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The Village and King Arthur Trailers

Bosbaba said:
Ithe director's cameo - what was this character's part in the movie? He certainly dispensed a large volume of information - but what prompted it and what was his involvement with the group?
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He had two functions - to express Shyamalin's desire to be Hitchcock, and to explain how the secret was kept. He's just some working stiff who's got an easy berth and wants to keep it, so he's warning the new guy not to indulge anybody's curiosity and not to get curious himself.

The complete lack of consensus about this movie encourages me, as it supports my thesis. Very disappointing that nobody wants to read the Haddix book, though. Oh, well, you can't have everything.
 
Peni said:
He had two functions - to express Shyamalin's desire to be Hitchcock, and to explain how the secret was kept. He's just some working stiff who's got an easy berth and wants to keep it, so he's warning the new guy not to indulge anybody's curiosity and not to get curious himself.

The complete lack of consensus about this movie encourages me, as it supports my thesis. Very disappointing that nobody wants to read the Haddix book, though. Oh, well, you can't have everything.
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I really need to start reading these threads through. Haddix books? Are these what some claim this movie is based on? If so, I will quite happily read them, if only to clarify some points for myself.

I feel that the storyline in this movie had tremendous potential, but as seems to be common to many movies nowadays, the opportunities were either missed or ignored.

The idea of hidden communities appeals greatly to me, perhaps because two were discovered in my country in my lifetime - both had been cut off from the outside world, even though one was within hailing distance of a city, and had been stuck in a timewarp. The fact that this can happen is what made this movie potentially so interesting.
 
Yes, Bosbaba - Margaret Haddix, Running Out of Time. The stories are entirely different, so I don't know that reading the book will accomplish what you want, but the resemblances - the nature of the community and the quest for medicine - are so striking it seems impossible that Shyamalin wasn't influenced by Haddix. If you are interested in the notion of a community "lost in time," you should find the book well worth your while.

I liked the movie, but I like the book more. Whether the book is better executed, or this is a function of the fact that I like books better than movies, and a YA orientation better than an adult orientation, I'm hardly in position to judge. The pacing is certainly faster, the focus is on a single viewpoint character, and the book resolves the fate of the community, rather than leaving it in the dangling hopeless situation of the end of the movie.
 
The trailer for The Village looks really good, and rather made me think of Eyes of Fire.

I haven't seen any of this directors other films except Signs, which I thought was quite amazingly cr*p. But perhaps I'll give this one a look in.
 
saw "The Village" tonight on DVD. What is it with M. Night Shamalyan movies? So far I have guessed the outcome of all his movies.

also, anyone who's seen the Village, does anyone thing that the character of August was criminally wasted? He was one of the elders (who I think was played by an Irish actor). SPOILER WARNING DON'T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT A PLOT POINT RUINING....There could have been so much drama there including him taking the place of the village idiots character's demise at the end because you could have had that he didn't want the girl to know even though the girls father had forsaken this knowledge for his daughter's love of that boy. It didn't make ANY sense that brodies character ended up in that situation. I think in general the movie lacked that drama that would have boosted the suspense tremendously, because generally it just felt like that characters had no real dynamic at all with one another, they were all kinda hanging around.

not in my opinion his best work. kind of rushed with a great sense that he's surrounded by 'yes' men now. A plot that couldn't see the wood for the trees.
 
I agree with Hook, especially as regards the (non)plot mechanism mentioned.

I think the problem is that Shamalyan has acquired this trademark look to his films, this stately, slightly dreamlike pace which looks very nice, but unless you have a strong enough narrative to support it it just leads to people looking at their watches after a while.

Sixth Sense held it together nicely, Unbreakable got by, Signs could have lost 20 odd minutes in the middle without denting the film much at all (purely IMHO), but The Village felt to me like it was spreading itself way too thin. I also agree that Shamalyan is just given what he wants these days, and told what he wants to hear - he needs a strong editor more than anything else I think.
 
stu neville said:
I agree with Hook, especially as regards the (non)plot mechanism mentioned.
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no strong protagonist. and yet it seemed like these elements were all there and could have been used but he'd sort of over looked them in some odd way. It'd have made the movie a hell of a lot stronger. with the elder system crumbling and more self conflicting, that'd have been great. it'd certainly have made up for the rather obvious twist.
 
Personally, I wouldn't have even minded the obvious twist if it was at least interesting . . . It was devoid of any interest at all. And in my opinion, people who claim it is a parable about the US right now are merely looking for something to make it less boring.

-Fitz
 
Village of the Darned

At a US board partly devoted to genre films, the admin's opined that Shymalan's latest was a failed conservative allegory, citing the casting of Willis and Gibson as indicative of Shymalan's politics. I don't think it's that simple. This film is worrying whether it's an artistic success or not. Its final revelation may be predictable but it's very disquieting all the same.
 
Sorry Peni, it was nothing personal, that's really what I think. I fully admit I could be totally wrong though.

-Fitz
 
Fitz said:
And in my opinion, people who claim it is a parable about the US right now are merely looking for something to make it less boring.

-Fitz
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I think unless the director states its that, then any other notion is purely speculative, so I'd be inclined to agree with you on this point. Then again, given some of the dire plot points in the movie, I dare say that even if the director stated it as so, then I'd be inclined to agree with you also.
 
As the person on the list who said that people who live in gated communities had a reason to hate the movie, it's much, much too hard for me, in my present state, not to take the remark personally. This also qualifies me to state, categorically, that the remark is not true.

I had a response to a movie, which I enjoyed, which included a particular reading. I did not "make anything up." I had no motive to. Any statements the director makes are irrelevant to my response. My response is valid whether anyone else shares it or not. I don't go around imputing intellectual dishonesty to people whose responses don't coincide with mine, and I'm fed to the teeth with people denying the validity of my experience when I have made no claims for it other than that it is mine.

Excuse me for living. I am so very tired of being the person no one has to be nice to and I have no reserves of patience left and I can't help harboring this wild fantasy that someday I will say: "You hurt my feelings" and the response will be, "I'm sorry," not "No, I didn't."
 
Peni said:
Excuse me for living. I am so very tired of being the person no one has to be nice to and I have no reserves of patience left and I can't help harboring this wild fantasy that someday I will say: "You hurt my feelings" and the response will be, "I'm sorry," not "No, I didn't."
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er... Fitz said he was sorry, he didn't say 'no, I didn't.'
look.
Fitz said:
Sorry Peni, it was nothing personal
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you had a responce to a movie you enjoyed. great. Some people responded to the movie as a film they didn't enjoy and gave their reasons why. sorry it offends you. I tend to agree with Fitz with regard to the point made about it being some parable as a way of making it somehow seem less boring (I've read this view but all over the place on various message boards so I didn't realise you had sole exclusive rights to that opinion and I hadn't read your earlier post, so when Fitz made his initial remark I thought he'd come across comments made generally about the film all over the web, as I had) so again, sorry if that offends you. parable or not, it's no more well excecuted a film in my honest opinion (hence the notion that even if M. Night had stated it as such, it wouldn't really lend anything to the films appeal for me). If that offends you also, then I'm sorry to hear that, but hey.
 
Hook Innsmouth said:
when Fitz made his initial remark I thought he'd come across comments made generally about the film all over the web, as I had
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That is exactly it. When the post went up a few days ago, I responded to it, I didn't read back again through the entire thread. And I have been talking about this movie, and reading about this movie, on other websites, so, no, I didn't remember we had even discussed this before, Peni, so take it easy.

I apologized, there was no ill intention on my part when I expressed my opinion.

I won't be so quick to apologize to you in the future, as you apparently read what you want to read.

-Fitz
 
Re: Village of the Darned

condreye buch said:
This film is worrying whether it's an artistic success or not. Its final revelation may be predictable but it's very disquieting all the same.
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That's an interesting thought - care to expand on it?


-Fitz
 
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