My DIY film/writing school

Maybe Shylaman's not so crazy after all

I love getting both sides of the story. I've only seen the trailer for Lady in the Water and heard Mark Kermode's review.

It's all pants according to Dr. Kermode, almost as bad as Pirates of the Caribbean! He just couldn't handle the absolute ridiculousness of the story, not to mention Shylaman's cameo as a "great writer who would change the world"!

So my mind was made up. Not really worth my time to watch Lady in the Water.

But two facts persuade me to give it a second look.

1) Paul Giamatti. Everything I've seen this guy in - namely Sideways, Cinderella Man and the trailer for The Illusionist (oh yes and the Lady in the Water trailer) - he has been fantastic.

2) This interview with M.Knight Shylaman. Some choice bits:

Shyamalan ... conceived Lady in the Water as a bedtime story for his children.

"With this story, my two girls became obsessed by it and would draw the characters. I had a great time telling it, which is a different process to me going in there by myself and writing," Shyamalan says.
...
"There's a quiet suspense in this movie, and a lot of comedy because everyone takes the story kind of farcically at first. And part of the fun was to tell the most absurd story that I told my kids and then have you, through the course of the movie, laugh at it, and then slowly start to take it seriously and it becomes tragic and then grounded and real and has metaphoric qualities."

So he knows it's kind of ridiculous. I like the idea of a kids' story that doesn't make sense, but you like anyway.

Sometimes in the interview, Shylaman sounds like a crazed prophet. Other times he is reassuringly human, like this:

"A wife with a PhD in psychology is not something I'd recommend."

I'd better watch out! :)

posted by Simon @ 11:40 am