It’s dull and pretty stupid and deserves almost none of its plaudits, but I also can’t muster any particular rage for it. I just see it as an overrated 2.5/5 kind of movie.
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I’ll probably see it with the kids this weekend, but my wife has taken a vow not to watch another Shyamalan movie ever since the Village (although I did get her to watch Split) somehow
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By the way, when I saw the Village, I’m pretty sure they projected it in the wrong aspect ratio, because I could see boom mics in the frame several times. Is that a thing? It seems like LKJ goes to the theater a lot. Have you ever seen something like that? I’m guessing it would be less common now with most projectors being digital.
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I applaud your wife for her stance, because I sat there watching Lady in the Water in the theater just actively cursing myself for the fact that I gave him another chance. In my world, Lady in the Water was the official end of his career. Now he and his movies are just pretending to exist like the post-2008 NBA.
I haven’t seen it, but my level of obliviousness about these things is pretty crazy. That Office cold open about “how much can Stanley NOT notice?” could have been about me.
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You can often see the booms in the full frame but it’s supposed to be cropped. I can’t imagine any situation where a print got out where you can see them, so I don’t know what happened in your situation.
The Village is also where I tapped out on Shyamalan. Haven’t looked back…
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I also thought they wouldn’t rely on projectionists to block of the parts of the image that isn’t supposed to be shown. But I’m pretty sure I saw something like that in the Village.
ETA: these stories sound like what happened to me: https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/15gbj8h/i_remember_back_in_the_90s_when_movie_theatres/
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I was about to post that I have enjoyed every Shyamalan movie I’ve seen, but I just looked at his filmography and apparently he directed After Earth, which is SUPER bad (yes, I saw it for HDTGM). Other than that I saw and enjoyed Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village.
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Based on the descriptions there, it sounds like most of what they’re talking about is that someone got their hands on the negative (TV stations) and made their own film transfers, not knowing that this stuff was supposed to be cropped in the matte. I find it dubious film prints would get out this way, but it’s certainly possible…I just don’t know how because it seems so stupid lol.
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The real Trap is that you got trapped into watching an M Night Shyamalan movie.
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I guess I am somewhat alone, but I still think The Village is tremendous until the last fifteen minutes. The final series of twists are awful, but everything before that is legit, especially the romance and the soundtrack.
My only real complaint going into the movie was that the trailer suggested the humans and creatures were going to have a disastrous but inevitable confrontation, but of course nothing like that happened.
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I’m guessing I would have a less negative opinion of The Village if the trailer hadn’t been completely fraudulent, I’m certain that’s the biggest reason that I left the theater actively mad that night, and in complete fairness I don’t think that Shyamalan probably had control over the misleading trailer going out. But I think it’s very unlikely that I’ll ever rewatch to reassess. Especially when he followed it by releasing a movie that is in my personal bottom five of all time. Lady in the Water is ridiculously unwatchable.
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In The Village I remember saying out loud, ‘when is something going to happen?’ and then 2 seconds later something happened. Like they would sit in focus screenings or bring people into the editing room and see how long it took them to say that, and then have something happen at that exact moment.
You could see he’d totally bought into his own hype by that movie and was now using what audiences loved about his movies against them. I don’t know what the red flag was about Lady in the Water in the trailer phase, but something told me not to do it and I didn’t. I don’t even really remember what put me off about The Village to say I thought he might be done, but something did…and he was done.
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I skipped After Earth and Last Airbender. The reviews all around for those were awful. I tried to watch Old but it was so bad from the very beginning that I just read the synopsis and was glad I skipped it. Other than that I think I’ve seen everything he’s made. He has a high high ceiling but a very low floor.
I think the best thing he’s made in a long time is the first season of Wayward Pines. Holy crap what a great show.
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I saw it because I was still one of his biggest fans, but good lord, one of the critic reviews asked “Has M Night Shyamalan lost his damn mind?” and that about summed it up.
In hindsight, I agree about the warning signs from The Village, but it’s still one of my favorites among his filmography.
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I remember when he followed up Lady in the Water with The Happening and the previews were all about the fact that it was his first R-rated movie.
“This movie is RATED R.”
“So is it actually going to be good, or…?”
“IT’S GOING TO BE RATED R.”
I didn’t have too much trouble breaking my Shyamalan habit in the face of a marketing campaign like that.
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In all fairness, The Happening was a ridiculously bad marketing campaign not even having seen the movie.
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I think I saw it long after the oscars snd everyone saying how great it was, and it was just pure garbage so that made it worse.
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I always liked the village, was fine with the twist.
Unbreakable, signs, sixth sense all great like LFS said, not sure on any others I’ve seen, should I watch split?
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After Earth and Last Airbender and hell, Lady in the Water, should be in the conversation for worst big budget movies of all time. Thats impressive terribleness
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Jahns says the first half is effective and pretty good, and becomes quite bad as it goes along. Hartnett is a high point. Says its too long.
No spoilers in review.
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