Mikey's Musings: M. Night Shyamalan and the Amazing Backwards Career

As of the third of July The Last Airbender, M Night Shyamalan's latest film, has an 8% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 109 reviews and opened to $16 million in the US.

What the hell happened? Eleven years ago Shyamalan gave us the Oscar nominated The Sixth Sense, a film which instantly became a global phenomenon and went on to earn just over $670 million worldwide. Has there ever been a career trajectory quite like this before? In 1999 Shyamalan was being called the next Hitchcock, eleven years later and some people are arguing he doesn't even have a career left. It's an astonishing notion and it's desperately disappointing to see this once exciting filmaker's work decline so rapidly.

Here's the thing though. The Sixth Sense wasn't a fluke. It is a tremendous film and remains a powerfully effective thriller and a showcase for a director with a serious understanding of cinema and film making. The film is so much more than that twist, it's a beautiful film, perfectly paced and to this day terrifying. A film as well crafted as that doesn't happen by accident. It fully deserves it's place in cinematic history. And it's not like Shyamalan is a one hit wonder either, his second film, while not as well received as it's predecessor was a success. In fact, Unbreakable suffered only from being released too soon. Had it been released during the current superhero boom maybe it would have had a far warmer reception. It's an intriguing film, a superhero movie disguised as a psychological thriller. Unbreakable is a fascinating alternative look at the mythology of superheroes and a wonderful example of the now stale "origin" movie.

Mikey's Musings: A suggestion for the BBFC

This should be a review of Shutter Island. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to review Shutter Island.

I've been trying and I really want to, I saw the film on release and loved it. I'm a huge fan of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio and I love nothing more than a dark, creepy thriller.

I can't review Shutter Island, however, because the film was utterly decimated by the two mouth breathers to the immediate left of me.

There is nothing wrong with chatting once and a while through a film. I've done it myself. Discretely commenting on a particular moment to your viewing partner is relatively inoffensive. However, discretion wasn't the name of the game for these chaps. Each announcement was preceded by that weird noise idiots make, you know the one, it sounds like a lobotomised fog horn, "aaaahhhwwww, this is weird". I suppose it's a valid critique of the film, Shutter Island is weird. Wonderfully so. It begins as a seeming homage to the noir films of old, all moody lighting and shrieking violins, but as the story unfolds it becomes clear there may be something else at work. The story follows US Marshall Teddy Daniels, played by Leonardo DiCaprio at his twitchy, paranoid best. Daniels has been sent to the titular Shutter Island, home to the Ashcliffe hospital for the criminally insane to investigate a missing patient. Digging deeply into the Island's past he begins to realise that there is secret that the patients and staff are keeping from him. A secret that may be better left alone.

Mikey's Musings: The Happy Gilmore Effect

Years ago two brilliant, yet criminally overlooked media scholars devised a theory. They theorised that all films, regardless of genre, should, at their most base level not only engage but entertain the audience. They called it The Happy Gilmore Effect.

For those of you who don't know, Happy Gilmore is a cinematic masterpiece. A warm and touching character piece that deftly charts a man over coming personal and professional obstacles to achieve an insurmountable goal whilst also examining the fickle nature of celebrity and the psychological impact of losing a father.

It also includes the following exchange...

Mikey's Musings: Why Cars 2 will be brilliant

Cars is Pixar's weakest film. It's not as funny or as touching as the likes of Toy Story and the characters never quite resonate in the same way as the Parr family did in The Incredibles.

It's still far superior to 90% of animated features released these days.

When it's sequel was announced in 2008 (the first Pixar film to get a sequel since Toy Story) it was met with bemusement. Why were we getting a sequel to Cars when Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo were so much better?

It's because Pixar aren't in the business of churning out sequel after sequel of their most popular works. They care about their stories and characters, aggressively defending and protecting them from corporate tampering. If Pixar were in it for the money we would currently be looking forward to "The Incredible Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo 3: Where'd he go now?"

Mikey's Musings: What makes an event movie?

Last week James Cameron's Avatar became the highest grossing film of all time passing James Cameron's Titanic. According to Boxofficemojo as of 30/01/10 it has earned $1,924,744,073 worldwide and it's still looking comfortable.



Cynics might attest this success to the release date, the lack of any huge competition and of course the substantial extra revenue brought in from the 3D priced tickets, but there is no denying that Avatar has become something of a phenomenon. A film that just keeps going and going topping the weekend box office week after week living off word of mouth and repeat business.

It's an event movie.