Get thee behind the camera

I apologize if we've dished on Shyamalan's presence enough in earlier threads, but I wanted to ask how much his presence affected the movie's flow for you. I thought his acting was good and his presence plausible. But watching him kept yanking me out of the story and movie-watching experience. I wondered whose role had been cut down to give him more screen time. I wondered where, as a principal character, he was during the swimming pool party scene. (I guess he had to be behind the camera then.) So he kept interrupting the movie for me and, like the implausible scenarios I listed in the comments with dw's first post, there were too many reasons to lose the "story" feel and stay in critique mode instead.

And another question: Does watching a movie for Cinema Chatter disrupt everybody's ability to "lose" themselves in the story? I either watch it through and enjoy, or take a few notes along the way, and then rewatch parts, especially after discussion starts. Can you watch a film the same way if you plan to critique it?

Paul Giamatti

I am part of the .000009 percent of the population who hasn't seen "Sideways," but I like Paul Giamatti. He's a good leading man in this part, someone likable, and I was interested in what would happen to his character.

Casting and script were handled well for Cleveland, too. He's not one of those improbably handsome actors who you could never imagine as a building super. He doesn't have to have a romance or, god forbid, an obligatory love scene the way all blockbusters seem to require anymore. It stretched my patience how the movie just skipped over how Cleveland convinced all of his neighbors about Story's story, but he came across as the kind of guy people liked and trusted. He was an ordinary man inexplicably chosen to play a great, important role, and he lived up to his end. For me, he redeemed the movie from its flaws.

Mermaids schmermaids

When is someone going to make a film about a pretty merMAN (or a Monsieur Narf)? And if they do, will he be a peaceful, delicate, passive temptress (or tempter), like most of his female counterparts? A pale little stud muffin who has trouble talking? And what actor would be your ideal merman? (Boys, it won't make you gay to pick someone).

Found in translation

The scene I enjoyed most was when Young-Soon Choi was at the dance club and was translating over the phone for Cleveland and her crusty mom, who made Cleveland stay out in the hall. The stereotype of Asians having ancient wisdom/remedies ("ancient Chinese secret") was a bit annoying. I mean, why couldn't the Mexican dude be the tale teller? Nevertheless, the scene was well done and humorous, with a goofy party girl being the link between two individuals who couldn't otherwise understand each other and who didn't really want to deal with each other at all.

So there's that story in the story, an explanation. But there's a more general explanation at the beginning of the movie, before the action starts, where the primitive line drawings are used to explain how humans lost touch with the sea people and became a degenerated civilization. The drawings show up again at the end as the credits roll, to reinforce the fairytale frame of reference. Do you think these various stories about the story work? Do they work well together? Did the intro story intrigue you?

Camera work

DW, I'm eager to hear, since you based your selection on the cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, what you really think about the camera work in this movie. I really liked the opening scene where Cleveland was killing something under the sink (what was that, by the way?) and the characters were being shot from underneath the sink. I also liked the scene where Cleveland fell down near the pool in his first encounter with Story. I think the camera was in the pool, as from Story's point of view.

All Those Neighbors

Having a cross section of recognizable social types also had promise. Since the movie never left the apartment complex, it made it seem like a little village. But although the movie was plenty long, these characters seemed underdeveloped. They needed the help of somebody who can do quick character sketches in just a few scenes to give a bit of depth to this large cast.

How Do You Do That Again...

One of the best bits of this movie is how incompetent the characters were at fulfilling their part of the epic. Wouldn’t you be, too? I mean, who really does know how to send a not-quite-mermaid back to her water world? I didn’t study that in school. I’m not sure that playing D&D would have helped me much either.

This element could have been improved by having more than one source for the fairytale so that there were conflicts between the two versions. Also, I would have liked more ambiguity throughout. In particular, it would have been cool if there was some doubt about whether Story escape back to her world or got munched. It would have been a better movie, but it would have been hard to get it past the Hollywood masters.

Things that Go Bump in the Night

Like Erin, I also liked Shyamalan’s invented mythology and story. But I don’t think they realized it very well. The creatures were supposedly “things unseen”, but then they had the grass dog strolling around the halls of the apartment complex. Frankly, it wasn’t very scary. I suspect that they could have had a lot better result if their special effects budget had been hacked almost to zero and they were forced to make the best of vague glimpses and imagination.

That Big American Industry....

For the moment at least, this internet connection is working, so let’s get started...


Before I saw “Lady in the Water”, I didn’t realize that it had a big enough budget that they could build their own apartment complex from scratch. So it was more Hollywood than I expected.

Like I said when I picked it, all I really knew about it was that it was filmed by Doyle. He has done some great work with asian filmmakers, but I had not seen him work in a Hollywood type production.

Did anybody look at the extras that were on the DVD? Shyamalan has published this story as a children’s book and they showed some of illustrations in it. I might see if the library has a copy of the book because I think it looks more successful than the movie. Anyway, my overall reaction to the movie is that it had some very promising elements that never quite gelled. Before trying to pick that apart, do people have some first reactions?

Take a Gamble

One of my most favorite cinematographers is Christopher Doyle. I just realized that I haven’t seen either of the two films he shot last year, so I’m picking one of them for our next movie. In 2003 he shot a film for Pen-Ek-Ratanaruang that is known in English as “Last Life in the Universe”. This is a very cool film and reminds me in some ways of the movies that Doyle has made with Wong Kar-Wai (one of most favorite filmmakers). One of Doyle’s 2006 films is another one with Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, so I thought that this should be the pick. However, my local store with a strong collection of art and asian film didn’t have it, so I thought maybe it will be too hard for people to track down.

So, Doyle’s other 2006 movie is one he did for M. Night Shyamalan called “Lady in the Water”. Although Shyamalan has been making movies for fifteen years, I haven’t seen any of them yet. I didn’t even see the highly popular “Sixth Sense” from 1999. So, thus far, I don’t have much idea if I will like Shyamalan, but this one at least has Paul Giamatti which sounds like a promising start.

There you have it then, my basically blind pick: “Lady in the Water”.