Mar 01 2011
You’d Think They’d be Obligated to Print a Retraction
This is a Newsweek cover from back just before Signs came out and boy, they must feel silly now.
But at the time, it was actually logical to think that M. Night could follow in Spielberg’s footsteps. Sixth Sense was a classic, Unbreakable was a solid follow-up, the trailer for Signs looked great. It stood to reason that this guy was the next big thing.
What happened? I’m not sure any of us will ever know for sure. He’s gone from Best Picture nominee to The Last Airbender cleaning up the Razzies. Did he receive some sort of unpublicized concussion that took the cleverness out of his brain? It’s sad, because I really did think he had what it took to be our next classic director. Now he’s duking it out with Uwe Bole and Brett Ratner for the title of worst filmmaker on the planet.
More Unreal Posts
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- The Morning Link: The Remaining Last Airbender Questions
- Alfred Hitchcock’s Angry Birds
- Photo of the Week: What’s Going on Here Spike?
- The Five Types of Bending
how is brett ratner the worst filmmaker on the planet
Did you not see the second half of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds remake? Worse than anything I’ve seen from Shyamalan. Then again, I didn’t see Airbender. Anybody dumb enough to think that was going to work deserved to be parted from their cash and forfeits all rights to complain. The there’s AI and Spielberg putting his name on both Transformers films plus Crystal Skull. I’d say M Night is right on par with the man: a few great films, some decent ones, and then a whole ton of crap.
I thought The Last Airbender was passable, but I never saw the cartoon and I knew that it had terrible reviews going in. The Happening was terrible, Lady in the Water was IMO where things started going downhill. That being said, I don’t think he’s even close to the title of worst filmmaker. I mean have you even seen any of Michael Bay’s films?
another reason why newsweek is bankrupt. bad judgment, triteness and irrelevancy is no way to go through life…
Are you sure it wasn’t The Village that things started going downhill?
Found an old copy of Time in the stack. Picture of Baghdad being exploded. Main story was about how awesome USA’s rockets are and why it was so easy to win against (and easily dispose of) Saddam in Iraq. Hilarious stuff.
“The Happening” was just terrible. “Airbender” was meh.
The rest of his films are great. I saw “Lady In The Water” twice in the theater.
I think the problem people have is once they saw “Sixth Sense” they wanted every other film of his to be all about the twist at the end.
That is not the right approach when watching and I think that is why people complained.
They were looking for clues to the conclusion and got pissed when they could figure it out early.
To be fair:
Lady in the Water > The Terminal
Advantage Shamhammer…
Jaws > Wide Awake
Deuce…
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull > The Happening
Advantage Spielberg…
The Sixth Sense > The Sugarland Express
Deuce…
The Village > A.I.
Advantage Shamhammer
Close Encounters of the Third Kind > Signs
Deuce…
Schindler’s List > The Last Airbender
Advantage Spielberg…
Jurassic Park > Unbreakable
Game Set and Match to Mr Spielberg…
Each has had their stinkers, but IMO they are both auteurs…
You watch a film, and you know if it’s a Spielberg, a Shamhammer, a Hitchcock or a Ratner(you can tell by the smell).
Peace out!
In the Shamhammer’s defense comparing
Any director to Spielberg is a mismatch.
Lol I knew this guy was a hack after seeing Sixth Sense. For months all I kept hearing was “the ending, THE ENDING!!!” Cut to Dec. 2000 when I finally sit down and watch it after watching Fight Club the day before. This was my reaction:
“That’s it? That’s the big twist? I JUST SAW THAT TWIST ENDING!!!”. Sure it was a different twist, but a twist regardless. I already had lost my faith in this guy long before everyone else started to. So yeah, Fight Club did it better. Also, when I heard mixed reviews for Unbreakable I didn’t bother to check it out. I watched signs with my brother and a friend. We enjoyed it thoroughly because of how bad it was. To us it was a bad/good movie. To this day, we still quote: “Nothing is gonna stop us from enjoying this meal so ENJOY IT!! STOP CRYING!!!”.
Btw, Night re-hashed the “he was dead all along” idea from an episode of “Are you Afraid of the Dark”.
Maybe Shyamalan should focus his efforts less on mindblowing plot twists and more on, you know, writing good scripts. Needing the final “OMG moment” over a good story is not the only problem with his recent stuff, but it’s among them.
really, ppl saying this guy is one of the worst directors ever need to go and jump out of the window, i mean it, go, jump.
ok, now then, tons of films get to the movies every year, not even half of them are watchable. Uwe boll’s movies pains me for being badly done and just pure trash. How can you say Shyamalan is par with that guy? His films may not please every mainstream audiance, but they are well done at least.
you would be amazed by the ton of crap movies that come to my store every month. Shyamalan is a genius near that, not from the top 10, but from the top 100 at least.
just fucking leave the guy alone, I cant understant all the hate.
It just pisses me off because I like all his movies, and ppl bash it while the hurt locker wins an oscar.. unrealistic piece of crap.