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M. Night Shyamalan Films

It reminded me of The Simpsons hallowe'en episode where the aliens invade after Lisa wishes for a world with no weapons and then at the end you see Moe the bartender chasing one of the aliens with it shouting "Help me he has a plank with a nail in it"
 
Yes i agree in the film Mel Gibson/faith/car crash/etc.
This is a sub plot to add some kind of emotional element to the film although very crudley.
.
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I think you're very wrong there. Shyamalan himself said that the movie was about faith.
I recommend you watch the film again, but don't take my word for it - read the interview with the writer/director himself at:

http://blackfilm.com/20020823/features/mnightshyamalan.shtml

Here's a relevant excerpt:

WM: Why has faith been such a strong theme in your last three films?

MNS: For some reason I just keep pounding away at this until I get it myself, which is kind of a guy waking up to his potential and who he is and the things around him. So, all three of those movies are this guy waking up. I don't know why I keep writing that guy and I could easily write another one about a guy waking up and realizing this and then, the supernatural or the sci-fi elements, the ghosts, the comic-book heroes or the aliens are kind of irrelevant to me just the backdrop for a man learning to believe again-believe in him in 'Unbreakable,' you know? Believe in love in 'The Sixth Sense,' and believe in himself as a therapist in 'The Sixth Sense,' in his job. These are things that I was dealing with at the time. Each one is a different thing and
'Signs' was basically about believing in faith.
 
To me the film didn't address faith or sci fi very well. Although I enjoyed watching it, things didn't seem to add up either way. If somebody had such faith as to become a priest, then it would take a whole lot more to waver his faith than a freak accident. And likewise if so much faith had been destroyed than i think that it would take a whole lot more than a son surviving an asthma attack to restore it.

As for the aliens ............. nuff said
 
Well you can't please all of the ppl all of the time. I happened to really enjoy it. It is just a film after all.
 
I too enjoyed it thoroughly. The bit where the alien walks past the window in the home movie footage is the creepiest thing I have seen in a Hollywood blockbuster for years. Every time the aliens came on I got genuinely frightened, and I sat through "The Ring" without flinching..!
 
I disagree, I loved SIGNS. Although, out of it, The Sixth Sense , and Unbreakable (same director), I have to say the latter is my favorite. Amazing film, if you haven't seen it, I reccomend it highly.
 
SPOILER ALERT: If, by chance, you have not yet seen SIGNS, you may not want to read this..mild spoiler follows.....


I too thoroughly enjoyed SIGNS, and wanted to echo the previous post about the intense creepiness of the "home movie" footage of the alien walking past the window at the kids' birthday party. That scene, for me, had a MUCH higher "chills" component than just about anything I have seen out of Hollywood in a long time... and it neatly captured the oddly unique "thrill" that I find seems to be invoked (sometimes!) by some of the classic "Fortean" footage. Yeah, the videos are often grainy or jumpy, the stills often unsatisfyingly unclear, the uncertainties often maddening, but a lot of the Fortean "evidence" has, for me, always had a creepier edge than much mainstream "horror"...

In some ways, I think the marketing of both UNBREAKABLE and SIGNS did them a disservice. I understand wanting to retain an element of surprise, and hoping for word of mouth to generate groundswell, but these were two really terrific movies that, IMHO, just did not get their due...

Shadow
 
I have watched signs and the message I got though I agree it wasnt a good film was the fact how easy for us humans to fear what we dont understand. How would we know how to react to something in which we have never encountered before do we rely on instincts and behave like an animal or do we use logic and wisdom to understand and try to see the bigger picture like a human should. examples in the film of this is the unnecessay violent behaviour of the masses, they went looking for aliens to kill because they dont understand and want themselves to feel safe. At the other end one could surmise if he used logic and wisdom that if the alien beings wanted to hurt us they could have done it far easy if they had bombared from outer space since they did not that they intentions are not necessary hostile and would seek to communicate.
 
genius

Possibly they had intercepted our tv broadcast and decided to hunt down an earth bound genius to help them make there own brolleys and wellys
with such weapons they could...................................................
 
brokken doll said:
To me the film didn't address faith or sci fi very well. Although I enjoyed watching it, things didn't seem to add up either way. If somebody had such faith as to become a priest, then it would take a whole lot more to waver his faith than a freak accident. And likewise if so much faith had been destroyed than i think that it would take a whole lot more than a son surviving an asthma attack to restore it.

As for the aliens ............. nuff said
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Does everyone who becomes a priest or pastor have unshakable, unbreakable faith? Not according to any "man of the cloth" I have spoken to. Most will be honest and tell you that if you believe you will eventually have a crisis of faith. Coming thru such a crisis with your faith restored is the hard part. And it's like, "what does it take to stay in love with your spouse for decade after decade? Love" "What does it take to keep your faith alive after something horrible happens? Faith."
 
I agree

Flash007 i agree its more about human nature than the church/faith/whatever
:yeay:
 
what dose it take

." And it's like, "what does it take to stay in love with your spouse for decade after decade? Love" "What does it take to keep your faith alive after something horrible happens? Faith."


What does it take to smash ETs head in,a baseball bat?
:(
 
Re: what dose it take

Tin Finger said:
." And it's like, "what does it take to stay in love with your spouse for decade after decade? Love" "What does it take to keep your faith alive after something horrible happens? Faith."


What does it take to smash ETs head in,a baseball bat?
:(
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Yes, but he was also swinging the bat to break the glasses of water which burnt the alien's skin upon contact.
 
water

Wasnt the water only an accident ,as he didnt know about there vunrability.
If he had known surly just chucking a glass of water over it would've been enough.
 
Re: water

Tin Finger said:
Wasnt the water only an accident ,as he didnt know about there vunrability.
If he had known surly just chucking a glass of water over it would've been enough.
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"I'm melting... melting! What a world, what a world! Who would've thought a sweet little lapsed-Episcopal- pastor like you could destroy all my beautiful wickedness!"

Um, that's from the film, right? But when I tried to synchronize it with A Saucerful of Secrets it didn't work. :confused: :confused: :confused:
 
Joaquin Phoenix's character was the best opportunity for anything in the whole film. He could have gone for a total psychotic frenzy with that bat because lets face it he was on the edge of insanity at the start of the movie and I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more if the family had gone for the fight rather than the run and hide routine.


"Gather the flying monkeys and let slip the frogs of war"
 
Flash007 i agree its more about human nature than the church/faith/whatever
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Isn't faith part of human nature? Animals have faith only in their instincts. Then again, the same can be said for a lot of humo beamos too...

And too requote Shyalaman, the man wrote/directed the movie (again! see previous post)

"'Signs' was basically about believing in faith."
Or maybe he didn't know what his own movie was about?
:rolleyes:
 
here's what i think it was

I too like M Nights work (as has been discussed on other threads). What i got out of the whole baseball bat scene was Mel realising that all of our lives/ everyone else's lives / the whole universe is intrinsically interlinked and unified.

His wife told him to give...(Joachim's character - can't remember) the bat, and then for Joachim to "swing out"(?), and she said all this on her death-stumps years before the aliens landed.

To me this means that she knew what Mel was going to need to get their family through the ultimate travail. Mel finally made sense of what she said, had the faith to do it and hey presto - we've got a storybook Hollywood ending.

The water bit was entirely nonsense, but no film's going to be 100%...

Of course it's not beyond comprehension that i missed the point entirely:D

Garcon - Mon manteau s'il vous plait!
 
"'Signs' was basically about believing in faith."

Ok you can requote Shyalaman all day,

He may have intended to make this film about faith ,but in my view,misses this intended faith plot by a mile.
It's more of a side show,to a weird film, with lots of special effects
and massive plot line holes not metioning the advertising having little or nothing to do with the film.

As for animals who knows i doubt they belive in god or have faith
but i could be wrong .
:eek!!!!:
 
...not metioning the advertising having little or nothing to do with the film.
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Yeah, I bet there were a great deal of 13 year olds sitting aghast at drive-ins in Texas when they didn't get "Independence Day 2"
 
Unless it was God speaking to his wife. Just a thought. She did, after all, say "Tell Graham to see", almsot as if she was meant to pass on the message but her brain couldn't cope so just repeated the words.
 
I haven't seen "Signs" yet, but happily I have seen "The Sixth Sense", which means that I will never again complain that a film is illogical, badly realised, confused, nonsensical, inconsistent garbage, because "The Sixth Sense" cannot be bettered on these accounts.
 
Oooo you rotten lot, you've totally spoilled this movie for me :D
I saw it on video and it scared the *ucking crap out of me, I couldn't get to sleep that night for hearing things walking around in my room/outside the window ...

Originally posted by eljubbo His wife told him to give...(Joachim's character - can't remember) the bat, and then for Joachim to "swing out"(?), and she said all this on her death-stumps years before the aliens landed.
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He's called Merrill [sp] and the wife said "Swing away Merrill, swing away" just before she died ...

I thought the little girl did a brillient job in her role ... almost changed my mind about the possibilty of having kids almost
 
The little girl

Oh i had'nt even started with the little girl,what was with the glasses of water,she seemed to think they were bad so was she pro alien or was here farter just ignoring ,well a nutter in the making.
im not the most tidy person but i cannot see me letting my small child leave about 30 to 40 half glasses of water, sometimes left on top of tellys etc ,about the house come on REALLY...
no glasses dont need washing.
 
men in black

at least it wasnt as bad as men in black 2 that truely was shocking
why are most current et movies s***e?
 
Re: men in black

Tin Finger said:
at least it wasnt as bad as men in black 2 that truely was shocking
why are most current et movies s***e?
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Well I may not agree with you about Signs but I certainly agree with you about MIB 2-what a dreadful mess of a film that was!
 
Re: men in black

Tin Finger said:
at least it wasnt as bad as men in black 2 that truely was shocking
why are most current et movies s***e?
Click to expand...

Well I may not agree with you about Signs but I certainly agree with you about MIB 2-what a dreadful mess of a film that was! I'm not sure why the majority of recent sci-fi movies are bad. There seems to be a lack of good plots and story-telling, which is sad. Which is why I liked Signs so much. They could have gone the other way and showed the battle with the invading aliens complete with lots of explosions, violence, etc. But for me what you didn't see was more frightening, for example the exellent shot where Meril walks up the stairs out the basement and out of shot to see if the coast is clear but the camera remains on the stairs. The suspense waiting for something to suddenly happen was one reason why this film was so frightening (for me anyway)!
 
hospitaller said:
"'Signs' was basically about believing in faith."
Or maybe he didn't know what his own movie was about?
:rolleyes:
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That happens a lot, judging by what's in the cinemas these days.

'Believing in faith'. Of course it's real! How can one not believe in it? That's like saying 'believing in pain'. Typical movie-maker gibberish.
 
But a lot of people don't have faith, do they?

A lot of people don't really believe in anything, anymore. You can pick and choose your religion for your every mood these days. Families split apart. Jobs retire you at 50 yrs. Pension funds collapse. Forgeries make money unreliable. Wives and husbands betray eachother. Houses lose their value. All electrical goods break after 12 months. (sods!)

Nothing is permanent, especially in America.

I thought Signs was one of the best and most thought-provoking films I've ever seen. Isn't it amazing to find a film that pulls something out of the viewer in order to complete the meaning of the film? It's obviously that that makes it meaningful for some and meaningless for others because there was an empty, old-fashioned tension that needed your absolute attention and willingness to participate in the fantasy.

Some films have everything right there on a platter and it is so easy, so dull, and so predictable. The fact that the alien died so easily didn't matter because the aliens were the catalyst and it wasn't supposed to be the climax of the film, the actual climax was Mel's character's realisation that his wife's random words had a meaning that reaffirmed his old beliefs. And it was lovely!!!

The foil hats were really funny.:D

And I also poo-ed my pants when the alien walked past the window - I agree with one of the earlier threads that it was one of the very few times, like the fortean threads, that I literally felt scalp-tingling horror. I'd got the DVD thinking 'Oh well' as there was nothing else to watch and I was bored and I ended up having to watch it on my own cos no one else wanted to see it. Glad I did, though. I'll remember the foil for the real thing!;)

I'm now going to go and watch Phenomenon. The sixth sense was obvious from the moment they said there was a twist. Same with 'The Others'. Hmnn. It's about people seeing ghosts. A twist eh? Hmnn.:rolleyes:
 
Thread moved to Culture...

(It must have been operating in stealth mode
to evade the Mod radar so long... :D )
 
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