Change Your Image
celluloidninja
Reviews
The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan (2004)
a bad waste of good time
I like to be entertained. Actually i love to be entertained. 'The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan' Did not however, entertain me. To begin with let me say that after seeing 'The Sixth Sense' i went a bit nuts for all things Shyamalan and hence discovered his older work and a little bit about his background. Since 'The Sixth Sense' he has consistently entertained me. Naturally i was fairly excited to see the documentary in question. Upon viewing (within the first half hour) it began to slip uneasily out of my 'entertainment' zone.
Mercifuly i forced myself to see where it was coming from; mockumentary, promo, elaborately staged stink-fest. I am all up for a bit of faked supernatural hoo-ha but this was just awful. Everyone of the 'stars' and featured players were obviously in on the gig, but it was still determined to convince the audience that it was 'for real'. the subject matter was weak from the outset. Shyamalan is just a regular film-maker. He studied, he worked his ass off, he went through his unsuccessful period to get to his commercially viable period. he has had about as normal a career as you can have when you become a sensation. To cash in on that though is just lousy. The trashy juxtapositioning of this 'normal' film-maker with the idea that he is super-normal or 'connected' is terrible. The kids outside the Shyamalan residence, the Pizza guy (i mean - come on!!!), Johnny Depps knowing smirk all contributed to the removal of the films integrity post-haste.
As for the "But it was meant to be a trashy promo 'frightfest'!" argument....well you can forget it because it doesn't even succeed on that level. It alienates rather than draws and , although it wasn't BY Shyamalan, i still would have expected a much stronger piece of work that he lent his name and time to.
I'm even beginning to think that Shyamalan is falling in love with his own legend and taking this whole "He's the next Hitchcock" thing far too seriously.
Fear No Evil (1981)
Here we go again.
There is nothing remotely redeeming about this film at all. It is overly and pointlessly anti religiouse from the outset and is so cliched that i almost couldnt take it. Now im not being unfair but Fear No Evil just cashes in on the current trend at the time of its making. You can see The Omen in there and a little of the Excorcist. Around this time it was popular for low budget directors to hammer out a Satan movie or a possesion movie but this is below the standards you would expect. Stay away folks, normally id try to be a bit more constructive but this movie is bad. Oh, and it cursed me for two weeks.
Gladiator Cop (1995)
Abissmal, diabolical, possibly the worst ever.
This film is one of the worst I have ever had the (mis)fortune of seeing. It has a low budget, a cheesy American lead and a supporting cast of wannabe film stars. This may sound like an over the top attack but these comments are founded.*POSSIBLE SPOILERS* The film itself loosely picks up where the first instalment (The Swordsman) left off. The mythic lost sword of Alexander the Great is recovered by an unsavoury underworld figure who wishes to use it in shady underworld sword fights for financial gain. This is all balanced out with a diabolical performance from Lorenzo Lamass as psychic cop Andrew Garret. Garret has been having 'visions' (delusions of grandeur more like) that he is Alexander the Great and will re-enact a battle with a former general who double crossed him 2000 years ago. Enter the 'bad guy' Parmenion (James Hong in the worst role of his career). Any way, that is the scene set for the rest of the film to unfold. What you get though is a series of badly choreographed, naively directed action sequences which are held unneasely together by weak sections of character development bordering on the soap operatic. You have to see the movie to believe it but Nick Rotundo lacks any sense of visual style and his 'script' is a joke. Its an accepted sense that action flicks have gratuitouse one liners but this is pathetic. Upon finding one dead body Garrets partner looks up and to the left of the camera delivering "Man, it looks like halloween came early this year." The line itself has no relevence to the scene itself, it was just idly thrown in because partially deaf Rotundo must have thought it sounded 'cool'. To finish I will say that in fairness it gave me a laugh to watch it because it was so bad but I wouldnt recommend it. And as I prepare to exit as James Hong does in the film I quote him as Rotundo edits to a cheesy cut away of Hongs face, "Chow baby!" Diabolical.