m night shyamalan

Awful Battle… Douchey Wool-Pullers

Posted on by sgottahurt

I would like to bring up a new branch of douchebags, as the post title suggests.  This group can be used as a warning signal, something we look to in order to insure it never happens again.  These are the douchebags that pulled the wool over our eyes, and tricked us into thinking they were as cool as they thought they were.

So here lies the ultimate Awful Battle… of the Douchey Wool-Pullers:

DOUCHY WOOL-PULLER RATING

Dane Cook

Done Cooked, more like it.

I would say Cook seemed to explode on the comedy scene, but he would only spin it into some jizz joke.  Who knows how long he worked on his material?  (That doesn’t sound right either.)  Who knows why he caught on so fast?  I’ll even admit to enjoying him at the get go, and with an upcoming movie career, I believe I even hailed him as the next Steve Martin (compliment or not).  But when all the shit came out about his liberal borrowing of other comics’ bits, bits of me died for thinking Dane Cook was once cool, when really, he was a douchebag.

DOUCHEY WOOL-PULLER RATING

Scott Stapp of Creed

Scott Stop, more like it.

Really, this one is more our collective fault than anything else.  Though his level of douchebaggery may be high, his level of trickery/wool-pulling is not so.  We caught him early, mostly because he claimed to be Christian rock and wore leather pants and left his wife after having a kid and had that alleged sex tape with Kid Rock (and girl groupies) and need I go on?  I really did like Higher, My Own Prison, and With Arms Wide Open, though… what’s wrong with me?

DOUCHY WOOL-PULLER RATING

Fred Durst

Fred Duh, more like it.

Like Stapp and Cook, he appeared out of thin air that was apparently quite chilly, since he often appeared in his puffy jacket and backwards hat.  He was quite popular from the word nookie, and was in the pop music backlash crowd that included Eminem and the Wu Tang Clan.  But soon after, his song Break Stuff became like his anthem, and he was pissing people off at Woodstock ’99 (allegedly instigating the riot which lead to some rapes), Eminem and D12, Slipknot, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears.  I also remember hearing that Durst got pissy because Aaron Lewis of Staind never thanked him for putting them on the map.  Oh yeah… he had a sex tape, too.  Gross.  It’s a shame I picked his remake of George Michael’s Faith as the greatest rock remake of an 80’s song.

DOUCHEY WOOL-PULLER RATING

Kanye West

Kanye Messed, more like it.

I still maintain that West’s The College Dropout album is one of the best I’ve ever listened to, but we all know how fool full of  himself he is.  And how much he loves his Louis Vuittons and all other fashion whatevers… gah!  That stuff bores me.  Rap about important things (Jesus Walks, All Falls Down)!  Or even fun things (Slow Jamz)!  Not designer clothes!

DOUCHEY PULL-OVER RATING

M. Night Shyamalan

M. Not (!) Shyamalan, more like it.

How can someone make two incredibly cool films (The Sixth Sense and yes, Unbreakable), and not only get to keep making more films, but worse and worse films!  And then… AND THEN!  He has the audacity to say we, the audience, just don’t get it!  It takes something to rank pretty high on my Scale of Fury.  He’s at Rage Level 8 (out of 10).

_________________________________________________________________________

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • LeBron James and George Lucas

Though they may not be as cool as we once thought, they have not gone full douchebag.  They’ve come close, though.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS:

  • Michael Bay and Brett Ratner

They never pulled any wool over anyone’s eyes.

The Sh– To Just Sh–ty… M. Night Shyamalan, Officially

Posted on by sgottahurt

"Howdy ho! My new movie is out! You should go see it!"

I. Am. So. So. Sad.

I love Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender so much that if I knew the TV show in person, I would tell it I lurve it.  (I have a very difficult time saying those three little words.)

So in the case of the film, I had high hopes.  I mean, how could anybody screw it up?  There’s enough material to reference, enough characterization and plot to build on, only a hack could fuck it up.

M. Night Shyamalan officially became a hack.  In other words, he was once The Shit and now he’s plain ol’ Just Shitty.  Could we (or namely, I) have seen the Signs?  Let’s take a quick peek at his past work… from my perspective, of course.

  • Wide Awake (1998)

Nobody knows anything about this film.  And by nobody, I mean me.  I heard decent things about it at the time, but I never saw it.  Probably because this was the poster:

Rosie O'Donnell as a nun that likes baseball? No thanks.

  • The Sixth Sense (1999)

I was backpacking in Europe when this movie was released (douchebagging), and on a weekly basis, I was surprised at its success back home.  (I learned this from newspapers… remember those?)  So upon getting back to the States, I made it a point to check this flick out, full well knowing there was a twist, but not yet knowing what it was.

While the ending approached, I remember thinking:

Hmm.  This was pretty good, but not great.  Did I miss the twist?

When the ring dropped on the floor, I put it together myself (and then the film needlessly did the same).  I was entertained and mildly impressed, until I saw this article on Cracked.  Did you know there was an episode of Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? that was pretty damn close to the Academy Award-nominated story?  But it’s not like Shyamalan ever watched the kids channel, right?

  • Unbreakable (2000)

I lurved this film.  More than everyone else loved The Sixth Sense, even.  And why?  I’ve always believed that if someone ever figured out how to be a superhero (or villain), someone else would figure out how to be the opposite.  It’s a theme that’s been explored by The Incredibles and The Dark Knight, and this movie swam through the motif like a motif-swimming sea animal.

The pacing was great; the framing of the scene where Bruce Willis’ son pulls a gun on him was fantastic.  Could the end result merely be because a thin Twilight Zone premise had to be stretched out into a longer format?  Discuss.

For the record, though, I still lurve this movie.  Maybe a re-watch is required.

  • Signs (2002)

A movie about crop circles and the inevitable alien invasion could have been good.  Hell, there are even parts in this flick that could qualify as memorable, well-executed scenes (the figure on top of the barn, the birthday video, the basement sequence).  But one could argue that the first half of X-Men: The Last Stand had its moments, and that still wouldn’t make the overall project a win.  The same thing goes for Signs.  Everything it was working for was unraveled in its last minutes (just like fucking LOST), and it ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth.  Does anybody have a glass of water, by chance?

(SIDENOTE: I would have fixed the finale by never showing the alien.  I would have had Mel Gibson facing the creature off-screen, and only shown it in the reflection on the TV, and maybe in a quick flash.  Seeing the “man in an alien costume” and the entire “swing away” bullshit was stupid and lazy, simply put.)

  • The Village (2004)

A lot of people absolutely hated this movie.  It was also one of the first movies I lost a shit-ton of money on in the Hollywood Stock Exchange. I was in the minority of people who didn’t mind it.  There’s a story I’ve always wanted to write that’s not too far off this premise (no monsters in mine, thank you), so that upset me.  And by the time Shyamalan popped up in the twist ending, I was with the majority of people who thought

Lame!

But I’ll admit that it tricked me.  People that saw it before me told me it was more of a romantic story than a supernatural thriller, so when the creatures showed up, I was suspicious.  They were revealed as fake, and I felt vindicated.  Then there was a chance they were real, and I bit.  All-in-all, hardly a classic, but hardly his worst.

  • Lady in the Water (2006)

His worst, on so many levels… I don’t know where to begin.  That was at least until…

  • The Happening (2008)

I saw this movie, too.  This had to be his worst, right?  Wrong again.

  • The Last Airbender (2010)

Why did they let him touch this beloved, though not widely known, series?

I’m beginning to think that M. Night Shyamalan shares the same gift as the Detroit Lions.  They are both incredibly adept at getting your hopes up and getting you to continue believing in them.  And that’s the greatest twist of all – the one you feel in your nutsack when they disappoint yet again.

(SIDENOTE: I really do think the Detroit Lions have a decent shot at being good this year.)

Happy Find… The Last Airbender Preview

Posted on by sgottahurt

I don’t have anything else to say.

I just really cannot wait for this movie.

I drool in anticipation.  (<— I was going to go with a few options other than drool, but they bordered on inappropriate.)

The Nickelodeon cartoon this adaptation is based on is one of the best I’ve fully enjoyed, and it’s a shame James Cameron beat M. Night Shyamalan to the film naming pool.  (The show was on in 2005.  But I guess Titanic earns you more weight for that cannonball than The Happening.)

Anywind, Aang is the Avatar.  Fuck Jake Sully.

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The Sh– To Just Sh–ty… Fantasy Movies

Posted on by sgottahurt

NOTE: Everything that follows is my opinion… and it’s all fact.

Fantasy movies are geared toward the audience that longs to be whisked away, and that’s namely the pre-teens of this world.  The reason why they are so susceptible: there’s still imagination (child-like wonder) remaining in their brains.  Any adult that is too into fantasy films obviously has a mental/social disorder (hello PotHeads and Twihards)…

I’m not meaning to be mean.  I’m merely meaning to get to the bottom of why fantasy films don’t do it for me anymore.

Growing up, I loved Clash of the Titans, The Beastmaster, The Dark Crystal, Gremlins, Tron, The Princess Bride, and some movies had to deal with a Star War or a few. There were others that I couldn’t quite get into like Legend and Labyrinth, but I always felt they were more for the young ladies (for the record, The Princess Bride was being read to Kevin Arnold Fred Savage).

Outside of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (it’s insanely absurd and clever), when I was turning thirteen, Willow wasn’t even cutting it anymore.  If I was going to like a dopey fantasy movie, it had something else going for it, such as my crush on Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands or me still being a fan of Steven Spielberg when he made Hook.

Let’s use The Neverending Story trilogy (yes there were three – and a TV show) to reiterate:

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

The first film released in 1984: AWE-SOME (hyphen added for pause worthy emphasis).

The second film released in 1990: (Avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis, avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis, avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis…)

The third film released in 1994: Really?!  Highlights from an IMDB review:

I cannot begin to describe how awful this movie is… NES3, for lack of a better term, sucks.  The storyline was as unimaginative and vapid as you could hope for… After the fart jokes and potty humor commenced, I just couldn’t take it any longer.  My advice is don’t wast your time and ruin your childhood memories with this piece of refuse.

Now I don’t count superhero movies or animated films because they’ve almost attained the status of having their own genre.  Outside of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, what do you have left to defend?  The Mummy films?  Van Helsing?  (Not fair – those are mostly Stephen Sommers‘ pieces of crap.)  Okay, then.  MirrorMask?  Eragon?  Beowulf?  Lady in the Water?!  Stardust and Coraline were even kind of meh.

(SIDENOTE: I will give props to The Last Mimzy, The Bridge to Terebithia, and Big Fish for tugging my heart strings, 300 for being new, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean for the laughs. Am I missing any others?)

Ultimately, have fantasy films declined from being the shit to just shitty, or am I just getting old?  I guess the proof will be in the pudding (sorry for the oldtimer-y expression) when the following films get remade or updated:

(FINAL SIDENOTE: I really, really, really, seriously hope that M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t fuck up The Last Airbender.  I looooove that cartoon.  That ended it’s run.  On Nickelodeon.  Just last year.  Stop looking at me that way!  I don’t have that serious of a mental/social disorder!  Use this blog as proof!)