My Signs Question

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Now I think M Night Shyamalan is a terrific director, very good with moods, composition and almost uniquely for a new director unhurried. He is also pretty good at misdirection too. However I'm not sure if the stories he is choosing to tell - whilst interesting in themselves - are much smaller than the blockbusting presentation he gives us.

Signs is basically Independence Day told from the perspective of a farmer who lives in the middle of nowhere (it never explains who actually runs the farm you know). He is telling the bits of the story we never get to see - but there is a reason for that - those bits aren't as interesting. (Superhero origin story, but we never see the big battle). Is he just playing a big (and quite effective) joke on his audiences, is he cinema's version of early Stephen King (smalltown terror) or a new Hitchcock? Eh?

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 16 September 2002 10:54 (twenty-three years ago)

all the violins going during the opening credits were surely there to make you think hitchcock. i found signs scary but rub. however i am very easily scared, particularly by things jumping out at me and by the countryside (where no-one can hear you scream). my main problems with signs where that things were laid on with a trowel (see flashbacks at end) and that it played for laughs with it should have just been scaring you. i did like jaoquin leaping back from the telly though.

― angela (angela), Monday, 16 September 2002 11:16 (twenty-three years ago)

signs has the MOST godawful bit of religious precog in it , woven into a genuinely brilliant bit grisly business (bettah versh = on homicide abt 4 yrs ago. w.andre braugher in the mel gibson role)

best bit = silver foil hats!! he seems to direct kids well (i haven't seen the last film he did, which apparently bucks this trend)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 16 September 2002 11:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Kid in Unbreakable was good - just not showy like these ones and Osment. Shymalan seems to do some sort of extended Simpsons trick - the whole film appears to be about aliens when actually its a proof of the existence of God (an obviously humang God too).

Alien technology < kagoules.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 16 September 2002 11:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Now if Kang and Kodos had turned up at the end of Signs I'd have gone to see it. "Our superior intellects are no match for their puny weapons"

― Alan (Alan), Monday, 16 September 2002 12:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the religiousity was very annoying. i want an atheist scary film dammit. i also want to bitch about something else (related to puny weapons) but it's a spoiler. will i anyway?

― angela (angela), Monday, 16 September 2002 12:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought the laughs/thrills balance was excellent. Summed it up afterwards as - bad story with a dreadful message, very well told.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 16 September 2002 12:25 (twenty-three years ago)

I want to see that on the poster:

Tom Ewing Freaky Trigger: "Bad Story with a dreadful message, very well told". I guess this is what annoys a lot of his viewers (not enough to scare them off) is that both Signs and Unbreakable have pretty bad stories with odd quasi-religious subtexts.

I'm quite interested in the God aspect of the film. The events may restore his faith (and allow him to clean the wall around where the crucifix usta be) but why does it restore that particular faith?

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 16 September 2002 12:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Signs was a lot better focused than the Sixth Sense and especially Unbreakable (mild interest then thirty minutes of dull, repeat). The fact that I knew the they would meet an alien eventually kept me interested, whereas in the other two I just kept thinking: "Where is he going with this?" Tom's also right about laughs/thrills.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Monday, 16 September 2002 12:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought it was loads better than Unbreakable. Isabel liked it less but then as a lapsed Christian rather than a never-was Christian she takes more umbrage at faith-restoring fixes. I'm sure an alien invasion would change her mind.

Also a life without coincidences is the standard state of being for Hollywood movie characters surely?

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 16 September 2002 12:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I do get the sneaky suspicion though that Shymalan is over praised merely because he harks back to what is assumed to be a classier era of cinema (ie Hitchcock). His suspense stories are not bloody, not exceptionally violent and are at least presented in a way that suggests meanigful thought provoking subject matter (when it is actually all hokum). Much has been said about his debt to Speilberg too - mainly due to the kidz in film thing. Signs obviously has a tip of the hat to Close Encounters (though we never actually saw the mashed potatoes). Should he direct someone elses material though?

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 16 September 2002 12:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I've not seen it yet. So, I haven't read this thread yet!

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 16 September 2002 12:57 (twenty-three years ago)

The only good thing about the movie was Micheal Showalter. So that's what happened to Doug!

― rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 16 September 2002 16:02 (twenty-three years ago)

might see this on wednesday...as long as I can drag my friend along (he prob wouldn't go).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 16 September 2002 16:06 (twenty-three years ago)

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