2006-07-23 - 4:06 a.m.
Good grief, I just don’t get it. You see, there is this director by the name of – oh, what is it? M. Night Shamalamadingdong or something like that. And back in the day, he made one decent movie. When I say “decent,” I don’t mean to say that it was anything special. Really, “The Sixth Sense” was little more than a drearily spun out episode of “The Twilight Zone.” A one trick pony. A good premise in search of a strongly developed plot.
I never bought into the whole razzamatazz mystique of Mister Shamalamadingdong, a plump, smirking, entitled young man who was clearly much better at giving good meeting than he was at making movies. I’ve seen him on Howard Stern. Shamalamadingdong seems like a nice guy, with a jowelly pumpkin face, who hails from a wealthy Brahmin family, and is of average intelligence and above average charisma. Yet, it seemed to me that “The Sixth Sense” was quite ploddingly done. And the final payoff revelation was about as predictable as dawn coming after the long night. Still, the cheeseball Hollywood PR machine surely cotton candy out of his straw, that’s for sure.
But the thing I have never understood is this: Why has no one ever called him on the carpet for being an odious, talentless, hack who has made one above average movie, and about three dozen super-stinkers? “Signs.” Are you kidding me? “The Village.” Oh my god: I saw “The Village.” There he was again, making another dimwitted Twilight Zone episode that was full of more holes than one of my cashmir sweaters after being left outside on a park bench during moth breeding season.
I mean, we were seriously supposed to accept that this colonial village exists in the center of the modern world – but no airplanes ever fly over head, and no hikers or campers ever cross into the land ever looking for a short cut across the Appelachians? Come on. This was an idea of someone who is just a plain dummy.
And now he’s got this new movie, “The Lady in the Water,” which looks about as stupid and as messy as a pile of garbage on the front lawn. Good lord – what can the studios be thinking? I wouldn’t watch it with your eyes, I swear to God. Not for all the tea in China. Not for all the snow in Iceland. Not for all the hose in hose-land. Mister Shamalamadingdong is proof that the devil exists and that you can actually sell your soul to it in exchange for fame and opportunities that you do not deserve. The same can be said about Steven Spielberg. And that Jessica Simpson. And Ron Howard. And Regis Philbin! And, for that matter, Britney Spears and Tom Cruise. I mean, really. What a bunch. The wicked are exhaulted and raised high, while the virtuous are laid low.
