The Cheese List: m night shyamalan

joblo.com

New M. Night movie… gah

There was a time in my youth when I used to await the next M. Night Shyamalan movie like a little kid waiting for Santa Claus.

Hmmm… yeah ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Night’s got nothing on the jolly fat man in the red suit, but by god the spirit of what I said is true.

I loved me some Night. You can tell I’m pretentious because I call him Night, by the way.

Now though, I dread the next M. Night Shyamalan movie like the characters on “Futurama” dreaded the killer robot Santa that stalked the streets of the year 3000. And that is no exaggeration.

His next project is called “After Earth” and boy does it sound like a steaming pile. It stars Will and Jayden Smith as a father and son duo (GASP!) who crash land on Earth in the distant future after humans have been forced to abandon the planet. With his dad badly injured, it’s up to the young man to save the day and therein lies the problem.

I don’t want to watch a Jayden Smith movie featuring Will Smith. Just give me the elder Smith and leave the kids and the wife--- especially the wife, never liked her--- at home.

If there’s any upside to be found, it’s that Night is only directing this movie and not writing it… or acting in it… as well. I’ve been saying he should do that for years, so you’re welcome America.

Screenwriting duties fall to Gary Whitta (“The Book of Eli”) and Academy Award-winning writer Stephen Gaghan (“Traffic”).

Check out more pics from the set right here.

Source: Joblo

‘Lock-Out channels Carpenter

I like to think of myself as one of those creative types. After all, I’ve got a bit of scraggily facial hair and let’s face it, I didn’t teach myself to be left handed all those years ago so I could easily use gel pens.

Being a creative type, nothing pains me more than when I read an article for this blog and have literally nothing to add. You simply can’t say it any better than the initial writer did.

So touché Gael Fashingbauer Cooper from MSNBC. You win.

He correctly pointed out that Guy Pierce’s new movie, “Lock-out” is essentially the unofficial third entry to John Carpenter and Kurt Russell’s legendary “Escape” saga.

The only thing missing is a guy in an eye patch.

Basically, it’s the future and is always the case in the future we need something to do with our prisoners. Rather than wall them off in Manhattan, we decide to shoot them into space and leave ’em locked up in an orbiting space station.

Naturally, the president’s daughter goes poking around up there and gets herself stranded just as the criminals all bust out of their cells. There’s only one man who can save her and it’s a loose cannon by the name of Sn… ow. Snow. Damn, so close.

Yeah good times. Watch the trailer and enjoy. Should be something.

Source: MSNBC

Credentials: 18% Certified Rotten (rottentomatoes.com) / 5.2 out of 10 (imdb.com) / 34 out of 100 (metacritic.com)

Plot: A high school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) and his painfully uninteresting lady friend (Zooey Deschanel) watch as all around them people start offing themselves in increasingly outlandish and cartoonish ways. Is it the end of days? Who’s causing it--- our government, terrorists or even more terrifying: plants? What’s… happening? Better question: What happened to the guy who directed such films as “The Sixth Sense,” “Signs” and “Unbreakable?” Can we have that guy back because this other one sucks.

Thoughts: Ladies and gentlemen, “The Happening” represents what I believe to be a first in the history of Hollywood: the unintentional self-parody.

If you gave Trey Parker and Matt Stone a bazillion dollars, they couldn't do a better job of making fun of "Happening" writer / director M. Night Shyamalan than Shyamalan himself does by accident.

The horrible writing, the goofy twists, the wooden characters. All Shyamalan staples since “Signs.”

And I don’t just pull Parker and Stone’s names out of the blue either.

Anyone who has seen an episode of “South Park,” is well versed in the pair’s penchant for finding morbid yet side-splitting humor in extreme, over-the-top violence.

For his first ever R-rated film, Shyamalan seems to key in on that, only he doesn’t realize that on “South Park,” the violence is played for laughs.

Forgive me, but the scene where people are shown falling off a roof top was intense for maybe the first half dozen or so victims. But once the jumper count starts nearing twenty, you can’t help but laugh.

Shyamalan has one guy do an impression of Monty Python’s Black Knight with a bunch of tigers, while another decides to start up a lawnmower and then take a nap in front of it.

Actually, that second one is really good because no one was steering the lawnmower. That has to be the least effective method ever devised to take yourself out with. What’s to say the lawnmower doesn’t promptly make a hard left, hit a tree and stall? Then what do you do?

All of that kind of cartoon violence is just too silly to be taken seriously. It’s the same reason we used to watch horrible things happen to Wile E. Coyote every week and laugh. Or we could watch the “Three Stooges” beat each other with wrenches. At a certain point a line gets crossed and our brains switch over from being appalled by something to being amused by it.

Shyamalan, if you’ll look behind you, you’ll see that line.

And it’s not just Shyamalan accidentally making fun of himself either.

Mark Wahlberg, in an effort to prove his worth as a multidimensional actor, ends up coming across more one dimensional than ever. You’ll pine for just one wise-crack. Or at least one scene where he goes shirtless. Either would be preferable to his mild mannered turn as a science teacher.

I found myself wondering if his whole performance was the result of a lost bet. I could see Wahlberg on the set of “The Departed” getting triple dog dared by Alec Baldwin to whisper for an entire movie.

And of course, no one walks away from a triple dog dare. Not even Marky Mark.

Zooey Deshcanel does everything in her power to burn through all of her indie street cred by turning in a performance so overdone, not even the Disney Channel would accept it.

But “The Happening” is not all bad.

Shyamalan manages to elicit some genuine suspense early on, when his characters think they’re facing some sort of terrorist attack. Maybe it’s all the recent talk about bin Laden, but the idea of being stuck in a strange place, while the world falls apart around you is pretty terrifying.

Sure, he promptly ruins that by throwing in an epic speech on the benefits of hot dogs and endless shots of characters trembling in fear at the sight of trees blowing in the wind. No one’s perfect.

At least Al Gore would be proud of the ham-handed eco-crusader message Shyamalan wedges into the movie.

Breakdown

:01