals to him that he can, in fact, see dead people, he is made to promptly rethink his original theory. The Sixth Sense is a stylish, slow-burning, character-driven movie with the occasional, surprisingly effective jump-scare. It's a really well thought-out, beautifully crafted little supernatural thriller with some solid suspense, spot-on performances and an overall gloomy, somewhat u

SIGNS - REVIEW

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After ghosts and superheroes, it was soon time for M. Night Shyamalan to go down the alien route. Taking a page out of Steven Spielberg's book, this was the up-and-coming director's nod to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind : crop circles, ludicrous TV reports, paranoia, UFOs, the whole deal. Signs certainly starts off promisingly and gives you the impression that you're about to sit through a thrilling mystery chock-full of fun Twilight Zone -style twists and turns. James Newton Howard's Bernard Herrmann-esque score hinting at an entertaining roller-coaster ride of light-hearted horror sci-fi shenanigans! For the most part, Signs does deliver just that. You've got Shyamalan's usual brand of slow build-ups and schlocky jump-scares, which work really well in that genre. Joaquin Phoenix, the two kids (a very young Abigail Breslin and Rory Culkin) and most of the supporting cast seem to be having fun with their characters and the first hour or so offers some g

THE VILLAGE - REVIEW

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Here's one I've been defending from the beginning. Before M. Night Shyamalan suffered his first flop ( Lady In The Water ) and made what most consider to be his worst film to date ( The Happening ), he divided audiences with The Village . Back in the day, Mr Shyamalan was all about the twists and this one either made people mad or... didn't. Personally, I liked The Village and still do. A period piece, the film bears Shyamalan's trademark slow-burning pace and dark undertones but demands that you pay attention and immerse yourself in that strange little world. The village in question is overseen by a group of elders, which include William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver, who may or may not be hiding some sort of secret. Joaquin Phoenix and Bryce Dallas Howard play two of the young people living in the village with Adrian Brody standing out like a sore thumb as a mentally challenged buddy of theirs. Look out for a young Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Pitt in there too. E

LADY IN THE WATER - REVIEW

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Before The Happening , there was... Lady In The Water . Here's a movie you'll either appreciate or dismiss completely. Based on a bedtime story M. Night Shyamalan told his child, Lady In The Water sets out to not so much be a typical horror/fantasy flick but instead to capture the made-up-as-it-goes-along feel of bedtime stories. An odd, kinda random project, for sure, but a daring one. One year prior, Terry Gilliam's Tideland had also tried something different with a similar genre by telling its story as seen through the boundary-free mind of a child and asking the audience to try and remember that while watching the film. Whether you like Lady In The Water or not, I don't find it necessary to be overly harsh with it since it's really more of an experiment and, for the most part, I think it works. Paul Giamatti is the stuttering caretaker who runs a pool-side apartment building and finds a young woman who seemingly just came out of the water in the pool

AFTER EARTH - VLOG 22/06/13

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AFTER EARTH - REVIEW

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Poor M. Night Shyamalan... It's really weird to see a director be so respected one second and the next have every single one of his projects become the subject of ridicule. Now, I've seen The Happening . I get it. That was one BAD movie, but even as that, I still liked it. It was really entertaining, had some decent ideas in there, despite everything, and was altogether very funny (intentionally so, alas). The Last Airbender did not anger me as much as it did many others. Don't get me wrong, as an adaptation of the cartoon series, it fails completely but as an effects-heavy kids' action flick, I enjoyed it more than a lot of the kid-friendly crap we get these days. It was entertaining and I had fun with it, despite the poor script and shoddy performances from the young cast. With After Earth , there was a real opportunity to go back to something a little more imaginative, a little more edgy. In a way, After Earth  is more imaginative and edgier but it stil