Excuse the Intermission
Alex and Max take you on a journey through film with this discussion podcast about movies.
Excuse the Intermission
Our thoughts on 'Trap' + The M. Night Shyamalan Sweet Sixteen
Join us for an eye-opening exploration of the enigmatic career of M. Night Shyamalan, as we dissect his latest cinematic masterpiece, "Trap." We'll promise you deep insights into Shyamalan's signature style, including his unique approach to mystery, thrills, and camera work. Witness how his resurgence parallels that of Nicholas Cage and understand why July 2024 was a box office phenomenon, even without producing a single all-time classic.
Next, we delve into the intricate layers of a self-aware thriller starring Josh Hartnett, set in the vibrant atmosphere of a Taylor Swift-like concert. Discover the chilling narrative shift from a family-centric suspense story to a darker tale revolving around a serial killer. We'll also highlight the film's homage to classic thrillers like "Psycho," and discuss the intriguing dynamics added by Shyamalan casting his own daughter, shedding light on Hollywood's ongoing acceptance of nepotism.
Finally, we celebrate Shyamalan's journey from the groundbreaking "The Sixth Sense" to the self-financed high-concept films like "Lady in the Water" and "The Happening." Engage with our passionate debates over his filmography, including standout performances like James McAvoy in "Split." Whether you're a Shyamalan aficionado or a curious newcomer, this episode offers a thorough appreciation of his cinematic world, from his early successes to the challenges and triumphs that define his legacy.
How's it? I'm Alex McCauley and I'm Max Fosberg, and this is, Excuse the Intermission a discussion show surrounding M Night. Shyamalan's latest film, Trap, is now in theaters and giving fans of M Night's an opportunity to celebrate his unique blend of mystery, thrills and laughs Ahead. On today's pod, we will discuss not only our thoughts on Trap, but we will also take a deep dive into Shyamalan's career and return to one of our favorite episode formats. A lot of twists and turns around the corner, so don't go anywhere. Eti starts on the other side of this break. This episode is presented in partnership with the Gig Harbor Film Festival. The Gig Harbor Film Festival will take place this September 26th through the 29th in beautiful Gig Harbor, Washington.
Speaker 2:Hosted at the Galaxy Uptown Theater, this year's festival will feature 85 wildly rich films from across an array of genres. This year's festival will showcase five world premieres, one US premiere and 48 Washington state premieres, while also bringing films from 13 different countries to Gig Harbor. The festival opens with the world premiere of the Dogfather, the Legacy of Don James, which chronicles a time in history that changed Washington.
Speaker 1:Husky football forever. This year's attendees will enjoy exclusive premiere screenings, q&a sessions following the film blocks and, for VIP pass holders, an immersive all-access experience including epic parties and events throughout the four days. Digital programs are available now via the festival's website and for more information on scheduling, vip passes and general admission tickets, please head over to wwwgigharborfilmcom. You can also follow the festival on Instagram at gig Harbor film. Follow the festival on Instagram at Gig Harbor Film. All right, welcome to another Super Tuesday here, in kind of the gloomy Pacific Northwest right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of nice out.
Speaker 1:Summer's coming to an end, you can feel it, I can feel it, I was looking at my August calendar and my days are numbered, my days of freedom they're dwindling.
Speaker 2:My summer's just about to begin, Jeez Finals week and I got six weeks off. Wow, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic Well hopefully we have a little bit of overlap. I really don't have to start. You know waking up early and setting an alarm until August 19th, I think I was looking at, but that sounds a lot closer than I would like it to sound all of a sudden. Well, so okay, you got finals week. What else is going on? How is this week in preparation for this episode, I guess?
Speaker 2:You know it's good. I really enjoyed going back to a lot of M Night's films and especially like the staples right, the cornerstones, the early days, the salad days as they say. Yeah, m night's just uh, he's a really unique filmmaker in that he is a really good architect of concepts and ideas for films and he is usually always writing and directing he's an auteur he's an auteur and even just out of the gate an auteur, right, and he is so showy with his camera.
Speaker 2:Uh, I, I really loved just the fact that he does. You know, in a lot of these movies he does so many different camera tricks and, you know, obviously it's not him on the camera but he directs so many different camera tricks, uh, throughout his films that even even some of the the lesser liked or or the more, uh, the slower films are just so exciting because you're constantly moving. He's got that spielberg about him.
Speaker 1:I exciting is the perfect word. I've been going back and forth with this idea all week long, thinking like with some of the lesser quality films of his, I'm like I'm never either not excited, but sometimes I'm not engaged, or other times like I'm always engaged, but it's not always exciting. But but one of those two things is always true. Yeah, I'm either always in or I'm always amused yeah, he, he lives and dies by his writing.
Speaker 2:Uh, and you know you have to respect it, uh as someone, as as a director, as as someone who wants to make films, like this guy, just he, he really commits he's doubled, tripled, quadrupled, downed on himself absolutely and he keeps making films. I mean he's, he's got what? 16 films?
Speaker 1:uh, feature-length films and there's been like three renaissances within those 16 films that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, everyone loves a comeback and he is kind of like the nicholas cage of of directing. This is very true in the 21st century.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, all right, we may be getting a little bit of a ahead of ourselves here. We have a really fun discussion surrounding the new film Trap and then Shyamalan's career in a broader sense. But first I kind of want to talk about just the July box office in general, seeing as how this is our first month, or our first recording in the month of August, because I was looking back reading some headlines that were recapping July 2024. It's the first calendar month where the domestic box office has grossed $1 billion since July of last year, which of course was tagged for Oppenheimer and Barbie. So when you just look at that and now Trap will get to the success, the financial success of that film here in a minute, but just kind of across the spectrum, did you feel it? Did July feel like a movie month to you?
Speaker 2:I think it did. I feel like each week we had. I mean, I think this show is proof that each week we've kind of talked about a new release.
Speaker 1:We've had to do current events yeah right, we've been in the movies. We've been in the theaters.
Speaker 2:They've done a really good job and and not even like a like a world-bending movie came out in july, right, but like just a. The strength in numbers, like the. Some might say quantity over quality, but there's nothing that's going to go down as like one of the hundred greatest films. But all these films felt like July movies and felt like, yeah, like a summer back at the movies which we kind of had last year, but really it was just that one big weekend, right. So this is kind of the first time maybe since like 2019, I feel that like we've really had a very strong, just amount of decent films.
Speaker 2:With a diverse palette too, I think, is what you're trying to say.
Speaker 1:Because we've had typical blockbusters, we've had comic book IP, we've had horror films, we've had family films, so that's been really exciting.
Speaker 1:And now we're kind of starting to transition into more typical late summer releases. But I think we're going to be riding the high coming off of this month of July for a while and now I don't predict I can't imagine that you predict August is going to be anywhere near as successful. But there's light at the end of the tunnel. That is normally like a garbage month for releases where I still think going forward for the next couple of weeks we're going to be doing current event type episode formats absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, next week we have cuckoo, which we're both really anticipating, and then, you know, alien romulus. If alien romulus can, it could be the sneaky hit the big hit of the summer.
Speaker 2:Yeah be like an 85% amazing movie like that is going to be a huge, huge draw. Uh, because Alien is a franchise that has existed forever. It's got multiple generations of of fans, it's got different kinds of fans, because the each movie is kind of different. Um, and I I think it will perform so much better. Even though we both love Covenant and Prometheus the last two releases, I think the fact that it does kind of seem like we're going back to basics here with this film that it's going to draw old fans, new fans, everyone.
Speaker 1:I think that word of mouth will be really strong on it and you'll get a really good second week at the box office hopefully a great first week, of course. Speaking of good first weeks and getting off to a good start, though, we did have trap come out here august 2nd last friday and the movie did pretty well. I mean, it opened at 15.4 million domestically and finished the weekend with a 20 million worldwide gross. That's great. It's really good. Um pg-13 for yep exactly, exactly, um, and and I mean counting m nights.
Speaker 1:He had one student film, and so this, if you count that this technically marks his 16th major motion picture, and kind of not only. I feel like why it did well is it brought the spotlight back onto not only him and himself has this distinctive style of directing that we already kind of teased there in the intro, but it also brought back a fan favorite in Josh Hartnett to the silver screen, which I got me into the theater. I mean I was going to be there no matter what, but that was just like kind of a great little double whammy for me. So first I do want to start with just like our overall thoughts on trap, of course, but I do first want to just kind of like mention this, get it out of the way, not really to put a disclaimer on the conversation, but because of these different renaissances and the ebbs and flows of Shyamalan's career, I feel like if you went out to go see Trap this past weekend and you hadn't maybe watched Old or Knock at the Cabin or some of these more recent M Night Shyamalan films, you might have been kind of taken aback and held prisoner by the sense of humor in this movie.
Speaker 1:And I just want to make sure that people understand that we are in this stage of Shyamalan's career where, like he's out there to have fun and it could be kind of uncharted territory for for people who are still expecting this really high concept, thrilling filmmaker that they remember from like the early 2000s. So going into this movie, I stayed away from all trailers and I can get to how the movie played out for me. But going into the movie, did it land for you? Did it meet your expectations? How was Trap received by Max Vosberg?
Speaker 2:Well, going in, so I think about a third. Through the movie I was like, okay, this is different than what I thought it was going to be, but I'm having a blast.
Speaker 1:In what sense different?
Speaker 2:I say this in the best way and spoilers ahead for this movie, light spoilers at least. But this is camp and almost parody in the best way.
Speaker 1:It's him having fun.
Speaker 2:It's him having fun, it's m having fun. He's super self-aware of the movie, is self-aware really honestly, like it is, and it's anchored by this, this performance from josh hartnett, who you know. It's just. It's so good to see him back on screen because he is such a watchable, likable movie star. Like he is someone that it doesn't even really matter how good or how bad the movie is. He is someone. When you watch him and follow him through a movie, he's a movie star. You're, you're 100 in, you're 100, you're on his side, no matter what side he's on, you are enjoying yourself and he does such a great job of you know. This movie is centered around his character and him having to change gears right Constantly throughout the film.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's code switching, like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho or something.
Speaker 2:Totally amazing. Amazing, and you know, yeah, does I. I think the, I think that what, the two thirds that takes place in this arena, at this concert, fantastic, once again, just an amazing concept, uh, that m night has here and and topical too, right, like with the whole taylor, swift, like you know, eras tour phenomenon, like to to go and like set it in something like this, like it was just such a fun ride, uh, throughout, and and you know, and then he tries, and then he again gear shifts and tries to make it a little bit of a darker story. You know, towards the end, when we get out of the concert, and you know you can poke holes and whatever you want to do. But, like, I had such a good time, so much fun watching this movie, especially in a packed theater. Uh, you know, people are laughing with the movie. I don't think people are laughing at the movie, right, um, and there are ridiculous moments, but, man, it must've been a fun movie to make.
Speaker 1:I was thinking that as well, and some of the behind the scenes photos that I've seen certainly lead you to believe that it was a blast on set. So, having stayed away from all promo material, trailers, social media clips, everything like that, I did not with 100 certainty, even though the josh hartnett was the serial killer. Now, of course, just through osmosis and the way that the movie was being marketed, I had a feeling that josh hartnett could and probably will end up being the serial killer.
Speaker 2:I mean you're just like there's a twist, there's going to be. You knew that Right.
Speaker 1:But then, having gone back and watched the trailer since seeing the film, now I know that that is given away in the trailer.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people in the movie pretty early they do.
Speaker 1:You're like 15 minutes in and you realize it. But still, for those like 10 or 15 minutes before, I was 100% certain that this was a movie about psychopath Josh Hartnett. I was so that's like the first. It's hard to call it a twist, but that's like the first moment of real excitement for me was that first, like 10 to 15 minutes where I'm trying to feel out is Josh Hartnett hyper aware? And because he's introduced as this firefighter and he's with his daughter, is he really worried about their safety and that's why he's clocking all the security people. Is someone else going to be at this concert? And the trap is for them and this is going to turn into a Liam Neeson taken type of movie where he has to fight his way out for he and his daughter's safety.
Speaker 1:All different things were going through my mind and then you get this really cool reveal of him checking his phone and you see this Buffalo Bill type setup where he has someone in a basement held captive and that's really when the movie shifts into another gear and I was like, all right, here we go, we're off.
Speaker 1:Like my suspicions were were validated and, yes, this now we do get to have, like crazy, josh hartnett running around mouse yep, this cat mouse game. That's exactly what I had written down. Um, where? But where he's still being the father of a daughter and he is still introducing this really interesting family dynamic into the story. And, of course, m night loves exploring family dynamics, even to the point where, yes, he is having so much fun introducing this really interesting family dynamic into the story. And, of course, m Night loves exploring family dynamics even to the point where, yes, he is having so much fun and you can ring the nepotism bell all you want. But the fact that he even puts his own daughter in this movie and in peril for basically the second half of the film and it's up to her to spar with Hartnett back and forth for the final 40 minutes of this movie, it put a smile on my face. My whole theater was feeling it and I was like we did it, we're back.
Speaker 2:Well, I think also a lot of homage to Psycho. Throughout this film. Josh Hartnett has something going on with his mother. He keeps seeing visions of her. Right Josh Hartnett has something going on with his mother. He keeps seeing visions of her. So I think, almost like putting his daughter in, it has a little. There's something there talking with Psycho and the whole Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh and the fact that they have famous sons and daughters. I don't know. I was totally fine with the nepotism of that part.
Speaker 1:As was I. It's a stupid point if you're against it Because, hello, we've been doing this for decades. Like Francis Ford Coppola put Sophia in Godfather 3 when she had no business being in that movie, it Francis Ford Coppola put Sophia in Godfather 3 when she had no business being in that movie.
Speaker 1:It's a fine part, but Sophia didn't need to play that, whereas in this case I'm like, okay, well, if your daughter's an artist, a recording artist, she can perform her own original songs and we can draw all the parallels we want to it being like a Taylor Swift, as you mentioned, this huge, giant pop star, that's great. This, this huge, giant pop star, that's great that's fun again.
Speaker 2:It's just it's fun and I'm here for fun at the movies. Is black raven salika's like stage name? Is that really her? Was that her name, black raven? Yeah, okay, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I I do not know, but I do know that the song she performed with kid cuddy is, like available on the soundtrack to listen to, and so I've been having fun with that song, um, since watching it.
Speaker 1:Another really fun thing, I feel like and this was just unique to my experience watching the film but I did a double feature back to back with an actual concert movie on the day that I saw this, and so I went from watching an actual filmed concert performance in a movie theater to then watching this movie, which obviously features a pretty accurate and elaborate setup for a concert and it's just a great venue, it's a great plot device for a movie like this and it really just kind of had me.
Speaker 1:I was like this is a surprisingly really effective double feature because you think about the level of security that goes into just a regular concert and how it would be so exciting Again, kind of one of these things where it's like a Criminal Minds episode just blown out right, where it would be so exciting for something like this really to be happening. And now I guess that there's been something similar to this in the past, where I think it was a football game was staged as not a trap for an unsub, but there was, um, an effort by law enforcement I think it was back in the 80s or 90s to try to apprehend a suspected criminal, like at an nfl game, and so m night pulls from that a little bit. And now who I have no idea where that was or when it was should have researched it more. But of course this movie set in Philadelphia where he says, like all his movies, and we can get to that a little bit, you, ironically, did some homework. You were at the Mariners this last weekend rooting for the M night Phillies.
Speaker 2:I thought that was really funny. That's really funny. Uh, I also funny, that's really funny. Uh, also, it was. It was interesting going to a huge event like that after seeing trap, because I was sitting there in the stadium and being like, oh, this is trap too right, we got to do it at a ball game.
Speaker 1:You're just you. You're running through all of it, right, like it is a really relatable thing. The movie that I kept drawing comparisons to, which I think does also a great job at uh, about getting your mind, getting the wheels turning to just like an everyday circumstance that could turn out to be a it could play into being like a horrific situation, is red eye, the film that Wes Craven directed.
Speaker 2:I literally walked out of the theater, turned to Kaylee and was like that really reminded me of red eye, especially to the way that it breaks down.
Speaker 1:We where, like the first two thirds when you're in the airplane is so good and so effective and Killian Murphy is this man who can outsmart everybody, just like Josh Hartnett is outsmarting everybody at this arena, and you're kind of rooting for the antagonist. In a weird way. You want him to get away with it. And then once the plane lands in Red Eye and becomes more of this suburban thriller much like how this film turns into this domestic thriller and this really I don't want to say interesting, but it is interesting family dynamic and that's really where kind of like the second big twist of the movie occurs.
Speaker 1:Maybe the third twist of the movie occurs actually is once you get back into Hartnett's family's home and you start to meet his wife and their other son and you get more from the daughter, it loses a little bit of its potency. But still I was more relieved than I was upset and let down by what we got in the second half of the film, the final act really, because I thought, oh no, this could really go off the rails. But I think they did a pretty good job and Salika does a good job of actually like being more than just this object of fascination for Hartnett's daughter's character on stage and kind of just this plot device. She actually turns into a real actor and contributor to the film. So I appreciated all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:I wasn't a huge fan of her performance. I thought that was actually probably the weakest part of the film was silica, but her, her acting in the second acting yeah, but but it does play again. It does play into this camp that you're feeling throughout. I really wanted if, if we're gonna, if we're gonna like, dream up a perfect movie, I really wanted the whole family to be in on Josh Hartnett and the killings and the kidnappings.
Speaker 1:And that's how he's been so successful would have been a great Shyamalanian twist. For once, salika is in the bathroom and she's gone live on her Instagram and called for help. You're, you're hearing this commotion, this struggle outside of the door. How exciting, how thrilling it would have been had the mother, or the whole family, opened the door to then let her back out and she realizes, like she is the one who is trapped.
Speaker 2:Why else do you go out and get Alison Pill to come in and like, be the mother, like I, just when there's no really other you know actor of known quantity throughout the film, even like the profiler FBI?
Speaker 1:leader, yeah, the Criminal Minds agent the film, even like the profiler.
Speaker 2:Fbi leader yeah, the criminal minds agent, yeah, who? I? Again, how cool would have been if they got jamie lee curtis to do that, because then that kind of completes the. That also has a like a you know a saying about nepotism and completes the psycho homage and we get a reunion with her and her from h2o, like it just would have been fantastic. And they almost like don't reveal her at first, right she's kind of like this to the camera yeah yeah and and so like, oh, wow, would have been amazing if that, if that moment happened.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, I, I think yeah, if selika, yeah, the the door opens because like Alison Pill has got her to come out and be like, hey, it's okay, he's down, and like Hartnett's laying on the ground somewhere, and then like the whole family pounces on her and then we have like a hostage situation.
Speaker 1:You double down on the meaning of the film Trap. Trap is now. She's the one trapped.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, why do we not go that direction? I that's. It's really interesting because you know, you feel like that would be the typical m night route what do you think the most effective quote unquote twist was in the movie?
Speaker 1:do you think it is just hartnett being this serial killer who you end up rooting for? Because that is, I mean, mean, I don't want to put any words or thoughts in your head, but like were you rooting for him to get away at the end yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that already in of itself is an interesting and exciting quote unquote twist to the film. You also then have this twist that occurs right before they are about to leave the venue, where I was unsure how they were going to escape Josh Hartnett goes into Black Raven's dressing room Yep, and you get this. Really, sean Millan does this really interesting thing right before this moment, where he shows Salika using an inhaler and I'm thinking he's going to find a way to force a medical emergency upon her. To where, then he has to be the one, or he is the man, he's the firefighter.
Speaker 1:He's the one in crisis who is then going to be escorting her out. But he just comes out and big spoiler. But he just comes out and tells her I'm the one you're looking for. Yeah, a twist, right, because that is unconventional and it was really fun and my theater certainly reacted to that moment. And you get this just like straight on perspective of Hartnett's face and he's doing the evil smile and it's really good, it's really fun. Then you get the final twist of the mother of the family, of the household, josh Hartnett's wife being the one that indirectly, has set him up to be caught. So which of those three work the best for you? If you're going to talk to somebody who basically just wants to see this film for a Shyamalan patented twist, which one are you going to be the most excited to talk to them about?
Speaker 2:I think it's probably the second one. A if you're an average person person, you've watched the trailer. You know the first twist.
Speaker 1:You know hartnett is the serial killer and you're probably going into the film excited to watch josh, so in some fashion you're going to be rooting for him so I think, I think it, I think it definitely has to be the one where he reveals himself to black raven.
Speaker 2:Um, I, I think yeah, because because, again, yeah, in that moment you're thinking, oh, he's gonna take her out, or or he's gonna like trick her somehow, but really he just like forces her hand. Now the the final twist. I, I don't think the final twist works again, cause I I think I just said that like I would have loved it if Alison pill was in on it. The whole. I think that that whole part of the movie just doesn't need to. That's almost like too much, too much of like it's a trap on a trap on a trap on a trap, uh, and, and we're just putting every single person in the world against josh hartnett, right, and you're you're.
Speaker 1:You're creating this situation where the movie then has to have the return of the king, three endings totally, and that's where I felt a little bit of lag was like, all right, just let's get across the finish line, like, either let's, let's catch him for real so that we can have the final sort of Anthony Perkins in the interrogation room scene where we get some inner monologue, or we get him uh, kind of winking at the camera, not necessarily teasing a sequel, but just this, this reassurance that like, like, he's always in control because he's so ocd and he's so meticulous and planning all this stuff which we finally arrive at. But we still have to go through this like this, this grand theft auto with the limousine, and how does he get out of the limo?
Speaker 2:he?
Speaker 1:just throws some clothes on, opens the door and no one like pounces on the guy again. You have to suspend so much disbelief that's the only that was the only part where I was like I come on, I bumped on that big time because I'm like he would just be mobbed. Everyone would be like this is we all just saw him open the door and get out. This is the guy, and not even the SWAT people I'm talking about. They don't even show him get out of the window.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden he's just in the crowd All six foot four of him sticking out like a sore thumb. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1:So it's really ridiculous. Yeah, but you can go through every single one of these Shyamalan movies, as we are about to, and find something that is very ridiculous and that is a huge find it really interesting that this is like one of the only movies where he doesn't have a like a big ensemble cast it's the first one in a long time.
Speaker 2:I mean josh hartnett is the only. Again it's josh hartnett. And then allison pill shows up for a cup of coffee at the end, but like it's the josh hartnett show it's the josh hartnett and the m night show right like the names above the title.
Speaker 1:in this movie it's your lead actor in your filmmaker, yeah.
Speaker 2:And and going back and watching a lot of his older stuff like it's ensemble after ensemble after ensemble. I mean, everyone in Hollywood wanted to work with this guy. So it's really interesting that he decides in this film to to just focus on one movie star. I found that really interesting.
Speaker 1:Again movie star. Um, I found that really interesting. Again it's very hitchcockian where alfred was really good at putting joseph cotton or carrie grant or jimmy stewart above the title and that's who the movie is going to revolve around, and so I thought that was interesting. It was an interesting choice, effective though, once again, because of the charisma that we already talked about Hartnett having.
Speaker 2:He's so good man, he is so good and you know it's interesting. I went back and I was looking at his filmography because it has been a long time since he's headlined a movie and we were both really excited that he showed up in Oppenheimer last year. However, listen, I've here.
Speaker 1:However, listen, I've been calling for this for so long I am.
Speaker 2:I saw your tweet, I am.
Speaker 1:I am the I'm a card carrying member, if not the founder of the. I was talking to our good friend heath about what do we call ourselves as, like part of the heart net hive, we're the heartbeat okay, that's that's who we are.
Speaker 2:We are the heartbeat well, it's really interesting because if you go back and look at his filmography, he never stopped making movies. He just stopped making mainstream movies. He's in a bunch of indies and now, like I'm really intrigued, I need to go back and watch some of these.
Speaker 1:He's going to be the reason that finally gets me to watch season three of the Bear. It's been Because I hear he's in the Bear. Oh really, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's just popping, he, he's having a heart, heart ascent, he is, heartbeat is strong the heartbeat uh so it's, it's great, I mean.
Speaker 1:I just it felt like a throwback, in so many different ways, to some of the horror films, some of the thrillers that we got there in the early 2000s a la red eye and so on and so forth where just simple yet high concept premise that is, for the most part, really well executed in real time. Where, like I thought, him moving around the concert, him trying to go on the roof and that plane gets foiled because there's snipers up there. Already you know he tries to create these different diversions, those also are foiled, and yet he always has something else, he always has the next move planned out, and so it was just so fun and so entertaining to watch all of that transpire. And the more ridiculous those moments got, the more easy I felt letting this movie go as far as holding it to the esteem and that I hold something like this sixth sense or unbreakable too.
Speaker 1:We're, like I, coming off of knock at the cabin, which is a pretty earnest film, but when you go back and look at old, old is not trying to take itself serious, right, it is more shamalanian in the sense that there is a big twist at the end of it and there's something to say about society. But there's also a guy playing a rapper named mid-sized, mid-sized sedan in that movie and so, like, shamalan knows how to have fun and you just have to be there with him. You have to know how to have fun with him. And this movie is, like you said, at the top, all camp it's. It's fun, it's effective, there's some interesting filmmaking. I wouldn't say that it's his most innovative movie, though, as far as like camera movement, but at the same time, like it's got to be a challenge in of itself just to film two-thirds of your movie at a concert yeah so like that's a huge achievement, right there, and I mean some of those I don't even want to.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I should call them vistas, but like the wide shots of this, of this concert, I mean that that is a lot of people and I don't think it's a lot of CGI. It didn't feel like it. That's a, that's, that's technical. You know perfection to to control that. It's a lot of moving pieces.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about that a lot especially when he's moving through the concourse right. The blocking of all the extras has to be on point. So there's a, there's just. There's a lot to celebrate with this film is m night the greatest cameo director.
Speaker 2:I mean, he shows up in every. Is it every single one of his films?
Speaker 1:I believe it is every well, I went back. The last movie that I watched in preparation for this film was wide awake, and he's not in wide awake um, which is like his first studio film. He made it for miramax. However, I will say that it's a pretty, that's a pretty lofty company of of directors like hitchcock never with a speaking part, but hitchcock would always be in the background of his films. Spike lee is probably the most accomplished at this as far as writing characters for himself that have a lot to do he has.
Speaker 2:They have a lot to do. Does it a little bit yeah?
Speaker 1:um, but m night, as far as like consistency in in the amount of, again, the, the amount of fun that he has in these roles, where sometimes he plays, in this case, like the uncle of the performer on stage and actually like his character holds a bit of a crux. As far as like getting Hartnett to the next level of his plan and so like he can have fun with it like that. But then, like you look at something like Signs, where he is the, he's the driver of the car that ends up killing mel gibson's wife and his one scene in that movie holds so much weight. Yeah, so to very to varying different degrees. I think he knows he knows how to do it in a sense of either emotional impact and then he can also have a lot of fun with it and and be very self-aware in his presentation of himself. I'll say, um, his cameo in glass really funny, because you're in the same world.
Speaker 1:He basically has to play the same character he played in split and unbreakable, which is good, which is really funny because same universe, Um, and he may, and there's a commentary on that in the line that he gives for himself where he's. Like you used to work at the stadium. Yeah, I used to hang around there with some bad people or whatever.
Speaker 2:I was like that's really good, that's really good.
Speaker 1:Okay, any final thoughts on Trap. I mean next week we're going to do kind of a genre film ranking for the year. But I saw your Letterboxd review. You gave it the heart, you gave it three stars high for you. I had it in four stars like it's a b minus movie for me. Yeah, probably plus for me, right? Yeah, I can certainly recommend it and I hope everyone gets a chance to check it out whether you're a fan of m night heart net, just this type of movie in general it's.
Speaker 2:It's a great pg-13. I was thinking, if I was like you know, if I was a young teen right now like this would be a fantastic film to go see again. I think that's friday night movie to drag your friends.
Speaker 1:I think that's why you and I probably both in having seen it separately it's so funny that we're aligned on like this is the next generation's red eye. Totally, because that's when we saw yep the west craven film was like I think that came out 2006 or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, movie to see when you're 16. Not a world world breaker, but God, just good, good movie making.
Speaker 1:Exactly Okay.
Speaker 1:So M night in a bigger, grander sense, a really interesting filmmaker. We already talked about his quirks a little bit, maybe some of his I don't want to say the hiccups, his flaws, right, but like he is just such his own person behind the camera and behind the page to where it's unapologetic and he's unflinching in the way that he's going to not only tell a story but get a story made. He has his own production company, so he self-finances a lot of his movies. He's bounced around Hollywood to the different studios. It all really starts to come together for him in 1999, of course, with the Sixth Sense, and then his next four or five years really turns him into this person that is on the cover of magazines Oscar nominated, he has a household name and people are expecting him to be the next Alfred Hitchcock or the next Steven Spielberg, the next Alfred Hitchcock or the next Steven Spielberg. And then he begins to have these different ebbs and flows and probably gets a little too, whether it's self-aware or ahead of himself or preachy or ambitious, with the different projects he's taking on. He doesn't really ever try to adapt an IP, except for in one case, and that's a big failure.
Speaker 1:And so, in terms of just like studying a 21st century filmmaker. Do you think, when we look back at you know our last 216, 17 episodes? However it's been, or whatever. It's really fun that we haven't done an M night movie, because old and knock at the cabin door both came out during this podcast right, we just never have devoted time to it. But like when I went back to watch movies for this episode, I without sounding like a dork or pretentious or anything like that like I took this really serious, like I sat down and I was like he deserves to really be studied because this guy's fascinating and he deserves to be celebrated he is.
Speaker 2:He is such such an auteur and and, like you said, like unflinching himself and his films like the it's genre but it's also like really earnest and some, I guess, fun camp stuff in there. But his quality is just when it comes to filmmaking, the technical process of making movies. He is really high quality for the technical stuff, whether you like some of the writing that he does or not.
Speaker 1:Or the way that he can, not even subtly but overtly, include his personal beliefs when it comes to faith and religion.
Speaker 2:family structure- but he always, he always disguises it in in a ride, like all of these movies are such a good theme park ride Like they are, such you are, you know, I don't know if we have another filmmaker, at least currently, that started, you know, in the two thousands or whatever that is able to able to take you on such a locked in experience while you're watching his movies. And now maybe that's because he's built that up, you know, with with coming out of the gates with something like six cents and like the greatest twist of all time, um, but I feel like when you watch an M Night movie, you have to put the phone away, you have to be locked in, and I think it really works because then he, once you are locked in, then you really appreciate what he's doing.
Speaker 1:Well, what he does in every movie is he presents a specific set of rules that his story is going to follow and you have to not be second screening, you have to be engaged.
Speaker 1:You have to understand that if I accept the rules of this film, that for the most part things are going to make sense and there's going to be some sort of payoff for me and it will better my enjoyment of the film at the end.
Speaker 1:Because even as goofy as something like lady in the water is, there are specific rules to that film, to where the characters in that movie believe that this story, all the characters of that different apartment complex like you have to buy in and once you do you can have some fun with it. It's not a good movie. Same with the happening like uh, uh, uh, highly, highly touted box office failure. Everyone loves to poke fun at it. But if you buy in to what he's trying to do in that film and the homage that he's paying to rod sterling stories from the twilight zone and 70s disaster movies about killer ants or killer bees or whatever it may be like, he's trying to make an environmental thriller that if you buy in it's a sci-fi 50s movie exactly if you buy in to mark walberg being super camp on purpose and zoe deschanel also being cast purposefully with her big, wide eyes and their weird line delivery.
Speaker 1:Like you can have fun with almost every single one of his movies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know, I saw your your review of the happening and, uh, the fact that you called out Twilight Zone. I think all of his movies are just like extrapolated versions a long.
Speaker 2:Twilight Zone episode and that's. That's really really fun and in a world that twilight zone doesn't really exist anymore like I'm glad somebody is is taking those chances, because not every twilight zone movie is good or every twilight zone episode, you know. But like they all have kind of something, they're all high concept. They're all high concept, they have something to say underneath the skin of of the film and and they're just, they're like fantastical, like his movies are. It's almost kind of like this is what movies are supposed to be.
Speaker 1:Here's the other person who he reminds me of, and he might be the next he's he's like not the second coming, because you know, m night himself is the second coming of so many other filmmakers from the 20th century. The person who is doing what m night did at the beginning of his career right now is jordan peele and he's just not doing it at the clip.
Speaker 1:That m night was where he's making a movie every 24 months, yeah, every year and a half. Even peels much more intentional with stories, but same kind of thing where he writes his own scripts. He directs.
Speaker 1:There's a twist, right, they're fantastical, but there's also a commentary on society, and so I'm not asking Jordan Peele to start making a movie every 18 months, because I don't want to see that. I love what we're getting out of him and in the cadence in which he's like that's a great, great rolling out his projects. But I think that's who we are, because, uh, you know, jordan Peele himself has gotten comparisons to Spielberg and Hitchcock, and so it's exciting to see.
Speaker 2:And, and also Rod Sterling, where it's like, get out is a very detailed, uh, twilight zone episode yeah where it's, just it's it's, you know, all three of his films they are yeah, yeah, so yeah, uh, I, I really love m night and you know it's m night's also an interesting filmmaker where, like I don't fire up m night movies every so often, right like there's, there's like two that I do, but I understand what you saying. So like to go back and really examine his filmography, like we have this week, like it really it's a huge appreciation for his stuff Huge appreciation.
Speaker 2:It really invigorates my love for him and, like he's, very inspiring as well. Well, you know, financing all his own films.
Speaker 1:NYU film student Writing all his own stuff. Yeah, like just again. Anyone can make movies and it's amazing. Well, and then there's that whole other aspect of it too. You know, just getting into his personal life. His family immigrates over to the united states. He's an indian, american filmmaker, a person of color. Usually you don't get the opportunity to have carte blanche as many times as he's had right in his situation. So, again, that itself is worth celebrating 10 times over, and so we're going to attempt to do that.
Speaker 1:We have in front of us the m night shamalan ultimate bracket. It's been a very long time since we've done a bracket episode, but the fact that, when you count his, his student film and the one that he made for Miramax at the beginning of his career prior to the Sixth Sense Trap, marked his 16th film, so we have our sweet 16 laid out in front of us. We ranked these films. Well, we didn't rank them, but we used the IMDb rating scale to create seeding one through 16. Imdb, it's a very max friendly scale. If you ever listen to my buddy here over on the silver screams podcast, he loves to use decimals sometimes to the hundredth place imdb very similar and it's been around forever.
Speaker 1:So you can have hundreds of thousands of reviews and ratings on a film to where you get down to like. And this is this was really key and and important for the M night conversation, because some of his films that are between like five and 5.9, you have to be able to differentiate those and rank them somehow, so so I feel like this all worked out pretty well here for for this conversation. There are, of course, some heavy hitters at the top that are going to, I think, have a pretty clear path to like our final four, but we'll we'll start to go through them and try to give each movie, every film of his has something to celebrate, I feel like to a certain degree, and so we'll do that, regardless of the matchups. What's our first one here at the top of the bracket?
Speaker 2:Well, the number one seed, which I'm sure you could guess, is the Sixth Sense Yep, and it's going up against the number 16 seed, which is the last airbender.
Speaker 1:We'll have plenty of time here, as this discussion advances, to talk about the sixth sense, a movie that almost needs no introduction, and so this is really the the time to talk about the last airbender, because it's not going to win this matchup, not this one, it's. It's his 16th ranked film for a reason it's a. I watched it yesterday for the first time. It's a terrible adaptation of a pretty solid anime. The casting is just off and kind of egregious in places. However, I will say, watching it for the first time, and I watched it with some family friends who have kids who are in the target demo for this movie they couldn't even buy into it. They were on their tablets. James Newton Howard mo for this movie. They couldn't even buy into it, they were on their tablets.
Speaker 1:James newton howard, who is his longtime collaborator and composer for the scores of his films. It's kind of going crazy in this movie really good music that almost helps elevate some of these scenes of excitement and peril and triumph, two levels that are like entertaining, where you're just like this is really good music, like. I'm not getting goosebumps or anything like that, but it's helping at least. And you get a young, fun performance from Dev Patel in this movie, so it has. I gave it two stars. I rarely go that low, but I'm like 40% of this movie is I can put up with it, but there's so much room for improvement and like he just should have never done this in the first place yeah, I, I I turned it off halfway through like I just I, I couldn't, I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 2:That it is. It looks bad. Yes it looks really really bad it looks really bad. The acting is is really really terrible and, as you said, some of the casting choices are just kind of wild. Um dev patel is having fun.
Speaker 1:As is Cliff Curtis. Always appreciate Cliff Curtis in the movie.
Speaker 2:But yeah, this was just not. It's so weird the way it starts and it just kind of it tries to throw you into this exciting incident, but really you have no footing on what's going on. But really like you have no footing on what's going on and I feel like that kind of pulls throughout the film.
Speaker 1:It suffers from being a product of its time in which science fiction and commercial IP was being adapted really successfully across the cinematic landscape, where this comes out like two years after the dark night and iron man and all these other commercial properties that stemmed either from a comic book or a cartoon that were really good and really effective, and I think that children's you know, young adult adaptations were in a pretty decent place too, like I can't remember if the golden compass had already come out, but you did have some of those early Narnia movies, you did have Harry Potter, of course, and so I think it also just suffered from being less than every single one of those movies. So it's just a tough beat.
Speaker 2:And it's hard because M Night never does a movie like this right, like this, is just so out of his wheelhouse movie like this, right like this, is just so out of his wheelhouse.
Speaker 1:I think it's his only I mean, it is his only adaptation that he didn't himself write a script for.
Speaker 2:Well and just the tone the tone of it is just not. You know we we talk about he does do camp, but like it's still set in like somewhat of a real world and and almost like in the ruler yeah, the rules of this movie are not like fun.
Speaker 1:They're very um exposition heavy and you have to understand there's these different tribes and who can bend what element. And it's just so much to try to learn in an hour and it's really hard to adapt an anime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it really is. Uh, because animes and mangas are just so. There's so much content and there's so much history and there's so much like lore within those properties all right.
Speaker 1:So the six cents moves on and it will face the winner of our number nine seed, which is going against our number eight seed. The nine seed is his most recent film prior to traprap, knock at the Cabin Door. So it's kind of poetic that it is going up against our eight seeded Trap. Trap, obviously very new to any sort of movie rating platform, whether it's Letterboxd, rotten Tomatoes, even though it did get a good score on both of those. Right now on IMDb they have it at, I believe, a 6.2. Knock at the Cabin Door is a 6.1. So these are kind of right there in the middle. That's why they're the eighth and the ninth seed.
Speaker 1:Knock at the Cabin Door was such a weird movie coming out of the pandemic. That really was a return to high concept religious experiments and faith-based characters which we came to know and I think anticipate from a lot of M Night stories, and then we didn't get those for a long time. So that comes back in Knock at the Cabin and then it's going up against Trap, which we just talked about. So how do these two movies stack up in your opinion?
Speaker 2:It's tough, because Knock at the Cabin, I think, is one of his better looking movies.
Speaker 2:The cinematography in that film is pretty amazing and, granted, you're out in the wilderness and so, like you can make, you know, the woods look really pretty, but there are some really interesting camera movements that he's doing throughout. Dave Bautista, I think you know, gives an awesome performance and is very scary, but like in a reserved, subtle, like controlled way, um, it does. I, I think it suffers from kind of being stuck in the mud a little bit like it is kind of just like in this one cabin and it is a lot of just like we're just moving from from one side of the room to the other, talking or yelling at each other, whereas something like trap is this big expansive world. You're moving around a lot more. You're, you're, you know you're on the move. So it's more action, there's more action and trap, and I, I, I, I know this is probably recency bias, but I, I think trap is a much more fun experience, even though knock of the cabin might be, might be, a critically a better movie.
Speaker 1:Um, but my vote would be for trap here yeah, my thing with knock at the cabin is that it's so aware that it's pushing buttons, whereas I feel like when M Night tackles whether it's sexual orientation or religion or just violence in his movies in some of his earlier films, he does so in such an interesting, subtle way that doesn't feel heavy handed, whereas this movie is just very aware in what it's doing and it's almost trying to be upsetting and to trigger some people, and, again, I like the brashness behind creating characters like that, and so, once you distill all that down, it just does become another one of his exciting, entertaining thrillers, but it's not one that I've revisited since it came out a couple of years ago. Actually, just one year ago. It was a January release back in 2023. Feels like a lot longer. It does, though, and so it's just.
Speaker 1:I feel like he was more right than he was wrong with that movie. I think it was. On the whole, I think it was better than the film he made prior to that. However, I think that trap is just so much more refined and what it's trying to be and the fun in which it's trying to have, and so I like I know that the movie that I'm gonna end up, having seen more in my life once everything's all said and done is trap. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think trap moves on here as well okay, the next match up here we jump down to the bottom of the bracket is our number four movie, which is signs, starring mel gibson, and up against the number 13 seed, which is the happening, starring mark walberg. Alex, you have started the resurrection project of the Happening.
Speaker 1:I did. I rewatched it the other day and had a great time with it. I remember seeing this. It's funny too that we both have ties to the local theater that we grew up going to, with a lot of these M Night films because I can remember seeing both. I can remember seeing both signs and the happening at our old Regal three screen theater and everybody from the get go was out on the happening, me included. But I think that's just because I was really young and impressionable. And when my mom says that movie is a waste of time and I think I saw it with an uncle as well and they were just like that was so stupid.
Speaker 1:What the trees are, the bad guys whatever Then the more I think about it I'm like again, a very high concept film and watching it in a post pandemic world where environmental threats take on a whole new light, and I have an appreciation for what he's trying to do as far as paying homage to things from the 50s, 60s and 70s and making it this this grand tw Zone-esque type of story, and just the intentionality behind casting somebody like Mark Wahlberg. I mean Mark Wahlberg, a noted figure in Philadelphia culture, so, of course, setting this movie in Pennsylvania and having it take place with this, like he plays a science teacher and it's just he is not a science teacher but it's just care about science for once, it's so funny he is doing the the that voice Say hello to your mother.
Speaker 1:For me it's so like throughout the film and again it's, but it's just so entertaining because it's just so outlandish and it's so goofy, like how Josh Hartnett playing a serial killer who's taking his daughter to go see a Rihanna type musician is goofy. It's this, it's. It's in the same ballpark here and now. It's funny, though, because comparing these two movies, it's like it's like you know what food would you rather eat? Like ice cream or yogurt, those, those sound the same, but they're not the same at all. Like signs is some delicious tasting ice cream from Ben Jerry's, and the Happening is one of these frozen yogurt places that's been closed for 10 years. Like it's just, signs is the perfect.
Speaker 2:You know, with all the earnest that Knock of the Cabin had and all the fun action camp that Trap had, Signs is like the perfect. It's a good call. Perfect combination of those.
Speaker 1:Whereas, whereas the happening's all camp and it's goofy and I understand if you want to dismiss it, but like, revisit it through. Revisit that film through a different lens and much like, if you're just able to have fun with m night and different and some of his other movies, I think you can find it in yourself to have some fun with the happening. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's not moving on. Science is the pick here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which then brings us to the 12-5 matchup. If you watch March Madness, if you pay attention to the NCAA tournament, every year there's a 12 seed that upsets a five seed. I don't think it's going to happen here, but these are two very interesting movies that come during back yes, they come back to back in shawn malone's career and sort of mark the. They mark the beginning and then really the slide into his first downturn where the village is really interesting, high concept. Yet it's the first time that the twist, the quote unquote, like expected third act reveal of his film feels extremely telegraphed and upon rewatch it's so obvious as to what's happening, Whereas, like when something like the sixth sense is replayed, you can still have fun knowing what's going to happen. And we'll get to some of the other ones and same with, like in signs, which we've already talked about, leaving water out. Different things when it comes to mel gibson's faith and religion and the way that he interacts with people around him, like those are really rewarding on a rewatch, whereas the twist, necessarily in the village, I don't think is all that rewarding and yet it's probably his most stacked cast, the craft behind it. It reminds me of something and now this is such high praise coming from me. It is not like midsommar and yet it is, in the sense that the costumes and the town and everything that was made for this movie was made specifically for this movie, shot by roger, exactly. It looks great, it looks brilliant. So the village has so much going for it, despite the story being a little lackluster. You can say some of the same things about lady in the water, where the story is very interesting. It is such an interesting movie.
Speaker 1:This is basically adapted from a bedtime story that M Night used to tell his own kids about this monster, and he creates these rules where, once again, if you buy in and you say that, okay, storyteller, filmmaker, if this is what you're presenting to me, I guess it's my decision Whether or not I want to just not buy in or if, for the next hour and 50 minutes, I'll let you take me on this adventure. At the point in which we were at in Shyamalan's career, we were becoming less and less trustworthy of him to do that, and Lady in the Water to me just doesn't work the story and now that's not to say that it isn't him further feeling things out with this muse of his, who was Bryce Dallas Howard at the time. There's a sneaky good Paul Giamatti performance in that film, jeffrey Wright's in this movie. So there's things that are exciting about that movie. Again, you're either always excited or engaged in some sense with M Night.
Speaker 2:However, the Village and I know after reading your recent log of this on letterboxd that, like the village when you do return to it after a while can still be so impressive in a way that, like lady in the water, just isn't yeah it, it really, uh, it does such a good job of, even if you know the twist, like putting you in this world and and I even remember watching it for the first time again at the at the regal three and like for me the twist was was not obvious watching it the first time and and you're so entrenched in like okay, this is a period piece, we are, there are some sort of creatures now and, granted, the creatures probably need a redesign.
Speaker 2:Going back and seeing some of that, that stuff is just like we, we could have come up with something a little, a little better than than this, but then it also makes sense that that's what we, the the group of people who who are living in this fake town had had to work with um well, again you talk about a movie being an amusement park ride.
Speaker 1:This film basically is an amusement park ride.
Speaker 2:Yeah and and yeah, re-watching it this time, like again the fact that roger deakins is behind the camera, the, the compositions and the blocking, and like there are multiple shots of where, like, there are multiple people in in the frame but the, the way they are set and, and you know, on the picture is just, it just creates beautiful, beautiful frames and almost painting esque, like there's always a watchtower in the background or fire burning or some sort of fire. We've got this red and yellow color which really pop really well. You know sort of fire. We've got this red and yellow color which really pop really well. Um, you know, the woods itself, uh, are are very like a familiar kind of woods.
Speaker 2:I feel like, uh, yeah, it feels like sleepy hollow or something like a story you've been told your entire life and you almost kind of wish that it was like a, that there wasn't this whole twist, that it's actually modern times like there, that they're, that they are stuck in in this old or that they are actually living in, uh, during these old period times um, well, that's the interesting thing about this matchup, because him actually creating a monster in lady in the water is one of the stronger parts of that story whereas I think the village would be an even better film had he just decided to make these monsters real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. I I have you ever read. I remember reading this book in in the nineties in elementary school, called running out of time.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Okay. So it was a YA novel back in the day, almost to a T like the exact same concept where these people you're presented with, these people living in this old-timey town, Sickness breaks out and then the twist is, hey, we have to send our daughter into the real world. We actually are like an Amish community or something that live out in the woods that no one knows we're here. Yeah, Just the. So it's. It's really interesting that maybe that he might've like I don't know if he read it and cribbed it from that, but I think it just helps. It gives me a huge nostalgic feeling when I'm watching this movie and I think I think it's also really interesting that Joaquin Phoenix is in this, yet grossly underused. I mean, he gets bedridden halfway through the movie and then, like you, really don't even see his face the rest of the movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it becomes the Bryce Dallas Howard show. Bryce Dallas Howard is coming off of something like signs You're you're led to believe that like.
Speaker 2:Oh signs you're, you're led to believe that like, oh, this he will be the mel gibson, exactly, exactly. But yeah, bryce dallas howard, I, I think one of her better roles, uh, as far as an actor, um, and then you've got people like william hurtz, sigourney weaver uh, brendan gleason isn't will patton in this movie.
Speaker 1:Will patton is not in it, but michael pitt oh, my young michael pitt so great to see michael pitt and something um it is a will patten type guy in this movie. It's a huge ensemble.
Speaker 2:Uh, and then you know, and adrian brody is also in this and he plays kind of a problematic character. Where he is, he's playing judy greer. Yeah, judy greer a disabled, you know town person the Kind of the dunce.
Speaker 1:The dunce, yeah, the town dunce, jesse Eisenberg, that's who I'm thinking of. Eisenberg shows up, not that he's a Will Patton type figure, but I knew there was another big name that we were missing.
Speaker 2:It's just amazing to see and this is coming off of Sixth Sense Signs and Unbreakable. So everyone wanted to work with this guy and I think it's actually a pretty pretty good movie.
Speaker 1:Maybe you know, and and the twist might not work for everybody, but like well, it's one of his twists and and this is what we're gonna really have to start to distinguish once we get into, like, the elite eight, and the final four is like when does either the twist, when does the potency of the twist the first time around, carry more weight than just general rewatch ability to where? Like for me, and and we should probably just table this discussion because we have an interesting match now coming up in the next round for these two- my votes for the village sign versus the village going forward, because, yes, I, I do think it moves on here.
Speaker 1:okay, so now we we jump to the other side of the bracket where the number two seed, the, the favorite on this side, is split and going.
Speaker 1:It's going up against the 15th ranked film, praying with anger.
Speaker 1:Praying with anger is the student film that he made feature length at NYU though Um, and is out there to watch a very um self, not self-centered in the way that he's being like narcissistic or anything, but just a self portrait, basically, of of M night in his life up until that point.
Speaker 1:So an interesting movie, um, one that I basically just read the Wikipedia page on, didn't take the time to sit down and watch it because I saw that it was going up against Split. Split's an extremely interesting movie that wins this matchup easily that we can talk about more, so going on, but for now it's a pretty easy call, and I was a little surprised to see that the user rankings out there have Split at two, out there have split as at two, and then, like, even when you go on letterboxd and you click on m night, shamalan, it's the number one film that he is credited for being a part of, and now, huge financial success. We can get into it more, but the more you think about it like split is really the movie that brings m night back totally.
Speaker 2:Uh, the next matchup is old, which is the 10 seed, against the visit, which is the seven seed. Now, the visit is also believed to be like the beginning of correct that late period. Uh, comeback from from airbender and after earth, which we haven't got to.
Speaker 1:But yeah, like probably the lowest of his lows so the the Visit is really interesting.
Speaker 1:It's a found footage film Watched it for the first time this week. Yeah, what'd you think? Listen, man, when it comes, you tell me Jason Blum and found footage and I'm in. Yeah, now this movie, like in a way that I will always appreciate the found footage genre, in a way that I will always appreciate the found footage genre, but in a way that other films have used known actors or or it's just, it's tough when all of a sudden an actor in your found footage film goes on to become someone that is so recognizable. In the way that Catherine Hahn has become so recognizable and the movie starts with her. I was kind of not like immediately out, but the movie started sort of behind the eight ball for me where I'm like you're gonna have a little, you pull me out you're gonna have to really convince me that this is a world that I can buy into again.
Speaker 1:You have to these rules better be some good rules, because I'm always down to go on a ride, but you're gonna have to show me something here with this movie. Guess what this movie shows you something? Shows you a lot of things.
Speaker 2:Some of the creepiest vibes, I think in an m9 I was thinking about this earlier.
Speaker 1:Everyone is always like when it comes to horror movie tropes. You know, little kids are so creepy. You hear that little kids, that little kids. That it's. It's been played out over and over and over and over. You think that old people are used in the same way more often than they really are. I couldn't really think about another movie in recent times that has used old people so effectively in a scary movie where, like you, are creeped out by these, by this couple who you think which is ironic that it's going up against old it is right, that's that's very true.
Speaker 1:Um, so I I had a. I had a really good time with the visit. The visit has a few. It wasn't as scary as I was hoping for, like I was, cause found footage movies, for whatever reason, usually can get under my skin pretty well.
Speaker 1:Like some of my favorite horror movies from the last 20 years are found footage movies and it's not the ones you would think of. You know it's not like the Blair Witch or anything like that, and I know that's going back a little further. But like I always am trying to recommend, as above so below, to people you know, paranormal activity. It's got some great hidden gems amongst that cv. There's a lot of good stuff out there. Hell house llc is a great found footage movie.
Speaker 1:The visit's not on that playing field and yet it's going up against a movie that I also think stutters in its execution a little bit, and so this is an interesting matchup. This might be our most interesting first round matchup because old, a movie that's really, really exciting and that, like I went back and I read my letterbox review on that film from a couple of years ago, from the moment that we get onto the beach until the twist is revealed, like it's thrilling, it's, it's really really good stuff, and so I'm totally, I'm on the fence with this one. I have no idea which way I'm going fence.
Speaker 2:With this one, I have no idea which way I'm going. Yeah, I I lean much more to the visit, just because I I think the visit for me is much more grounded and and pulls me in faster than something like old, where I I am confused what the rules are of old and I don't know. You know, there there are many times where I'm just like why, why are we what? What is, what is the entity here that is keeping us on this beach? What is, what is? Why are we staying? Why are we letting this happen to ourselves?
Speaker 2:magnets man yeah, apparently Magnets man. Yeah, apparently magnets. And yeah, I find the visit just a much more tactical way of doing that kind of story.
Speaker 1:The visit's a horror film. It's really not trying to be anything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right, and where old is trying to grasp at other again very Twilight zone-y, yes, where our characters are dropped into an area where the macabre or not the macabre, but the supernatural- is happening and they have to come to terms with it.
Speaker 1:It's a family drama. There's all the trappings of kind of a classic M Night movie.
Speaker 2:I mean it does have. The one amazing thing about Old is that scene in the cave right, the body horror in the cave.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of amazing scenes there.
Speaker 2:Where, like it's like this spider person, you know, and I remember being like blown away by that. However, I think the Visit has the moment underneath the house, has the moment where, like you first see like naked grandma go across the hall at night.
Speaker 1:A lot of ass that I didn't expect in the Visit.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting these titles could almost be reversed. Very true, yes, where the Visit should actually be called Old. The visit should actually be called old and the old should actually be called the visit and for a found footage movie.
Speaker 1:The visit actually does have a pretty good twist, whereas that's kind of an unconventional way to structure your found footage movie because to have some sort of revelation, as opposed to just like showing us this moment in time, as most found footage movies do. The visit still has that m night signature twist at the end of it and it's it's a good one. It's not one that I saw coming. Yeah, it's so unique to his filmography to where maybe we move it forward for that reason alone. But I also do kind of think that it's just it's more entertaining. It's more entertaining film, yeah, even though there's kind of think that it's just it's more Entertaining.
Speaker 1:It's a more entertaining film, yeah, even though there's sections of old that are, to me, work really, really well. And again, it's a fun cast Vicky Crapes, yeah, I mean Alex Wolfe, thompson, mckenzie, of course, gil Bernal Garcia, and so like Gil Bernal Garcia, and so like a lot of good stuff happening with that movie. But the visit, really fun, teams up with Jason Blum, who he which becomes very important going forward for certain IPS, and so yeah, let's, let's put the visit forward and that makes yeah, that kind of creates this a Blumhouse matchup in the elite eight a little bit later on.
Speaker 2:Next is unbreakable, which is a three seed, going up against After Earth, which is a 14 seed.
Speaker 1:I watched After Earth. Good, because this is the one film of his that for the of the movies that I had not seen. I started I got like 10 minutes into it Again. I was trying to do a whole marathon the other day of kind of his movies that are more catered towards kids. When I was trying to do a whole marathon the other day of kind of his movies that are more catered towards kids when I was with some family friends, we got like 10 minutes into it and we decided to go outside and play badminton because we were also watching the Olympics.
Speaker 1:So like that's the way it was, and again going up against Unbreakable, which in my opinion, we'll get to this a little bit later, but like I think is a perfect film, I knew it wasn't going to win.
Speaker 2:Yeah, after Earth is extremely boring. Like listen M Night, you're trying to do your big sci-fi you know movie. You've got Will Smith, you're teaming him with his real-life son, which of course you know worked in Pursuit of Happiness, concept and movie that you're shooting for. This is a pretty boring and Jaden Smith is really really not good throughout this film and unfortunately it centers around him because Will gets hurt or something and it has to be bedridden. But yeah, after just just does does not work on really any level.
Speaker 1:Okay, well then, that's an easy matchup. It saves us a little bit of time.
Speaker 2:Unbreakable is just fantastic.
Speaker 1:We'll talk more about it. All right, so the final matchup then in this first round is the number 11 seed wide awake yes, that's a real movie and that's going up against Glass. The number six seed, which is, of course, the sequel to Split in the conclusion of this unbreakable superhero world that he decided to create.
Speaker 2:I think you watched both of these. I have not seen either of these movies.
Speaker 1:Interesting To be candid.
Speaker 2:So you know, I will defer to you. I guess I would guess to lean Glass. But I, you know, I will defer to you. I, I, I guess I would. I would guess to lean glass, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:This is the. It's the same point that I made earlier about signs in the happening. We were just comparing two very different things that are that just so happened to exist like in the same universe. Whereas like wide awake is such a sweet and yet respectable the word I use, I think, on my letterboxd review is precocious where, like, it's kind of an advanced story about childhood that he makes for miramax, for the Weinstein brothers, that he gets his script and he gets to direct it of course comes a year before the Sixth Sense at least the release date of it it's a 1998 film and it's just a movie that like we don't, you know, we, we can talk about all these genre pictures that he makes and how he's kind of the driving force for getting a lot of these movies made.
Speaker 1:Still, wide Awake is a movie that just doesn't happen anymore. Like, if you're gonna make a movie like this today, it needs to be like are you there, god, it's me, margaret. It has to be pg-13, it has to be a little bit edgier. It can't just be about an 11 year old starting fifth grade at like an all-boys school and kind of finding himself. Rosie O'Donnell's in this movie. She plays one of the nuns at the school huge Phillies fan, of course. Like when you meet her she's wearing a Phillies hat, like there's just there's Philadelphia riddled throughout all of his films, but it's really funny to see it in this one. Dennis Leary plays the kid's dad and he is really good in that role as well. It's just kind of this like distant but still caring father figure.
Speaker 1:This feels like a movie that had I have discovered it and it's so weird because it feels like a movie that should have been playing on Remember, remember, channels like movie plex and encore these different like little packages that you would get with like a Comcast subscription or something like that.
Speaker 1:It feels like there should have been a deal between Miramax and one of those movie channels In the early 2000s that just had this playing on repeat, like I should have. I can't believe that I've never heard of this movie or watched this movie, especially it being his first big studio film. It's really it's really Interesting to watch this movie. Because it's really interesting to watch this movie because it's so different from everything else that he's ever done. And it's not that it's unsuccessful, but it's just kind of boring by no fault of its own, because it's a movie that we're just not used to watching anymore, but still a really interesting artifact and moment in his career, because you can see like the boy in this film has a lot of Haley joel, osment energy and he goes on to do six cents a year later.
Speaker 1:yeah, so it's just bizarre, as where glass is? This huge film, enormous budget, star-studded cast brings back everybody from unbreakable and Split, including Anya Taylor-Joy, to do nothing. I was so disappointed that she didn't have more to do in Glass, and yet it's just like I put in my review for this film that like I was kind of speechless at the end of it because I just watched two hours of what felt come out of retirement, samuel L Jackson, come out of retirement to play these characters that have this different level of legacy to them. Now the James McAvoy character already has this level of legacy to it, and so you're expecting the Beast to come out.
Speaker 1:What works so well about split is you're so worried and afraid of what's going to happen when the other personalities bring the beast into the world, whereas in this film like that's the whole point is for Samuel L Jackson. He's now found like his, he can be the mastermind, and he's found his, his villain, his arch villain, to go against Bruce Willis, villain, his arch villain to go against bruce willis. And so it becomes this big blown out superhero ip battle, while still having a lot of what really worked and especially unbreakable, like this structure in this, this examination of good versus evil. And yet it's just like Sarah Paulson acting lowercase a, you know, just like line reading, yeah, uh, and your Taylor joy when she's on screen. You just don't have the investment that you do. She's still great but, the character.
Speaker 1:you're not invested in her, like you are in the first one, where you're really rooting for her survival. So I don't know. Glass is the glass is perfectly fine while also being extremely forgettable. So it's tough. I feel like, again, comparing these two movies is like do you want a cheeseburger from McDonald's or do you want like a cheeseburger from a nice restaurant where you can tell them how to cook the beef? You know, like that's Glass.
Speaker 1:Glass is just going to be a better tasting thing because that's what a movie is supposed to look like and that's what it's like going to be a better tasting thing because that's what a movie is supposed to look like and that's what it's going to remind you of, whereas Wide Awake just feels like something that could have been made for the Disney Channel. So it's really tough. I mean, I think that Glass moves on here just because it's a greater accomplishment in a way, but I can recommend people checking out Wide Awake. It would be really interesting to see what a 12 year old today thought about wide awake. I wish I could show someone Wow, yeah, I think they'd be bored. Yeah, totally, but also watching like me, watching glass, whereas I'm like the glass is made for me and it's not that effective.
Speaker 2:So who's to say what's more Well, then maybe Wide awake doesn't move on here, just because it's not. It's okay, no, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:I wish it could, but I think it'll make for any. It makes for an interesting matchup in the next round, just because it's you know, now you have unbreakable versus glass, kind of the student versus the teacher. It's like this is how you do things, right. It's like this is how you do things Right. This is how you don't do things, Don't do things. So I think we put it that way. But I did have fun returning to, or not returning, but kind of discovering Wide Awake. All right, Our Elite Eight now.
Speaker 2:So, looking at this Elite Eight these are eight good movies, I'd say, other than maybe Glass.
Speaker 1:But still, what he did with Glass, glass, it's commendable, sure, because he was able to tell his big ip story right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the first matchup is going to be sixth sense verse trap so this is where traps moment on the podcast ends yeah, unfortunately we loved you trap.
Speaker 1:You were a lot of fun give us more traps but you're going against one of the best movies from the last like 30 years of six senses yeah, it's incredible and again, I don't know if we'll really get into it until well.
Speaker 2:We'll see, maybe, maybe the next.
Speaker 1:I think the next round is when we have to have a real conversation about its merits versus its competitions. Um, but so for now, this extents moves on. Then you have the signs verse. You have signs versus the village which listen again.
Speaker 2:I love the village, it's great, but signs the legacy of signs, the effectiveness of signs. Signs- feels like his most one, if not his most complete movie, like there is a solid ending to that story.
Speaker 1:I think it's his most rewatchable movie.
Speaker 2:I would agree. I think Signs is probably the one I rewatch the most. Yes, for sure, but yeah, there's a great arc there. You know it like is, but is there like it really isn't a twist, other than maybe that you know Mel Gibson used to be a priest?
Speaker 1:or something like that. Well, and that's a huge twist In that, everything happens for a reason.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's talking about, you know, faith and fate or like meant to be and just happened, chance, right. So yeah, I, I think signs moves on here, village, fantastic little rewatch to go do every every couple years, but signs is like one that like it's, it's, it's, it's in the dna of of of us it is okay.
Speaker 1:So then over on the other side of the bracket you have Split versus the Visit. Now is this a closer matchup than I think it is? It might be Because I think we're probably both leaning towards Split here. And yet when you look at what the Visit does.
Speaker 2:The.
Speaker 1:Visit.
Speaker 2:I think is a more enjoyable fun time. Split has the big performance, I mean james mcavoy and we didn't really talk about going up against praying with anger, but like james mcavoy is unreal in split yes um to to conjure up so many distinct, different characters and to do it with respect. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:For what I have in the little bit of studying that I've done when it comes to like DID, until you introduce the supernatural elements here, the different split personalities that he exhibits, I feel like are all done with pretty good care and respect.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah. We're never like, we're never super vilifying or making fun or making light of his condition throughout the film, making light of his condition throughout the film and you're also not making him out to be.
Speaker 1:He is the antagonist of the film, but you're not making him out to be a bad guy. Yeah, and you're always. The story is always moving along at a pace to where his character and the Anya Taylor-Joy character you can tell are trying to work together. She we're getting flashbacks to her childhood and you're seeing the trauma that she's had to endure and you're understanding that these two characters are similar in a sense to where they're going to be able to help each other. Yeah, I think that's all done like. That can go really wrong in the movie when you're just like trauma dumping over and over and over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um gosh, yeah, and and the visit here's.
Speaker 1:Let me just let me read to you. Let's hear the five actors who were nominated in from the year 2016 for best actor. So casey affleck wins for manchester by the sea. I think he's phenomenal performance. He's still in there. Denzel Washington gets a nomination for Fences a great movie. A little bit Lifetime Achievement Award feely, but still a great movie. Great performance. Ryan Gosling from La La Land very well deserved. A fun performance though yeah, and. I think that's more of the movie success as opposed to Gosling's.
Speaker 2:I mean Gosling's talented because he can sing and dance. Yeah, but think that's more of the movie success as opposed to goslings. I mean gosling's talented because he can sing and dance, but like he's just I mean he's just being gosling.
Speaker 1:And then you have a max fosberg special here. Vigo mortensen gets nominated for captain.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, dude love that, if you haven't seen it, he's great in it. He's fantastic in that what's stacked here and then you get.
Speaker 1:Is it though? Because then you get andrew garfield from hacksaw ridge? Oh, that's.
Speaker 2:That's horrendous, that is terrible.
Speaker 1:I mean he, the accent alone is horrendous in that movie so you're getting gosling on the merits of la la land's overall presentation, right, I feel like in the multi-faceted performance that he has to give, you're getting Hacksaw Ridge for some inexplicable reason. Really, I think that that was just real Oscar Beatty in 2016. And then Viggo Mortensen is kind of the indie darling and Denzel Washington as the lifetime achievement, the legacy nomination. So when you look back at it, it was almost a slam dunk, probably for Casey that year. But you could, you could have. You could have fit mcavoy in here somewhere, wouldn't?
Speaker 2:that have been exciting. That would have been really cool.
Speaker 1:Man the oscars yeah, if you throw james mcavoy in there instead of andrew garfield, wow, what a what an interesting conversation race like because when you because, right, because what you do by nominating mcavoy is you bring a way more gravitas to this performance by getting people out there to look at it and actually say, wow, this is impressive look at what he's doing here, because there are scenes.
Speaker 1:It would be one thing if every single mcavoy scene in this movie was him entering this room as a different character, but where this movie really turns up the heat is when he is switching between the different personalities in real time in front of the girls and in front of us as the audience member, and it's like a master class or even when he's.
Speaker 2:The moment that struck me the most was when he's in the office of the therapist.
Speaker 1:As Barry.
Speaker 2:As Barry, but then she calls him out and is like you know, this is Dennis. What he is able to do with his mannerisms and his face and his physical form. I mean he changes his physical form in front of us His posture, yeah. Yeah and yeah it's just, it's really really great stuff.
Speaker 1:It's also a very rewatchable movie. I hadn't seen it in a couple of years and rewatching it this time around. It's not only great for his performance, for the story again, like 85% of it, but also it's this is taylor joy like right around the same time as the witch it's right after right after she was not this commodity that she is now, and not only hollywood, but especially in genre filmmaking, and kind of adds this budding scream queen and so it's really great she's awesome in it.
Speaker 1:Hayley lou richardson's fun. Like everybody who kind of shows up in this movie you're having, you're impressed by what you're seeing. Like this is a really, really impressive movie.
Speaker 2:And I love that. It kind of takes it, pokes fun at what's going on at the time within the you know, the cinema landscape with Marvel and these after scene credits or after credit scenes where we get the reveal of like oh, this is a little unbreakable. Stinker this is in unbreakable's universe right um, which gets you very excited for where it can go. Yeah, I, I think split, I think split is is is the way to go here.
Speaker 1:As far as like a movie goes, it's the more impressive production. The Visit's really fun. It's just kind of again not in the same league, yeah it really isn't, and that's no fault of its own, because it does a lot for Shyamalan. It's a good found footage movie and it's creepy.
Speaker 1:It's like scary in a way that split isn't right really. Um, where it's more splits, more unnerving and upsetting, whereas the visit has like jump scares, yeah, and it would be fun to watch you know again if you're 16 at a sleepover because it would be really fun to watch and also to kind of laugh at and to have some fun with. But I think splits more just the more impressive overall film here. Let's go split, let's do it. So then we just have one more spot remaining in our final four and it's unbreakable versus glass. This is really great that split has already moved on and now that we have unbreakable going up against glass because the return on investment for these three films has gotten it's, it's deteriorated over time we're unbreakable. In my opinion, fantastic movie. Connecting split to unbreakable is really it was, it was a fun idea until we saw what but unnecessary.
Speaker 1:and then, once we saw where it led to this sort of just like empty feeling with glass, it's only appropriate that Unbreakable knocks out glass and says like get out of here, you shouldn't have been here in the first place. And I think this still really lets us save Unbreakable, an Unbreakable conversation for the next round when it's going up against Split. But this is exactly where I thought we would be with the six cents signs split, an unbreakable in the final four four great movies.
Speaker 1:Therefore really really good movies, solid movies. So now the six cents versus signs discussion.
Speaker 2:This is tough. Six cents, rewatching six cents this week, like it really is a masterclass of how to draw your audience in and then pull the rug from them. Uh, it is even even on the re-watch. It's, it's subtly done. There are there, obviously you. You have it in the back of your mind while you're watching it.
Speaker 2:The, the on a re-watch on a re-watch, but if you're able to, to push that out and just really examine the film it is well and also to kind of how well the script in the film in the direction hides the twist totally it's. It's really a masterclass. And hayley joe osmond his performance it's so insane. Because he and Haley Joe Osmond his performance it's so insane Cause he is a child in this movie but he is giving such an adult performance. It blew me away and he wins the Oscar right this year.
Speaker 1:I don't think he wins, but he's nominated, he's definitely nominated.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the what he's doing as a child in this role and it just makes me like my brain explode, like how much did he know? What was his understanding of the film?
Speaker 1:Nominated for supporting but did not win.
Speaker 2:Because we hear the stories of someone like you know, Danny and the Shining, and like being kept in the dark.
Speaker 1:He had no idea what kind of movie he was making Danny and the shining and like being kept in the dark.
Speaker 2:He had no idea what kind of movie he was making. Haley Joe had to have known what was going on, and so for him to to like, really just like, get into the character and like perform. What is a really amazing performance is it's.
Speaker 1:it's really something I don't think we've really seen since, and it's been tried many times well, it's been tried within shamalan's own filmography, and I actually do think, though, that he is maybe one of the better and this is again where he gets a very spielbergian comparison is that he not only tells stories that have great childlike wonderment in them, but he gets great performances out of his younger actors, and even just in this matchup you look at Culkin and Abigail Breslin and Signs again two really, really good performances out of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then yeah Signs. On the other hand, again, not a huge twist per se, but just such a complete film per se, but just such a complete film, a subversion of an alien invasion movie.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the interesting thing about this movie, right. Every time I've rewatched it, I become less and less interested in the aliens somehow, and more my where my investment lies is in the safety of the family. I'm like I need this family to be okay, no matter what's happening.
Speaker 2:Might be one of Mel Gibson's best performances. I think so. If not his best, yeah, I think so, it's his most endearing, where, like you care about him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally so much. And it's really interesting that, like you know, there are lines from both movies that have lived on oh, the iconography behind both these films is so strong yeah, I see dead people swing away merrill like them in the closet, mel gibson opening the closet door and you have the kids and joaquin with their tinfoil hats.
Speaker 2:It's been memed to death, to death um, I, I, I think I lean signs, uh, but that's just because that to me really surprises me to me signs again is is a much more complete movie, I think. I think mel gibson is better than bruce willis in in a head-to-head matchup of performances um and science or and science has more science has more personality science has more personality, more rewatchability.
Speaker 2:Six cents the way it ends, right, like you know, you get the twist and and that all happens. But then it just does and it's interesting because unbreakable kind of does this too where it just like it halts to a stop, where, again, I think Signs actually like really stretches out a proper ending, right, a closing to the story, whereas like where does Bruce Willis, the end shot, is Bruceuce willis sitting next to his wife, right as a ghost, saying like I'm, I'm gonna go now, tomorrow will be different. And then we just cut to black um, which you know is a, is a really big choice and like it was very big when it came out and like shocked a lot of people. But I think, on a rewatchability or just in a general movie stance, like ending with the ending, with signs, where we, we are embracing, the whole family's embracing, and we have survived this encounter, I don't know. I signs. Signs to me just hits differently.
Speaker 1:It's funny to say that maybe the Sixth Sense is the more important M Night film and yet Signs is the more quintessential M Night movie without there being that big twist, right, because it's like how much do you value from the twist in the Sixth Sense versus something like the thematic material of signs? Yeah, which I, even though there's tons of family dynamics cooked into.
Speaker 2:Sixth.
Speaker 1:Sense, the Sixth Sense. They're explored in such a more interesting way, I feel like, in maybe a more relatable way.
Speaker 2:I think it's much more In signs, a much more specific way in some sense right Like it is a single mother and an only child, yeah, and a widowed wife and a workaholic husband.
Speaker 1:But like you can watch signs as a kid and relate so much to what's going on, you can watch it as as Meryl and relate to so much that's going on. You can watch it as Merrill and relate to exactly as somebody who's a sibling, you can watch it as a sibling and relate, and then if you're a parent.
Speaker 1:You can watch it through the Mel Gibson lens. It's I don't know. I I thought you were going to go six cents, so I was just kind of prepared, like if I was writing this in pencil I would have already penciled in the six cents. But I I do think there's a lot of merit in what signs does over time. First, and I mean we're talking, do not get us wrong here we're talking about six cents, which is a highly celebrated, one of the best genre pictures of all time, of all time nominated for six academy awards.
Speaker 2:On our uh redo of the 99 oscars we gave it a couple we gave. I think we gave it best picture, didn't we? Or no, we gave the matrix the best. Did we give m9 best director?
Speaker 1:we maybe gave him screenplay or director or something because it's I mean it's nominated for editing tony collette is nominated.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic yeah it's. It's one of the very few times where a horror movie has been taken seriously well, it's also really important because the sixth sense is the, the birth of elevated horror. Right Like we don't get hereditary without a sixth sense in in 1999, right when it's tough. It's like a dramatic, it's a, it's a, it's a drama. I mean, okay, in the ghost story.
Speaker 1:Respectfully, I will disagree, just because I think that, like you, look at all the Roman Polanski movies from the 60 even though it comes out in 1999, for, like modern movie making, I'm trying to think of just anything else. I mean, the eighties was real genre heavy with with ladder, yeah, but you still did have things like possessions in their possessions got a lot of elevated concepts, jacob's ladders at the very beginning of the nineties. So it's there, but but again, when you talk about I, I guess I agree because because mass appeal to, to to the public's perception of what a quote unquote horror movie is.
Speaker 1:And then, going back, I guess a little bit, you know, I think it the silence of the lambs has been deconstructed over and over and over as as just like a thriller and not really a horror film, even though you got to put it in the scary movie section at your video store or on your streaming service or whatever the case may be. That's how you find that movie. I do think that you're right in in the fact that, like so many directors who have come up either under blumhouse, under jason blum, or at a24 or at neon or some of these other production companies yeah, like m nights had a huge impact on the way.
Speaker 2:That's that modern horror stories, ghost stories, thrillers, mysteries have been, have been made I will say too, though, that you know I get much I I get the chills much more when I see the birthday party footage from signs, as opposed to Misha Barton showing up in the tent.
Speaker 1:Misha Barton in the tent is iconic, but so is Joaquin Phoenix in the closet, going Vamanos, children Move, move. So funny and scary but also scary. There are a few jump scares in I mean I. I remember the alien on the on the roof, vivid in the reflection of the mirror under the door. But I vividly remember putting a pillow over my face while misha barton is throwing up down the hallway so do I.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really scary it's very scary especially as a kid. Kid, but I don't know. Signs last longer to me.
Speaker 1:Signs I think last longer.
Speaker 2:I'm putting signs.
Speaker 1:Let's put signs. I love it. All right. So then the other side of the bracket split versus unbreakable. So this again, because one movie is responsible for the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but now again M Night starts to get in his own way, a little bit as he does over and over and that if he didn't do that, I wonder if I would be thinking about this conversation differently I I this matchup differently, this would be yeah but because he ties split into unbreakable's world.
Speaker 1:That alone makes me feel like unbreakable is. It's the more M night coded movie and I think that because, aside from the last airbender and then trying to take on a science fiction universe like with after earth, this was the big intellectual, like ultimate story of good versus evil that he's wanted to tell and obviously that story and these characters have stuck with him over multiple decades now. But the the grace and the subtlety and the execution in which he told the story the first time around with unbreakable in 2000, when, like, yeah, he's coming off the sixth sense and he's the hottest director in Hollywood and he decides to tell this superhero story that predates marvel and even like the early sony spider-mans, and he does it in such a dark way. Yet that is so. It honors comic book lore and construction in the most basic way possible of good versus evil, of right and wrong and in the origin story of a superhero finding their superpowers and denying it. For, just like everything, it's all there. For somebody who doesn't engage in this stuff, like I've always said, that this is my favorite version, this is my favorite superhero movie because I think it tells you everything you need to know about that world. Whereas split is like really aggressively showing you the villain and it's a villain story and again it almost has this like it has this criminal element to it where it almost feels like you're watching a movie that you could double feature with like seven, because there's some girls who have been kidnapped, there's a, there's a murderer and he's on the loose and it just so happens that you know they have split personality disorder did and it's a race against time and any taylor joy is really the one who you're rooting for, you don't, and it's it's interesting that he tells that story without he doesn't like the.
Speaker 1:The presence of law enforcement is not very strong in any of these movies, um, especially these. These like top four, the top eight that we've been talking about, and so you do get a really fun and relatable protagonist in the girls and especially in your tale of joy and split like she's very easy to root for and yet it's mcavoy's performance, much like in trap, where, like it's McAvoy's performance that you really latch onto as the quote unquote bad guy and split, and so like that is an achievement right there, to have us at least engaged in McAvoy's character and his arc and what's going to happen to him. Like we are with Josh Hartnett and unbreakable. You get that a little bit like it, samuel Jackson's electrifying and unbreakable. You get that a little bit like it, samuel Jackson's electrifying and unbreakable as Mr Glass. And also too.
Speaker 1:I just re-watched Pulp Fiction. Really funny to see Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson, two characters, two actors who don't really interact in Pulp Fiction a lot, and yet I feel like no one made a big deal at all about them, like teaming back up for this movie less than like five years later, or I guess it was about six years later. But re-watching it this time was just like, hey, it's freaking. Jules and butch, yeah, what are you guys doing here? Yeah, I was thinking about that too.
Speaker 2:Unbreakable, I think you know. I said earlier that he is. He is showy with his camera. Uh and what. What he directs his camera to do. Unbreakable is by far like the most showy and so fun while you're in the moment, move following this camera. Um, some of the movements, and just even from the beginning, when he's on the train and we're just going back and forth in between the seat, is fantastic. The fact that Elijah, every time Elijah is introduced, it's in a reflection Every time throughout the movie. What a great little piece of motif that you design.
Speaker 2:It's so designed. It's designed so well.
Speaker 1:It's manicured beyond its years. Manicured beyond its years, like for his quote-unquote second film, even though it's his fourth. But for his like second big, noisy movie to be this refined it's, it's it is.
Speaker 2:I think you called it a near perfect film. It really is. The one thing I bump on with it is I, I hate, I hate the freeze frame with the text. But, however, you also have to respect it, because it is a deconstruction and a subversion of what we think a superhero movie should end right. It should be this big fight or whatever, or some sort of tussle which he does, then go back and doing glass, which is probably why glass is kind of unsuccessful. Um, because I don't know, it's just, it's just a really interesting way and again, kind of just like halts to an end. Uh, they're much like success.
Speaker 1:Um, I love that the David character, bruce Willis, is superhero. Superhero. He's in this rain poncho, this like rain slick cape. That's his cape, right and that's. And again, this is just like sure, it's, it's. Once you've seen it, once you understand, you're like, well, yeah, that's very of course you would do it that way or whatever, but just it also. It repels the rain right, waters his weakness yeah, yeah all those little things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's it's fun little details it's a really amazing movie. It really is, and it's so funny because I remember watching it when I was a kid, you know, because six cents was such a huge thing and just being kind of like what, the what is what? What a boring movie.
Speaker 1:You asked me a question in your last episode or two weeks ago about like. Do I feel like the term slow cinema is derogatory? I put in my most recent review on letterbox that, like if you showed this to a kid who grew up on MCU films, they would not be able to make it past the 20 minute mark. They might not even get to the point where you meet Mr Glass. Probably not you, they would what? This isn't a superhero movie. Turn this off. Yeah, it's a, it's slow cinema in the most exciting way.
Speaker 2:It's an origin story without really ever being an origin story. We get that one flashback to well and the car crashes and even the origin right, like I think it's like when he's almost drowned as a kid.
Speaker 1:You never even have to see that you don't see that until glass and that feels like, oh really, you see that in glass and it's very expository and it just kind of feels unnecessary. Yeah, unbreakable, uh is going forward, yeah, so we have signs and unbreakable in the finals this is like two sides.
Speaker 2:This is a representation of you and me that's so true.
Speaker 1:That's very true, um, and it's interesting because I say that, like, unbreakable is probably the film that I've revisited the most. I don't know if that's actually true, though yeah, because my family. We wore out the signs dvd growing up and then I would go back to my room and I would watch. Unbreakable, yeah, but like as far as a pop culture I remember watching signs with my family living room too. A piece of pop culture, kind of like immortality signs, is just so. It works every time and now.
Speaker 1:I am of the belief that unbreakable also works every single time, but it is a more acute version of something that I traditionally do not engage with, and I think that that's why I respond to it so well is that I'm like this is a superhero movie for people who don't like superhero movies, and so I, and no one can ever take that away from me, like because I love this shit, whereas signs is so many different things that have worked in hollywood for so long. It's a monster movie, it's a family drama, it's a sci-fi it's an invasion movie.
Speaker 1:It's a sci-fi movie, yes, it's all these different things and it's so fun and you can re-watch it a million times and you can show like when I hear that people have not seen signs, like I know I've shown signs downstairs on the projector to people before, or put it on at a party or something like that, and people are just like signs I love signs.
Speaker 2:Never meet somebody that doesn't like signs. I actually, uh, had an idea totally side tangent here, an idea for an episode format top five movies you are most surprised to hear someone hasn't seen. That would be fun to pull, kick that can and that would be fun to pull people totally and actually get some data points on that, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, that would be good that would be exciting. I know that like yeah, because it happens all the time. You know, we go to these weird elephant screenings, these repertory screenings at different theaters, and there's almost always if there's someone emceeing the event, and they do. Can I see a show, show of hands? Who here has never seen rosemary's baby? Who here has never seen the shine, the shining, and you get 10 or 15, 20 people who put their hands up and wow, really.
Speaker 2:I'm so jealous.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'll just let's just kind of like rip the bandaid off. I don't want to think about it too much, like I know that in my personal rankings I would have unbreakable higher than signs, but I do think to create the ultimate Shyamalan bracket, to have signs at the top makes the most sense.
Speaker 2:I agree with that. I think, yeah, if, if, if we were to list, it signs unbreakable six cents as the top three yeah I think is is the way to do it. I, I again, I just think signs, signs again is his most complete movie. Right like it is.
Speaker 1:It exists in a vacuum and it's, and it's kind of perfect yeah, and it and it lives on. It has such a legacy to it Unbreakable, unfortunately doesn't live in a vacuum and has this legacy to it that has now become a little bit less. It's just more muddled than it once was, which is hard to see. It is tough, great title of all those films. So when you think about unbreakable Split Glass, like great, all of his movies, honestly, have really good titles. He's a great creator of titles for his films.
Speaker 2:Like nothing hasn't ever really worked. He's a great idea man. He is one of the best idea men we have ever had in film, great at the elevator pitch, great at the like.
Speaker 1:What if kind of story, what if this happened? What if this one thing that you think you knew was different? What if this prophet came to your cabin in the woods you know, told you you had to make some sacrifices? You're like it's all. Whether or not his films work, his ideas always are fun entertain, and they're fun to be played out on screen. Okay, so Sines wins.
Speaker 2:It wins our bracket.
Speaker 1:Do you think we'll get another Sines from him? Do you think we'll get more films like Trap from him? Do we think he'll ever of these movies? Is there anything that you'd like to see him revisit, like what is because here's the thing he's not going to stop making movies and the You'd like to see him revisit, like what is cause here's the thing he's not going to stop making movies and the world's going to be a better place for that.
Speaker 1:But every single new production is a roll of the dice. So like what do you think? How do you think you would best be able to project success for M night going forward?
Speaker 2:So what? The last couple of movies have been trapped. Knock the cabin and old yeah.
Speaker 1:Which I think traps the most successful out of those three.
Speaker 2:For sure. Um, I think, even though though trap and old feel kind of in this like more camp area, knock the cabin is very much more earnest where something like unbreakable signs, six cents lives, but just not executed on the right level, much like the happening right, I, yeah, I, I want to see him. I want to see him keep doing like serious try and reach back and go back, because six centsable Signs the first three I mean, those are just such classics and such perfect movies.
Speaker 1:And I think Split showed us he still got that pitch.
Speaker 2:He does but he just needs to not want to dip into, because as soon as you make that, some sort of canon or lore- or franchise IP, you're in trouble. That's getting ahead of yourself, yeah. So like and like. Listen, are we gonna get a trap too? I mean he leaves the door open yeah at the end of that movie? Um to answer that question, I hope not. I hope not too right, like because.
Speaker 1:But if he wants to make another like movie star driven thriller, that's fun, I'm all for that. I'll take another Trap in two years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to see a big ensemble, something along the lines of Village, something along the lines of Unbreakable. I want to see him try and be earnest but genre-y in the best way. I like that.
Speaker 1:All right, so that's going to do it for our conversation on Trap and M Night Shyamalan. Join us next week as we discuss the next exciting horror film, cuckoo. This movie is probably next in line in terms of entertaining genre films from this year, at least we hope. Fingers crossed. So we're going to have a review of that film and then surround it with a larger discussion about the horror films of 2024, which we've talked about a lot this year already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Do you think the first omen will come up?
Speaker 1:once or twice, once or twice before we get out of here, we want to remind you about our event that we have, on August 22nd, back down at Edison square, garbage night hosted, night hosted by Excuse the Intermission where we will be screening the Crow and providing a live commentary. Track.
Speaker 2:Can't wait, it's going to be an experience. Yeah, it will be. We've got to start the Crow rewatches here pretty soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you follow us on Letterboxd, which we're about to plug here in a minute, you're going to be seeing a lot of Crow rewatches coming up here. Um, so until next time, please follow excuse the intermission on instagram and, of course, letterboxd to track what we're watching between shows, and we'll talk to you next time on eti, where movies still matter.
