You read that right, it’s been a little over four years since I started this blog. Of course, it was a lot different back then (no, no, you don’t need to go back and check. I know the links are right there, but you really don’t need to look at what this blog was like back then. Trust me.) and I went through various periods of inactivity. The blog in it’s current form pretty much started a little over a year ago, when I resolved to post at least once a week, a schedule I’ve held to pretty well. I’ve also begun to do a little more in the way of original writing. I’m still very dependant on pull quotes, but I like to think I’ve made some progress.
One thing that has become apparent over the past year is that there appear to be a handful of themes that keep coming up (even excluding the “I like movies” theme). Unfortunately, now that I’m thinking about it, it is difficult to actually give a succinct name for these themes, though some specific posts seem to do a good job summarizing these things which interest me. This post on Error, Calibration, and Defiant Posturing encapsulates one of the themes of the blog. This post about tradeoffs has figured into a great number of posts over the past year. And so on.
Overall, it’s been a good four years, but there is always room for improvement. For various reasons, things have been slow around here lately. Hopefully it’ll be picking up a little in the near future. As always, comments, suggestions, breathless praise, bitter criticism and the like are welcome…
Thanks for the overview of M. Night Shyamalan’s
movie “The Village”. I have not seen any of his
other movies, but your post has encouraged me.
Honestly, I had not heard of him before The Village. I planned to watch that movie just because the name M. Night Shyamalan inspires an air of mystery.
I hope my comment brings you some encouragement.
LOL, thanks, it’s appreciated:)
As for Shyamalan, check out The Sixth Sense. It’s a ghost story, and I think it’s probably his most approachable movie. Unbreakable is also very good, if you can deal with a comic book type theme.
unbreakable suffered from the Director-of-the-Sixth-Sense syndrome; it was very overhyped, hence we expected another Sixth Sense.
Overall, I really like Shyamalan’s movies, but i feel he’s falling deep into a rut, with his “surprise ending” movies. Man, do something different! You’ve already proved you’re an original and inventive film-maker…now do it again!
I loved Sixth Sense, like Unbreakable, enjoyed Signs, and was a little disappointed by The Village.
Yeah, he needs to get out of that rut. Signs was a lot different than the sixth sense or unbreakable, but it had problems of its own. As I said in my post, the whole surprise ending thing doesn’t work when the audience is expecting it. He’s going to need to move on. Eventually, he can come back to the surprise ending, but he needs to do a few less revelatory movies first…