comment #1

Travis Crabtree says ...

VULTURE: "One review for 'The Last Airbender' was merely a two word review which simply read 'Shit Sandwich'."

comment #2

Ray DeRousse says ...

It's remarkable that the guy can retain his inflated sense of self despite the critical hammerings and decreasing box office receipts. Those last two responses from Shyamalan can be summed up simply with the words "I'm an artist."

comment #3

Dorkman says ...

I can only see it this certain way and I don't know how to think in another language.

In essence, M. Night is admitting "I cannot make a competent film and I am incapable of learning how to do so."

Let's hope Hollywood gets the message.

comment #4

Ray DeRousse says ...

I really like this Shyamalan quote from that interview:

I'm dying to make a two-hour movie, I just haven't earned it yet. I'm really tough in cutting and I haved a style that creates a certain pace ...

Yeah, so does a glacier, M.

comment #5

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Thing of it is, as a director, he really is either an artist or master craftsmen.

It's as either a writer or in judgment of writing, he just plain sucks.

Either way, he is obviously in massive denial and wants his gold star for the effort he puts in to making good work. Which is good if you making Sundance darlings for $5M, but at the budget level he operates in you are only judge for the final product.

comment #6

Josh Massey says ...

We'll always have Signs.

comment #7

Scott Mendelson says ...

What I don't get, what I've never gotten, is why M. Night Shyamalan thinks that critics have always disliked his work. The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs got generally good-to-great reviews (did he forget that Sixth Sense received six Oscar nominations?). Heck, even The Village got a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes, not good but certainly not wretched. Oddly enough, it's only after his various comments about critics being out to get him did his movies start disappointing on a mass scale. As a critic, nothing would make me happier than to see Shyamalan return to form. Even after The Last Airbender, I'm still rooting for the guy.

comment #8

Terry McCarty says ...

Assuming the Vulture interviewer is getting come-work-for-us calls from Gawker.

comment #9

Terry McCarty says ...

"So it's something I approach as sort of immovable integrity within each of the stages. So if you walk through the process with me, there's not a moment where I won't treat with great respect. So it's sacred to me, the whole process of making a movie. I would hope that some people see that I approach this field with that kind of respect, and that it's not a job."--the M. Night Shyamalan way of saying "No, THE LAST AIRBENDER was not a paycheck, I-need-a-hit assignment job."

comment #10

great scott says ...

"We'll always have Signs."

Yeah, starring that racist anti-semite.

comment #11

crazynine says ...

The absolute best comment (and most memorable phrase) I read about this movie came in the io9 review:

http://tinyurl.com/292gsxj

"This is the part where I would insert a quick plot synopsis of the film, but it's really unnecessary - Shyamalan has boiled every epic heroic story of the past 20 years down to its most basic, primal soup-y essence, so he can spray it all over the audience, in a kind of Hero's-Journey bukkake.

comment #12

moviechick44 says ...

I think the critics are being way too harsh on the guy. It's like it is " in " to trash his movies. I didn't like The Happening because I thought the performances were flat. That film might have been better with a different group of actors. I didn't hate Lady In The Water. I thought it was pretty imaginative. And his first 3 works were good to great. It just seems the cool thing to rip on the guy.
Maybe if he does more personal, lower scale type projects would bring him back critical success ?

comment #13

Alexander says ...

Shyamalan interviews make me feel sad.

comment #14

crazynine says ...

moviechick44-- but when *can* you rip on the guy, if not for when he makes three underwhelming-to-legitimately-bad movies in a row, and THEN releases this awful thing?

Sure, some folks didn't like Signs, and even The Village had its defenders, but Lady in the Water had very few and The Happening had none (and now ditto Airbender).

This isn't a case of Spielberg still making good movies but nothing as good as Jaws or E.T. anymore. Or even Lucas making terrible-but-still-watchable Star Wars prequels. This is a case of a guy who made classic, watchable, Oscar-worthy films suddenly turn into Uwe freakin' Boll.

comment #15

animal house says ...

No way this is worse than "The Lightning Thief" or "Prince Of Persia" -- the critics want to draw blood.

comment #16

dayXexists says ...

He is delusional

comment #17

Alexander says ...

crazynine and animal house, your two posts remind me of the story of Spielberg's 1941 and how Pauline Kael told him that if it wasn't spectacular or in any way visibly flawed, the critics were going to absolutely murder him because they were ready to see him blunder and fall. The Shyamalan comparison would be as though Spielberg kept making 1941-level quality movies following Jaws and CE3K... though nothing Shyamalan's made in my opinion is as good as Jaws and CE3K and I enjoy 1941 much more than anything Shyamalan's made after The Village.

comment #18

animal house says ...

I haven't liked any of his films since "Unbreakable" which I think is pretty amazing except for that awful ending. The guy's got a very nice style but his writing skills have gone astray.

comment #19

paul_kolas says ...

The man clearly beats to his own drum, and the beat is getting lonelier with each succeeding "artistic vision". I can't believe he can say any of this with a straight face and not crack up. The saddest thing about it all is that someone was stupid enough to give him $150 mil to make this steaming pile of horseshit, not because Hollywood does it all the time, but because he's been given too many chances to redeem himself and failed miserably with one bad movie after another. Eventually he's going to run out of nine lives. "The Killers", "Jonah Hex", "Grown Ups", and now this monstrosity. Thank God for independent and foreign films.

comment #20

MDOC says ...

I'm not going to pile on here. Shyamalam is an interesting film maker. I loved The Sixth Sense and Signs. I haven't seen his last three films because they just didn't appeal tome, but I hope he finds an interesting project one of these years.

comment #21

SolarTheSign says ...

Maybe he's having his revenge on a system he's grown to loathe that makes this crap (and Mel Gibson) possible.

comment #22

Burbanked says ...

The guy's obviously always had an ego, but so does every filmmaker, pretty much. What exactly is he SUPPOSED to say, other than to stand by his artistic integrity, whether it's in his own head or not?

He's on a press junket, in front of an interviewer who is clearly baiting him: what's he going to do, fall down blubbering and admit he's lost it?

The only filmmakers who show humility for bad work happens years after the fact, or never.

comment #23

Gabe@ThePlaylist says ...

Well, he's a filmmaker, faint praise be damned.

comment #24

Gordn27 says ...

"No way this is worse than "The Lightning Thief" or "Prince Of Persia" -- the critics want to draw blood."

I'm not saying that it definitely is worse than those, but those are just generic and boring. There's a certain kind of bad that only a true auteur can reach. See also: George Lucas.

comment #25

DeeZee says ...

nine: None of the prequels were watchable. They were just more polished than most big-budget shit-fests.

comment #26

Sun Damaged Quiff Man says ...

"None of the prequels were watchable."

Yet you still watched all three of them from beginning to end, didn't you.

comment #27

DocZoidberg says ...

Like everyone else, I was blown away by Shyamlan's first few films....
Hell, I actually liked The Village, and was able to tolerate Lady in the Water more than twice.

But at some point, I kind of looked back at the last few -- especially Signs -- and thought, "You know, when you think about it, this is really BAD."

He couldn't possibly keep on making films like The Sixth Sense that depend on earth shattering mindfucks in the final few minutes. Everyone just knows now to look for the plot twist. It kills the magic.

comment #28

moviesquad says ...

I think M. Night has just reverted back to the awfulness of his first Hollywood movie, "Wide Awake". Did anyone else see that piece of junk?

It has the same plot as "Stolen Summer", the first Project Greenlight film, but is much, much worse. And it stars Rosie O'Donnell! I'm surprised he was ever able to make a second film after that clunker.

comment #29

Atticus Grinch says ...

Travis Crabtree. It took me a few seconds to remember where I had heard that before...and then I had the best laugh of the day. Thank you, sir.

comment #30

DeeZee says ...

Sun: Yes, and I'm sure some people watched Heaven's Gate from beginning to end.

comment #31

DiscoNap says ...

Alexander, that was the most "If we had ham, we'd have a ham & cheese sandwich, if we had cheese" statement I've read in awhile. But I kind of get what you're saying. I don't think the knives are out anymore though, I think he's been stuck repeatedly and is bleeding out at this point.

I just hope this makes enough bank for him to get to make his movie with Willis. They should give it another go.

comment #32

Chris Willman says ...

I did not see "Prince of Persia," but I would say that it is worse than "Percy Jackson." The sad thing is, it is bad in most of the same ways, being an anonymous piece of work that anyone could have directed and that has no traces of a particular style or sensibility. It is quite unlike any other M. Night film, in that way. He'd gotten bad at making idiosyncratic films and now he's suddenly sucking at making a paycheck film.

comment #33

Peterzee says ...

I've never understood the geek love for his work, and I'm a geek misself. If you didn't figure out "Sixth Sense" within the first five minutes, you had scant experience watching movies. "Unbreakable" was the cleverest and most resonant, for me, of his films...because it also seemed the least smug. The rest were predictable, derivative, and redeemed more by his "artfully" glacial pace and occasionally good flourishes by good actors. Overrated? Thy name is Night. Um, even though that's an assumed name.

comment #34

TL says ...

Crabtree wins the thread on the first post. Well done.

comment #35

michael says ...

PeterZee: Oh, go fuck yourself. I'm so sick of people 11 years later and after the fact all saying "Awww shit, Man, I saw that twist coming by the time the opening credits were finished." Bullshit. And don't say that if you didn't see it coming then "You have scant experience watching movies". I've only really liked one of M's flicks (signs) and I've seen hundreds of films but I didn't see that twist coming.

comment #36

Gordn27 says ...

It really depends when you saw 'The Sixth Sense'. If you waited a month, until everybody told you there was a big twist, then the twist was obvious. If you saw it on opening weekend before anybody told you there was a twist, it was very different.

Much like 'Fight Club'. Once everybody has told you there's a crazy third act twist, it's an obvious twist the first time you see Brad Pitt. The problem is not the twists themselves, the problem is that "twists" have to have a certain base logic, and once you know there's a twist that works, there's only a few ways the movie can really go.

comment #37

nbxzero says ...

"I think the critics are being way too harsh on the guy."

Forget the critics. Have you read what people who paid to the see the film have to say? I've read numerous reports of people booing at the end of the film, and even throwing things at the screen. And many people are writing that they never thought they'd be writing that the better movie of the weekend was Twilight.

comment #38

Krillian says ...

Eclipse is being called by some the best Twilight movie yet. It's RotTom rating is the highest of the series. It's grossed $90-something its first two days. Meanwhile The Last Airbender, with low buzz and atrocious reviews, gets $16 million its first day. (And Last Airbender was no lock for a hit; remember the Dragonball Z movie?)

This means it will easily pass the grosses for The Happening, and it, to a degree, M. Night Shyamalan is still a bankable director, even though he gets worse with each movie. His next project is supposed to be with Bruce Willis, so maybe he can help turn it around.

comment #39

Gordn27 says ...

"This means it will easily pass the grosses for The Happening"

Even assuming it does, how much more than 'The Happening' did it cost? To a certain extent, the numbers don't matter -- 'Popeye' was the most successful movie Robert Altman made between 'MASH' and 'Gosford Park', but it gave him the stink of failure more than even 'Quintet' could because it was a high-profile movie that had the public believing it was a disaster.

comment #40

CitizenKanedForPostingThoughts says ...

"And Last Airbender was no lock for a hit; remember the Dragonball Z movie?"

Well, one other person on this site certainly does. And I'm pretty certain this is the only time in the history of HE -- let alone the entire internet -- where this movie was introduced into a conversation without him.

comment #41

Atticus Grinch says ...

Two days later I'm still chuckling at Crabtree's first post. That is some seriously funny shit, man.

comment #42

DeeZee says ...

DBZ was a lock for a hit before Rothman decided to turn it into a DTV film. I'm not sure if Avatar would've scored big, even if Shyamalan wasn't attached to it. But, if done right, it might have at least had enough legs to be a sleeper hit.

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