Lady In The Water

[Ultrahip]

TIME: Who do you make movies for?

M. NIGHT: The collective soul.


Click http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1214909,00.html for more.

[Ravi]

bryce was lovely on the show the other nite. the whole time i kept thinking of manderlay and i wondered if letterman even knows about that movie. he thinks she's such a sweetheart, like a mini-julia roberts. anyway she's much more than that, also she's the only reason i'll be watching this and if the village is anything to go by, the only reason i'll end up defending it. oh but she's really pale in it.. 

She literally paled in comparison to Conan last night.

[Pubrick]

She literally paled in comparison to Conan last night.

that screens tomoro here. well 4 hours ago but i will catch the repeat in 9 hours and report back.  thanks for the heads up, i will go prepared 8)

[Split Infinitive]

Lady in the Water (2006)

Just what the hell is a "narf"?

1. an exclamation popularized by a dim-witted cartoon mouse with an Australian accent.
2. a Far Eastern bedtime story.
3. a sea nymph sent to rescue mankind from its own shortcomings.

M. Night Shyamalan goes with (2) and (3), selectively ignoring the precedent of "Pinky and the Brain" for Lady in the Water, his first foray in a while into filmmaking without the Big Reveal. This is the film Shyamalan supporters have been waiting for, in which he proves that he can actually make a film that doesn't depend on a twist or surprise at the end to knock the audience on its duff and keep it coming back for more. But when a film inadvertently tosses about an Animaniacs term in earnest, it indicates a slight ignorance that a film portending social relevance can little afford.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays the titular nymph who wanders about for most of the film in nothing but a man's dress shirt, as any well-bred (and sexy) sea nymph should. We learn in a protracted prologue sequence that sea folk from The Blue World are humankind's self-appointed advisors, protectors, and all around angels. Howard's character, Story, arrives at the Philadelphia apartment complex The Cove to inspire a writer who will change the world with a revolutionary, powder keg work—a work so incendiary, he's afraid to let even his sister read it.

Ladies and gentlemen, M. Night Shyamalan himself plays that Writer Who Will Change the World.

Lady in the Water fits comfortably into the groove laid down by his three previous features; fables about faith, loss, and the interconnectedness of life, the universe, and apartment tenants. The film is not without charm, and is, in fact, mildly pleasant in its own confident, sober blarney. Anchoring the watery yarn is one of my favorite sad-sack character actors (a special subdivision of character acting, I suspect; listed in the SAG rulebook somewhere), Paul Giamatti, now a viable leading man. Cleveland Heep is his name, and he's hiding from a horrid past behind the muddy green coveralls of a building superintendent. His primary duties seems to be collecting garbage, fixing sinks, and keeping ordinance-shuckers out of the pool after 7 p.m. Story saves him from drowning one night when he slips and falls into the deep end whilst investigating her splashes. She enlists Cleveland in finding The Writer and a cadre of protectors who will help her get back to her world.

The humans must figure out a way to keep the vicious scrunt—a wolflike monster made of grass—from attacking and killing the half-nude messiah. They are archetypes that live in the building, including a Guardian, a Symbolist, a Guild, and a Healer. They concoct elaborate plans to distract and scare the lawn-dwelling creature, when they could probably flush him out more easily by simply shutting off the sprinklers that saturate the yard every night.

Shyamalan indulges in some critic-baiting by including Bob Balaban as The Most Sardonic Critic in the Universe. His snooty, dismissive declarations lead Cleveland astray, and then get The Critic himself in trouble with the vicious scrunt. Though his hilarious scenes play with the conventions of a thriller/children's fantasy, the glee with which Shyamalan skewers the critical profession indicates some harbored resentment over the reception of The Village.

The fabulist quality of Shyamalan's recent output has played with genre conventions, but not in such a postmodern fashion. By making The Writer the martyr and The Critic the obligatory doomed minor character, Shyamalan is set up as Savior and anyone daring to criticize his vision as a scabrous Pharisee. Which boils down to a petty streak that severely undercuts the film's more beautiful moments (and there are several, courtesy largely of God Among Cinematographers, Christopher Doyle).

Giamatti is saddled with the unenviable task of centering a film with too many side characters and breathing chemistry into scenes shared with a character that is mostly silent and impenetrable. Howard has the countenance of an angel and plays Story with the tremulous unsurety of an innocent child, but that's not very engaging. I suspect that her character is intended to bring out the paternal/maternal instincts in the audience, and to that end, he is somewhat successful.

As a revolutionary, Shyamalan fails miserably. I appreciated the innocent purity of asserting that the world, in such deadly peril right now, can be saved by good ideas and good writing. But he doesn't present these ideas, just the idea of the ideas. Children will take comfort in this, but the adults will remain at a loss, because the ideas of good ideas do nothing. What good is speaking of water when you're thirsty? What good is praying to the idea of God when you could just pray to God and be done with it?

Entering the political arena, Shyamalan hedges his bets to avoid getting bruised, but doesn't succeed. As far as I can tell, he's simply not a political filmmaker. When The Writer speaks of people not liking his ideas and fearing that his life is endangered by giving them voice, it's not a Martyr I hear speaking—it's an oversensitive artist who doesn't want to get stung by critics calling him on his bluff.

He offers no concrete ideas, just a pantheistic cry of good cheer from the sidelines. We need change, but there's nothing in Lady in the Water besides simple inspiration. Nothing wrong with that. But feigning depth when one should embrace elegant simplicity is a greater crime than proudly pinning one's heart to a sleeve.

[Myxo]

Whatever shred of reputation as a formative filmmaker Shyamalan has been clinging to in his past few films has completely vanished with this steaming pile of crap. I won't even bother explaining myself. All I'm going to say is, I got my money back.

[picolas]

"I just want to punch this movie right in the face."
- Don Cornelius

pre-emptive, unfair review review featuring spoils

from what i've been reading M. Night has written and directed and starred in his idea of his life. everyone (represented by stereotypes/simple people not as great as him whose mission it becomes to "protect and [nurture]" his ideas) is saved by his amazing ideas. and the movie itself sucks. that's amazing. it's almost as though he's trying to tell himself he's doing stupid things.

[MacGuffin]

Exclusive Profile: BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD GIVES AN ETHERAL PERFORMANCE IN LADY IN THE WATER
Actress reunites with M. Night Shyamlan and does an entire movie with only a shirt to wear  
Source: iF Magazine

Bryce Dallas Howard first came into the public's eye in M. Night Shyamalan's THE VILLAGE playing a blind girl who was the only hope for a community of people living in the woods.  Now, years later Howard and Shyamalan are reunited for the director's latest picture which is a fairy tale and not a suspense thriller.  Howard costars with Paul Giamatti, and she plays a water nymph trapped in our world to spread messages of love and acceptance through humanity. 

The experience that Howard had work with Shyamalan was different this time starting with her lack of clothing throughout the duration of the shoot.

"I was partially naked this time," says Howard. "It was great. It was wonderful. I'll just start there. I'm a part of a theater company in New York and it was exactly what I had hoped it would be. Like with a company you're able to work with people over and over again and so you get past all of the small talk and you can really get to the essence of what we're trying to do and that's exactly what this is experience was like. With THE VILLAGE which was wonderful it was still like an introduction. We were introducing each other to each other and near the end of shooting we were just like, 'Oh, this is how you tick and this is how I tick.' And we were able to start from that place when we did LADY IN THE WATER and then get even deeper."

During several key scenes in the film, Howard has to be carried by costar Giamtti, and according to her the experience was interesting if for no other reason than, she and he are almost exactly the same size. 

"I'm like the same size as Paul. I was thinner when I did that film because she was ill and I wanted to create that fragile look as much as my bone structure would allow it, but oh God," she admits. "We had to do so many takes of that and I think that we'd been doing that for a while and then we had to run, he had to run up these stairs and we had slick plywood that he would have to run on."

The experience tired both actors, but they were troopers and continued the intense physical scenes in a myriad of conditions.

"We were like, 'This is asinine. This is totally absurd,'" says Howard. "So he's carrying me over this plywood that's really slick from all the water, from the sprinklers, up these stairs and through the door and then finally one time he fell and held onto me and we slid across the entire room. We finally crashed into the wall and he was like, 'You okay.' 'Yeah. I'm all good.' He was so protective and he's very, very strong to be able to do that literally for fourteen hours."

Howard's character in the movie is not a mermaid as some have supposed.  She is more of an ethereal creation, and Howard has her own method of explanation.

"The way that I describe her is that she's like a water nymph," says Howard. "That's what she is. It was a very freeing experience because Night created all of this mythology. He created this whole world and so at the beginning of the process I came in like, 'Oh, I'm going to be a good little actor and I'm going to do all this research about fairy tales and I'm going to have all these opinions and present it to him in a way that's diplomatic and wonderful.' "

Howard did have input into the creation of the character and worked closely with Shyamalan to create Story.

"He was of course listening and collaborating, but then as I started listening to him and not trying to be impressive, I realized, 'Oh, I just kind of have to show up and he's going to know what to tell me to do and that's going to be the best way that we should go through this process,'" says Howard. "It certainly was and I'm glad about that because this is all from his crazy, brilliant, wonderful mind. That's what I wanted to be for him, someone that was going to allow that vision to manifest itself."

Of course, one of the most daunting challenges for the actress was to wear a shirt, which was usually wet, as her only piece of costuming for the entire filming schedule. 

"It was breezy," she says. "That was an interesting thing because I have a tendency just in my own personal life to dress very modestly and to be slightly inhibited physically and I was constantly trying to be like, 'Well, if I put on undergarments is that going to make me comfortable so that I won't be inhibited or do I just go there?' "

The talented actress not only has LADY IN THE WATER approaching theatres, but also AS YOU LIKE IT with Kenneth Branagh.  In the picture, Howard is playing Rosalind.

"I did AS YOU LIKE IT right before I did this, but it hasn't come out yet,"  says the actress, not completely sure of when the film will be released,  "I'm not sure. I actually don't even know. I was about to say that it was spring, but I think that I'm talking about something I don't know about."

Of course, the other big picture coming up for Howard is the superhero extravaganza SPIDER-MAN 3.  In this new installment in the series, Howard plays Gwen Stacy, a new love interest for Peter Parker.

Howard had a great experience working on the film and in particular working with Sam Raimi.

"It was really fun on that because it was like, 'To be a part of this group - guys, lets all together tell this story,'" explains Howard, "And then Sam Raimi was there to guide us, to inspire us, and then of all the choices that we offered him to take the choices that were best for the story. That was a very empowering experience."

What does Howard have to say about her character in Spidey?

"Gwen Stacy? She's a pretty famous comic book character," adds Howard. "She's one of Peter Parker's first loves. In this film it's a love triangle between Mary Jane and Peter Parker and herself. She is young and she's kind of sexy. I don't want to reveal too much."

What should fans expect from this third installment of the SPIDER-MAN franchise?  More of the same excellent caliber as the last two films? According to Howard this movie will be a very dramatic piece in the series, and to learn more people should watch the teaser.

"I would say in particular with this film, with SPIDER-MAN 3 it's a very, very dramatic film," she concludes. "I mean, you should check out the teaser if you can on the computer because the conflict is very high and the stakes are very high with these guys."

When it all comes down to the end of the day, does Howard have aspirations of being a celebrity or a movie star?  According to the actress she just wants to do the best job she can possibly do.

" [Do I want to be] A movie star? I don't usually want for things that you can't control. I want to be the best actor that I can be. I want to be working in this business, absolutely. If that means being a movie star then okay, that's fine. But to me movie stars, celebrity mean something very different than beingan actor."

[Pozer]

clerks 2 is going to blow this movie out of the water 

[Ravi]

24% at Rotten Tomatoes.  Is it really that bad or is it just Shyamalan backlash?

[xerxes]

24% at Rotten Tomatoes.  Is it really that bad or is it just Shyamalan backlash?

It's really that bad, and I don't even dislike him all that much.

[picolas]

clerks 2 is going to blow this movie out of the water 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452637/board/thread/48694466

[squints]

clerks 2 is going to blow this movie lady out of the water 

[matt35mm]

I'm not that interested in seeing this, but I'm interested in how it looks.  Does the Doyle cinematography stand out, or is it not really his best work, or what?

[pete]

it's not out in Taiwan yet (another week I think) but Doyle's studio stuff don't usually stand out too much.  he works really fast, and in studio terms it usually means highkey TV-esque setup for the gaffers and their union boys.  the james ivory production looked very okay, as did Psycho in Color and Liberty Heights.  I also read a book by him that talked about his international adventures and he said similar things.  Made looked pretty good though, so maybe this could be another Made.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Spoilers, probably...



There was nothing good about this movie.  This surpassed any label like 'masturbatory' and/or 'self absorbed'. 

How the fuck are you really going to cast yourself as a prophet whose message will inspire someone to be a revolutionary?  How are you going to have a critic get mauled, not even metaphorically, by the monster in your movie as he narrates the predictability of the scene?

Beyond that...

What's the history of the wolf?  Where did it come from?  What's the history of the monkeys?  Why do they protect?  What's with the eagle?  Why does anyone believe Giamatti?  How does he breathe underwater for so long?  Why should we give a fuck about Giamatti's past?  What the hell was the loner talking about?  Why did I go see this?