Monthly Archives: January 2019

Under Darkness of M. Night

 

M. Night Shyamalan’s career is something akin to the stock market. After making his Hollywood splash with the Oscar-nominated chiller The Sixth Sense, he was hailed on the cover of Newsweek as the next Steven Spielberg. But since then, his career has seen as many peaks and valleys as The Dow Jones. In anticipation of his trilogy capper Glass, we take a look and rank the dozen films in his career.

The Last Airbender (2010)The Last Airbender

Shyamalan had a reputation of making tight suspense movies that didn’t break the bank: His first seven movies cost less than $75 million. Maybe that’s what made Airbender so disappointing. Despite boasting a $150 million budget, the movie was marked with uninspired performance, shoddy special effects and a script devoid of his trademark flourishes of quiet tension — a far cry from the wildly wildly imaginative Nickelodeon series on which it was based. Savage reviews sealed the movie’s fate — and Shyamalan’s plans for a trilogy.

Lady in the Water (2006)Lady in the Water

One of the biggest disappointments of Shyamalan’s career. Before beginning production on this  fairy tale,  Shyamalan had quite a resume,  with Sense, Unbreakable and Signs under his belt. And with a cast lead by Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard and Jeffrey Wright, expectations were stratospheric. Alas, this story about a blue collar Joe trying to save a stranded water faerie return home came off as an exercise in self-indulgent hubris, and sank like a stone with critics and fans.

Praying With Anger (1992)Praying With Anger

While not technically a Hollywood film (Shyamalan started working on his debut film  while still a student at NYU), this was his first true movie: He wrote, produced, funded, directed, and starred in the story of an Americanized young man of East Indian descent returning home to rediscover his roots. While the movie didn’t have the low-budget Blair Witch or El Mariachi debut effect he hoped (the pacing was molasses slow and it showed Shyamalan, who played the lead, is no actor), it did grab the attention of studio execs who saw potential, opening the door for  Sense.

After Earth (2013)After Earth

Credit Shyamalan with guts: Even after the costly debacle that was  Airbender,  Shyamalan wasn’t shy about swinging for the big-budget fences, and Columbia Pictures obliged with  a $130 million budget and Will Smith for this sci-fi adventure. But the story of space travelers stranded on an alien planet played as an empty vessel, a vanity project for Smith and his son Jaden, who showed a surprising lack of chemistry and could not muster, of all things, much emotion to overcome the unimpressive special effects. While star power and overseas grosses helped the movie turn a small profit, the movie never took flight with fans and reviewers.

The Happening (2008)The Happening

Despite a terrific trailer, Happening became a Hollywood punchline about wind being an awful casting choice for a thriller. The story about a teacher, his wife and their friends trying to outrun a mysterious plague has its fans, but primarily among B-movie fans fond of it’s unintentional B-movie quality.

Wide Awake(1998)Wide Awake

Most people don’t even know Rosie O’Donnell starred in a Shyamalan film, but this clunker about a fifth grader who sets off on a search for God after the death of his grandfather is unfortunate proof otherwise. While the movie should have been in the wheelhouse of Shyamalan’s themes of faith, family and identity, the story was too plodding and schmaltzy to get the director back on top of his game.

The Visit (2015)M. Night Shyamalan The Visit

After his fourth straight big-budget misfire in After Earth,  Shyamalan seemed poised for a possible comeback with this 2015 semi found-footage film about teen siblings visiting their grandparents and finding them engaged in some seriously deranged behavior. Too deranged for audiences, who found the movie  claustrophobic, paranoid and just plain bizarre — made more confusingly jittery by the movie’s handheld camera work.  It did, though, earn a 72% on RottenTomatoes and gave  a glimpse into the creepy anxiousness Shyamalan would use so effectively in Split.

The Village (2004)The Village

Perhaps the most underrated film in Shymalan’s oeuvre. Sure, the central conceit is a cheap twist with no clever foreshadowing clues like Sense.  But the mournful story and Gothic themes of grief, fear and the coldness of modern society made for an effective chiller, accentuated by the woods that made up the set and the “creature” that haunted them. Not to mention, it featured Roger Deakins haunting cinematography and a terrific romantic score from James Newton Howard. The movie enjoyed a healthy home video run and warrants a repeat viewing for those expecting something different in theaters.

Split (2017)James McAvoy in Split

While The Visit didn’t quite put Shyamalan back on top,  it proved Shyamalan was ready to tackle the darker, deeper themes that made him a critical darling early in his career. Backed by the risk-taking production house Blumhouse, this story of a man suffering from multiple personalities was a showcase for James McAvoy’s incredible range with voices and characters, and is perhaps the most unexpected entry of a suspense trilogy in recent cinema. It’s a wonderful examination of psychological horror and was the surprise commercial hit of 2017, raking in $138 million, more than three times its budget. It’s also made Glass the most anticipated film of winter.

Signs (2002)M. Night Shyamalan Signs

Sure, it’s too long, and critics had a field day with the twist ending (why would invading aliens, who dissolve in water, invade a planet that’s 70% water and rains regularly?). But Signs became not only a sci-fi masterpiece, but it pulled off the near-impossible at the box office: After dropping from the No. 1 perch its opening weekend, it roared back in its fourth weekend to hold the top spot for three straight,  raking in $227 million by the end of its run. Many consider it Mel Gibson’s finest performance, and made a scene-stealer out of Joaquin Phoenix. It also became that true Hollywood rarity: a religious parable to wear its heart on its sleeve.

Unbreakable (2000)Samuel L. Jackson in Unbreakable

Perhaps the most underrated superhero film in modern Hollywood memory. Coming on the heels of Sense with a cryptic trailer and a shroud of secrecy, Unbreakable set an unreachable bar of expectations, and its $95 million at the box office — $5 million short of the ridiculous $100 million “blockbuster” label requirement — had some media wonks deeming it a disappointment. But it’s eminently re-watchable for the clues it subtly lays out, the sequel-friendly landscape it carves, and still stands as some of the best work Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson have ever done. It’s even got the subtle heart of a family drama, virtually unheard of in today’s superhero universe.

The Sixth Sense (1999)Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense

Even Shyamalan could not come up with an unexpected twist to this list. What more can be said about a debut that challenges Orson Welles’? Shyamalan’s tale of a soft-spoken 10-year-old who sees dead people comes off as a straightforward horror movie. But the mesmerizing performance of Oscar-nominated Haley Joel Osment, played against Bruce Willis’ wonderfully restrained performance and capped by the confident directing of a Tinsel Town wunderkind, made Sense not only the suspense thriller of the year, but the decade. No matter how many times you watch it, you’ll find a new, subtle clue hinting at its devastating finale.

 

We Don’t Need No Education

 

Imagine you’re a parent of two toddlers and have foolishly bought a toy from the devil (Who knows? Maybe the kids were your first sucker’s bet with Beelzebub).  After the transaction, you learn the details of the Faustian bargain: The toy will forever please them, but it cannot be withheld from them. They must be allowed to play with it.

You’re driving home with it, and the toddlers in the backseat begin to bawl over who gets to play with it first. What do you do?Image result for crying kids in backseat

I’ve asked several parents, including my mother, that question. Every one have said they would break the devil’s deal and smash the toy. But I suggest this as a counter if you had to abide by the terms: You decide which child is the more reasonable, and explain that the immature one gets it first, and the more mature one will get an equal amount of playtime afterward. A bitter pill for the mature child, to be sure. But the only way  to not veer off the road and through the bridge, killing you all.

That’s where we are now. Donald Trump is the devil. The border wall is the toy. And the parties are the bawling kids. Unfortunately, there is no parent in the car. So it’s up to the more mature child to swallow the bitter pill.

Yet neither kid is opting to take on the role. Trump would no sooner cave on the wall than he would read a book. And Nancy Pelosi said in an interview this weekend she would not concede “one dollar” to the $5.7 billion dollar wall bill — or 1/8 of 1% of America’s $4 trillion budget. That means the toy could be bought at a 99 cent store — with change.Image result for 99 cent store toy

Meanwhile, 800,000 American federal employees received a paycheck Friday that read $0.00 — along with news that neither side is willing to give an inch.

How dare we treat nearly a million Americans this way? The media likes to call these workers pawns in the showdown, but that’s bullshit. At least pawns stay sheltered in a box.

Not so for many Americans. After Trump’s bullshit address calling the southern border a “humanitarian crisis,” Bernie Sanders issued an online rebuttal. During it, he said he personally heard from a federal worker who had $100 left in her checking account; not enough to feed her kids for a week, let alone make a car or rental payment.

Yet not one Democrat has suggested just giving baby his binky, even though they could avoid a political loss of face by allowing Trump to declare a national emergency. They’ve even promised to fight the declaration in court if he were to do so. All the way to the Supreme Court, they vow.

Gosh, I wonder how a GOP-run Supreme Court would rule after months of a shutdown.

Pride apparently forbids giving an inch, even if that inch leaves 800,000 unpaid. That’s larger than the population of five states and the District of Columbia. Would they think that way if an entire state was left out of work?

Maybe they would. Chuck Schumer said last week that Dems would not allow Trump to hold Americans hostage.

Let’s play this out. Say a Mideast country kidnapped 800,000 Americans. And they demanded $10 billion, or they would behead each and every one of the hostages. Would a politician dare say “we do not acquiesce to terrorists demands” and tell the country to go ahead, chop away?Image result for mideast beheadings

Of course not. We’d pay the ransom, get the people back, then bomb the offending country back into the stone age.

The Dems have been offered that metaphorical bomb with Trump’s threat. The emergency declaration puts the border fiasco squarely on his plate — and the plate of Republicans. And Americans get to work. Our government gets to run. Our national parks get to shake their current curse of becoming national toilets.

What more ammunition could Dems ask for in a 2020 election, when a tyrannical president and key GOP Senatorial seats are in jeopardy?

Republicans know this, which is why they’re cautioning President Dullard not to do it. Yet Lisa Murkowski, a GOP senator from Alaska, actually said this on the record:Image result for lisa murkowski with trump

“The real concern that I have is the precedent that this then sets because this border security is Donald Trump’s priority, (and) we don’t know who the next president may be. But it may be a president where their number one priority is dealing with climate change who says ‘I don’t care whether I have support of the Congress, I’m going to direct these funds to address this because I feel like this is a crisis,'”

Why wouldn’t Dems want this precedent set? Why not dare Trump to call one, just to goad him into a boondoggle? If global warming isn’t the true definition of a national emergency, what is? And Murkowski publicly marked her party as the one that doubts science, questions global warming. Trump and his lackeys have offered a gift neatly wrapped and bowed. Yet somehow, Dems are looking that political gift horse straight in the gullet.Image result for gift horse

I get the discomfort of swallowing a bitter pill. I take 16 pills a day for my transplants. Eight of them are bitter as hell. Over 19 years, that’s 55,480 bitter pills. If one doesn’t go down smoothly with water, it’s like sucking on rusted metal, and leaves an aftertaste for  about a minute.

But the greater gain is worth the bitterness. Dems should try swallowing just one.

In addition, they could try this simple exercise, since a brain scan is complicated: Take both hands, and put them on your hips. Then slowly move your hands along your body behind you at the same pace, until your fingers touch.

If you do it right, you’ll find a spine.

 

 

 

 

Six Thousand, Nine Hundred Thirty Five and Counting

 

Happy Birthday Samuel!

Can you believe we met 19 years ago? That’s 6,935 days we’ve known each other. Or 166,440 hours. Or 9,986,400 seconds. But who’s counting?

Well, to be honest, I am. Every one of them.

I never told you what the doctors told me before they introduced us. They said that most organ transplants are a short-term lease. On average, they said, a transplanted organ lasts an average of seven years before a rejection. They told me that average was dragged down by patients who foolishly thought thought they were cured with the surgery, to the point they would stop taking their immunosuppresants.

So be diligent, they said. Take them religiously, they said.

Screw religion. I’m a born again Samuelist. This is the proudest achievement of my life, and I say that without reservation or hesitation: I have prayed at your altar every day since our bittersweet introduction. I have not missed a single day of taking the meds that keep you in my body, in my heart. Show me an evangelist with that track record.

There’s something else a doctor told me, only this year. Did you know that pancreas transplants didn’t become a recognized, routine operation until 2008? Every doctor I meet gives me a double take when I tell him we joined forces in 2000. Only three months ago, an emergency room nurse told me she had never even heard of a pancreas transplant, that she didn’t know the surgery exists.

I wanted to report her to the AMA to get her license revoked. Instead, I did what I thought you would do: I held no malice. Instead I took the bright path, as everything I’ve read about you said  you did. Instead, I simply held this notion, gripped this epiphany:

We’re pioneers, brother. You want to be Lewis or Clark?

I’ll be honest: It wasn’t a year without hiccups, Sam. The surgery came freighted with nausea a year after our coupling. I got to know the inside of a toilet bowl more intimately than Mr. Clean.Image result for mr. clean

I tried everything the past year. Juggling a half dozen nausea meds. Avoided eating before any occasion of significance (I even had a term for it, “carving widows” of nausea-free moments). Smoked weed like the burnouts I disdained in high school.

But on my last hospital visit (the one with Nurse Ratched), a doctor told me, for the first time, that blood tests indicated some signs of rejection.

You can’t imagine the chill that went through my body at that word, rejection. No doctor ever uttered it to me (other than as warning at our surgery). Then, as my blood test results began to improve, he said goodbye with a single sentence. “More water, less weed.”

When I got home that day, I took every flake of weed, every pipe, every stoner’s tool of choice, chucked them in bins and stored them under the sink and in the rafters of the garage, never to be touched again. Then I went to the grocery store and bought literally dozens of Gatorade, Powerade, every beverage the docs said would keep you hydrated, keep your potassium and magnesium levels at proper measure.

This is what my fridge looks like now. I guzzle ades  like a linebacker in the fourth quarter of a television commercial. 

And you know what? The nausea disappeared like a Vegas magic trick. Mom would be pissed if I didn’t knock on wood at that utterance. So I’m rapping my forehead now.

But I feel stronger now, tougher now, smarter now. Who could dare claim credit except you?

A final admission before I wrap up this blathering. Whenever someone asks me whether I’m up to a daunting task, I like to act tough. I say, “Are you kidding? I carry the dead.”

That’s a bald faced lie. In truth, I carry the living.

Here’s  to 10 million seconds and ticking.