Tom Russell’s Thoughts on Lady in the Water

I strongly disagree with Hutch’s analysis of Lady in the Water, and I was going to post my analysis of Lady as a comment on Hutch’s post. But it would be a very lengthy comment, not concise at all, and I’m basically reposting a review I wrote for my own website, http://turtleneckfilms.blogspot.com, a few months ago. So I figure I’d make it its own entry.

I do agree with Hutch that this film is more of a new mythology– but I think that might be to its detriment. Confused? Read on!

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Not even worth mentioning, but I will

If anyone cares, the Oscar list is also up. The Academy Awards continues its decline.

This list puts me to sleep. Going all the way down into the bottom of the list, I’ve only seen three movies: Cars, Superman Returns and United 93.

Cars, mind you, is such a good film that it should be up for Best Picture, if only the Oscars hadn’t created that stupid Animated category as a way of saying that animated films will never be recognized as real films. Some years it’s a struggle to come up with three truly Oscar-worthy animated films to fill that category.

How is it possible that the Oscars can continue to have any pull with the popular culture when, again and again, they go for movies that the public doesn’t even care about? Let me just stop you here and fend off a few obvious responses: I’m all for highlighting excellent films that the public may overlook, and I’m not saying that putrid overblown over-budgeted trash like “Armageddon” should be getting Best Picture just because it makes a lot of money.

Here’s what I am saying:

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Razzies announced

The Razzies 2006 Nominees are now up. I’m glad to see that they call out “Little Man” as an out and out theft of a Looney Tunes Cartoon.

However, I have to disagree with their lambasting of “Lady in the Water,” which I just watched two nights ago. I think the unhappiness with that one is a relative thing: people don’t like it because they want and expect a truly great film from M. Night Shyamalan. Back around the time of “Signs”, a magazine heralded him as the “new Spielberg.” I fear he’s far more akin to Orson Welles, who made such a world-shaking debut that all successive films are paling in comparison. “Unbreakable” was a fine film, but it wasn’t “The Sixth Sense”. “The Village” was well-made and acted, but the script was many rewrites away from ready and the end result was a real stinker.

Watching “Lady in the Water” is hardly a bad way to spend an evening. It’s a charming bit of new mythology, telling the tale of a building superintendent who discovers a sea nymph living in the apartment building’s pool. His quest to help her on her journey leads him to do what he can to research her mythology (nobody ever seems to have access to the Internet in Shyamalan movies, so he has to get it translated from an old Asian woman in his building).
Bob Balaban steals the film; his scenes make it worth it. The movie is hardly worth razzing in comparison to the lesser schlock Hollywood turns out.

For example, Superman Returns deserves more razzing than just a worst supporting actress nom.

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Civil War Prediction

CIVIL WAR PREDICTION

So, we all know that the noisy Marvel summer-ish crossover of 2006, Civil War is reaching its end. And when there are noisy summer crossovers, there are deaths: meaningless deaths, “important” deaths that will be retconned away in a couple years– because we all know that the story doesn’t “count” unless there’s some bodies.

Which I think is ridiculous, but that’s not the point of this discussion.

What is inevitable is that someone big is going to die in Civil War # 7. My guess? It’s going to be Tony Stark.

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