M. Night Shyamalan: We Created the Monster.

So from the title you can probably already guess at least half of what this blog post will be about: donkey punching. More specifically: How M. Night Shyamalan has donkey punched the modern film. But the second half of the title suggests that I'm also going to write some long winded explanation about how it is in fact our fault, the viewing audience, that Mr. Shyamalan keeps making terrible films. Both are correct, this post will be about M. Night Shyamalan and how the movie-going audience created the monster that he has become.




I don't believe I have to give too much explanation as to who M. Night Shyamalan is. He's the genius that made The Six Sense and Unbreakable. He's also the guy who shat out The Happening. Many people regard Shyamalan as a "one-trick pony" for his continuing use of the "twist" ending in his movies. (Citation: Wikipedia bitches!)But see, people call him a one-trick pony without acknowledging that we wanted the same trick from him time and time again. Hell, we still want that trick from him, if anything to make fun the new and shitty ways he can pull a twist out of his ass.




Follow my train of thought on this as I take you through the films he is most famous for. The Six Sense: introduced the signature twist ending to the public. It's so well known for it's twist ending that people use it to satirize movie spoilers by telling friends who haven't seen it that (SPOILER ALERT) Bruce Willis was dead the entire time. Seriously though, if you haven't seen it you may need to see a doctor.




Let's move on to Unbreakable. It has yet another twist ending that I won't ruin for you because you should actually see this film, it's one of his best. So the count was now at two movies in a row that featured a twist ending that we enjoyed, although we liked The Six Sense's twist ending more than Unbreakable's. This movie also introduced us to M. Night's essay-styled movie writing that he would later use in Lady in the Water. However Mr. Shyamalan writes, the audiences of the world wanted to see more twist endings.




Then M. Night did Signs and the shit officially hit the fan. Now Shyamalan's career wasn't ruined here and the movie can still be regarded as decent in the very least. But this was the film that started to make the twist ending seemed tired. It was also the film that put a face to the directors name when he starred as the movies Deus Ex Machina (something he would later do in Lady in the Water, but I'll get to that when I get there.) Anyways, if you like aliens and so forth, this movie was probably good for you. If you don't, it was probably the movie that did it in for you with M. Night.




The Village was the movie that did it for me. It was clearly made so that M. Night could pander to the audience that wanted more and more scary films with twist endings. For me however, this movie fell short. I hated The Village, the twist wasn't as supernatural as his previous twists. Some people really liked The Village BECAUSE everything in the movie could fit within a realistic world. But me, not so much.




Lady in the Water, I officially lost faith in Shyamalan with this movie. The narrative came off like he was writing an essay about fantasy and he starred in his own film as a very important character. This bothers me with directors because, unless you're making a comedy, you really shouldn't star in your own movies because it just seems like you're trying to force your supposed "acting skills" upon us when you're known for your directing talents. Either star in a film or direct it, don't do both simultaneously.




The Happening, nothing happened in this film. The wind was a villain or something and John Leguizamo kills himself a quarter's way through the film which royally pissed me off. I like John Leguizamo, he needs to be in more movies and not get killed off.




As you can see, M. Night has clearly descended into madness with his film making. He tried to escape this madness by making The Last Airbender. A movie he pretty much did for his kids which, if you ask me, is a very kind thing for him to do. The Last Airbender was his attempt to break free of the one-trick pony stereotype and people hated the film. But see, we hated the film for a different reason than usual. It didn't have a twist ending and it wasn't scary, but it did try to fit one season of a TV series about children into a two hour movie. The movie was doomed from the start. But then M. Night Shyamalan worked on a project that is hopefully the beginning of his redemption.




I am talking about Devil, of course. A movie that was laughed at when the trailer was shown (seriously, YouTube this stuff, people were cracking up), but then pretty much enjoyed by almost everyone who watched it. Now granted, it's not the best film out there and can pretty much be regarded as a solid B film. But it was enjoyable all the same.




So what does this say about M. Night Shyamalan's career? I say we don't give the guy enough credit. I'll be apologetic here and say that M. Night Shyamalan can be a good director/writer/hell, even actor, if we just let him be. He's written and directed good films, so obviously he has that in him and if he stays to breif cameos that don't really move the plot along and are just cameos, then he may be regarded as an okay actor.




I'm going to leave you with this. Let M. Night Shyamalan do his thing. No matter how bad he gets, he seems to at least genuienly care about his movies and take them seriously, he's no Ed Wood (look him up) or George Lucas. I think we can all agree that he's better than Uwe Boll. If Shyamalan doesn't make a good movie within the next 3 films then he is truly a terrible film maker. But in order for him to make a good film, we have to let him. Stop expecting "scary" films with twist endings and if he keeps making him, then clearly he's a terrible person and should retire from hollywood. That's all I have to say about that, thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed.

Re: Re: Re: Reboot, Re-Imagine, Remake

So in honor of Scream 4 I figured I would write about Reboots, Re-Imaginings, and Remakes. I was going to make this post about M. Night Shyamamaaammmalan, but that will have to wait until next week. For now, you'll just have to read my break down on the differences between the three Re's. Enjoy!

1. The Remake: This one's quite possibly the most common of the three. It tipically gets made when the original movie fades into obscurity and some new director wants to put his spin on a classic and make it relevant for a new age. A good example of the remake is King Kong. According to wikipedia there are at least 7 different King Kong movies that have been made since 1933. Apparently only two of them are remakes, this means they pretty much share the same plot as the original: Adrien Brody finds a mysterious island, discovers King Kong, screws King Kong, which causes King Kong to change it's sex and go on a rape rampage through New York City. Wait a minute, I think I'm getting my plots mixed up here. Anyways, remakes tend to stick close to the original source material and usually only serve to show the original movie but with better graphics and typically a modern setting (or nostalgic setting like Peter Jackson's King Kong.)


2. The Reimagining: This term gets thrown around a lot these days. More than likely because it's a more modernized version of the remake. The difference is that a reimagining usually strays away from it's source material. Essentially someone looks at an old movie or TV series (let's say Battlestar Galactica) and decides to remake it but this time change the nature of the villains (i.e. robots are now human/robots), change the sex of the characters (i.e. Starbuck now has breasts and so does Boomer) and then make it one big War on Terror allegory.


3. The Reboot: Now this one is almost similar to both a reimagining and remake except it's not. The reboot tends to completely get rid of all previous continuity in hopes to start anew with fresh ideas. Typically a reboot happens when a more recent movie franchise has failed. This differs from a remake in that remakes tend to redo something that was good but just faded into obscurity. The reboot differs from a reimagining because reimaginings change source material rather than completely discard it for something new. Now there are two different kinds of reboots: the Franchise Reboot and the Sequel Reboot. A good example of these are: Christopher Nolan's Batman and Scream 4. The Franchise Reboot pretty much takes a failed movie franchise of the last decade and makes it better. The Sequel Reboot does the same thing except it actually fits it into the continuity of the failed franchise. Now to drive my point home on the differences between the three Re's I'm going to take the movies I mentioned and explore them as if they were the other Re's.


4. King Kong: If it were reimagined King Kong would have been a gigantic sloth instead of a gorilla, Adrien Brody would have been the damsel in distress, and climbing the Empire State Building at the end would somehow represent the terrorist attacks during 9/11. If it were a Franchise Reboot Peter Jackson would have made King Kong then Son of King Kong, which would have flopped in the box office, and then hollywood would haved hired Christopher Nolan to give his take on what King Kong represents. If it were a Sequel Reboot Peter Jackson would have made a 3rd movie called King Kong Returns or something, in which King Kong's son has a son.


5. Battlestar Galactica: If it were a remake Starbuck would have had a penis, 'nuff said. If it were a Franchise Reboot, the 1980's Battlestar Galactica movie would have had a ton of failed sequels and some director would have come along and did what Ronald D. Moore did with the modern BSG except without all the changes (which is actually what Bryan Singer's next project will be.) If it were a Sequel Reboot, it would have had the main characters of the original series but the plot of the new series last episode.


6. Batman: As a remake it would have had Nolan's first film involve Heath Ledger's Joker, the second involving the Penguin, and the third involving Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face. As a reimagining, Bruce Wayne would be a detective who hunts down his parents murderer, they call him the Batman because he works the night shift. As a Sequel Reboot, Nolan would have cast George Clooney as The Dark Knight and... would have made an awesome movie, repairing the damage done by Joel "Batnipples" Schumacher.


7. Scream 4: As a remake it would have had the same essential plot but none of the original cast would have been in it and it would have come out 20 years from now. As a reimagining, the killer would murder his victims using a hockey stick while wearing a Richard Nixon mask. As an entire Franchise Reboot: SEE "As a remake," but make it more recent.

Well, there you have it folks. That's my take on these matters. Come tomorrow I will have rewritten this blog post, except I'll mention The Dollars Trilogy, the new Halloween movies, The Incredible Hulk, and Superman Returns. I'll also add a lot more War on Terror allegories and claim that I have a vagina! Until next time, Casey signing off!

Halo Vs Call of Duty: It's Time We Bury the Hatchet

Before I get started with this post let me just say Happy Birthday to Emma Watson and Charlie Chaplin. Moment of silence for Chaplin, may he rest in peace. Moment of silence for Emma Watson's career post-Harry Potter, may it rest in peace. Now let's get started!

For those who aren't aware both Halo and Call of Duty are First Person Shooter (FPS) video games. If you are aware of their existence then you are more than likely aware of the feud between Call of Duty players and Halo players. Halo fans tend to call Call of Duty players things like, "stupid", "dumb", and "cockbiting jackasses." While Call of Duty fans call Halo players, "immature","young", and "shit-eating Kumquats." In case you where wondering, I am a shit-eating Kumquat. But hopefully after this little post, it won't matter what I am, because it's time to bury the hatchet. It's time to make Halo fans and Call of Duty fans friends.

In order to end this feud we must understand why the feud is exists. Despite being FPS games, Halo and Call of Duty are different on many different levels (CoD: Black Ops excluded.) Halo is a sci-fi series where your character gets futuristic weapons, armor, and shielding to fight off hordes of aliens. Call of Duty takes a more realistic approach and uses historical battles for its gameplay. From what I can gather these simple differences and the affect they have on gameplay are the only reason Halo and CoD fans at each others necks.

I've heard Call of Duty fans say that Halo was too easy for them. That beating Halo on Legendary (the highest difficulty level in the game) was not much of an accomplishment. I had a friend that played Halo on Normal and found it too easy, but wouldn't play it on Legendary. They didn't even play Multiplayer, which is one of the more fun aspects of the game. On the opposite side of this I've had people tell me Call of Duty was lame and boring. A Halo rap video online pretty much compares Call of Duty fans to 3-year-olds. But really, if it's gameplay that causes people to fight over which game sucks and which game doesn't, then why fight at all?

Both games have made millions. Both games are incredibly popular. Halo has expanded into book series and T.V. Hell, people still want to see a Halo movie. Call of Duty has expanded into other titles sharing the CoD tag, it has it's historical games, but it also has Modern Warfare. Halo fans can't hate on Call of Duty because it's successful and provides gamers with the experience to essentially re-live famous war battles. Call of Duty fans can't hate on Halo because it too is successful and provides for a new way to play FPS.

Now comes the part where we bury the hatchet. Halo fans, don't hate on Call of Duty until you've tried it. I guarantee you it's fun and challenging. Call of Duty fans, vice versa. If either one of you find the other game to be too easy, then good for you. You have a gift that others would kill to have. If you can honestly play Halo on Legendary or Multiplayer and kick ass then you should use that to your advantage. Use the "easy gameplay" to kick the asses of the one type of gameplayer everyone hates that CoD and Halo share with each other, noobs. 'Cause at the end of the day we can all agree that little 13 year olds who cuss exessivly while gaming suck. So if you won't bury the hatchet for the sake of being respectful towards two very popular games, then do it for the sake of killing those young-immature-stupid-dumb-cockbiting-shit-eating-jackass-Kumquat noobs!!!! I have made my peace, thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed!

Friday: My Analysis of the Rebecca Black Song

I may be behind on this by a couple of weeks, but the song is still being senselessly thrown around over the internet. Therefore, it is not too late to give my take on the lyrics and music video to this infamous song. It's Friday!

• So we open with a bunch of "yeahs" as a horrible CGI calendar peels back it's pages and depicts a very grotesque image of our singer Rebecca Black. Friday is listed as Friday, Sunday is for studying (the scriptures? who studies on a Sunday?), oh but Monday is a test (what a wonderful way for a teacher to start the week off, with a test), Tuesday is more homework day, Wednesday is music practice (she's going to need it), the essay's due Thursday, then it's Friday again. Also, some quotes are on each page, I think they're song quotes because I recognized Manic Monday on Monday's page. Moving on!


• "7AM waking up in the morning," fair enough, lot of people do that. "Gotta be fresh gotta go downstairs, gotta have my bowl," smoke up!, "gotta have my cereal," obviously she's getting the munchies after smoking her bowl. "Seeing everything, the time is going, ticking on and on, everybody's rushing, gotta get down to the bus stop, gotta catch my bus, I see my friends," so therefore I will not be taking the bus.


• "Kicking in the front seat, sitting in the back seat, gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?" I say put her in the trunk for being indecisive. Besides, everyone should have a Rebecca Black in their trunk in case of emergency.


• "It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday," but you've gotta jump up, jump up and get down! "Everybody's looking forward to the weekend," then this lyric repeats, unfortunately.


• "Partying, partying, yeah, partying, partying, yeah, fun, fun, fun, fun, looking forward to the weekend," that's got to be the laziest set of lyrics ever written in the history of ever.


• "7:45 we're driving on the highway," at night... not sitting in your seat... this will end well. "Cruising so fast, I want time to fly," don't worry, when your friend crashes the car and you're put into a coma for 10 years time will really seem to fly. "Fun, fun, thinking about fun" coincidence, I'm thinking about genocide too. "You know what it is," no, no I do not, and quite frankly I am frightened to find out. "I got this, you got this," and now we all have herpes. "My friend is by my right, ay" she's got it too. "I got this, you got this, and now you know it," well it was your responsibility to tell me, but it was me who should have worn the condom.


• "Kicking in the front seat, sitting in the back seat, gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?" SHOTGUN! No seriously, somebody shoot her.


• "It's Friday....gotta get down... looking forward to the weekend... partying... fun, fun, fun, fun... looking forward to the weekend," I'm not, at least, not anymore.


• "Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday," that was when Ms. Black's intelligently written essay about time was due, "today is, is Friday, Friday," couldn't have said it better myself, "we-we-we so excited," is that even proper english, "we so excited," nope. "We gonna have a ball today," not me cuz I be smokin a bowl wit mah oda frands and we only be chillin. "Tomorrow is Saturday," bullshit! I don't believe you. "And Sunday comes afterwards," praise the Lord on high! "I don't want this weekend to end," but I want you to stop singing.


• This is the part were some radom rap star comes out of nowhere and pretty much reiterates everything Rebecca has said up to this point, "It's Friday, cruising, partying, it's a weekend."


• The song then ends with Rebecca repeating, "It's Friday, partying, etc," part and everyone at the Friday night party she went to begins to cheer. But they're not cheering because she sang so well, they're cheering because she finally shut up!

Overall this song kind of sucks. It's horribly written and directed and Ms. Black sounds like the human equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. If you like the song, good for you. If you don't think Rebecca is that bad, good for you. But me, I don't like Rebecaa Black, so I'm not going to listen to her and instead continue to listen to a much better young pop singer... Justin Bieber, 'cause it's Friday and I got the fever!

Best Moive Ever: The Room

Oh hi reader. I had the pleasure of watching a very wonderful film last night titled The Room. Never before have I witnessed a movie as great as this. I want to share my thoughts of the movie, so here it goes.

To start off, The Room is a dramatic love story about a man named Johnny coming to grips with the harsh reality that his future wife Lisa is cheating on him with his best friend Mark. The film is also filled with subplots involving drug dealers, sex, and psychology. All of these plot points make up what is arguably one of the best dramatic screenplays of all time. I feel no need to elaborate further on the plot seeing as the movie didn't feel the need either.

The acting in this film is top of the line. Leonardo Dicaprio eat your heart out, this films has the best ensemble of dramatic actors I have ever seen. Dicaprio's acting in drama's such as Titanic pale in comparison to the acting in The Room. When director, writer, and star of the film Tommy Wiseau professes his love to Lisa, he does it with the finesse only a highly trained actor could pull off. But acting isn't the only thing Tommy Wiseau is good at.

Without any doubt I can say that this film took place in San Francisco. Shot after shot showed The City by the Bay in all of it's glory. Not a single scene felt like it was filmed on a soundstage in Los Angeles, despite the fact that it apparently was. I praise Wiseau's directing, it truly is like no other.

On Wiseau's writing all I can say is: exquisite. I'm surprised this movie has never won a single award for it's fantastic screenplay. I don't believe I can find a single plot error or inconsistency in the entire film. Even the subplots are well done.

I'm going to end my praise of the movie here, although I can say so much more wonderful things about this stunning film. The only real thing left to say in this blog post is: April Fools!!!!

Goodness this movie was the worst piece of "Hi doggy" doodoo I have ever seen! Not a single damn thing about this movie was good. The movie was filled with a bunch of pointless shots of San Francisco. The acting was worse than the acting in an amateur porno! Not a single scene made any sense and most of the movie was filled with gratuitous amounts of sex scenes. So it probably was an amateur porno I was watching! The soundtrack of the entire film consisted of R&B music. Most scenes had no context to them at all and not a single subplot was resolved or explored further than one scene.

An example of how bad this film was comes in a scene where the characters of Mike (the friend) and Lisa (future wife) have sex. In this scene crappy R&B music is played. In the next scene we see Mike throwing around a football with Wiseau's character for about a minute for NO DESCERNIBLE REASON, then the next scene has Mike and Lisa attempting to go at it again. In one scene we find out that a character named Denny is involved with a drug dealer. The scene has the drug dealer coming to the guys house and threatening him, does anything happen beyond this? Nope! The main characters kick the guy out and then proceed to yell at Denny for about five minutes.

I can go on all day about how terrible this film is. I can't find a single redeemable quality about the film. The only character that made any sense was Lisa's mother who actually called the characters out on their random bullshit, but only half the time.

Now I can sit here and write that this movie is flawed to it's very core, however, I don't know if that would be an honest statement. I believe that any plot can be interesting so long as it's done correctly. Hell, I'm sure someone could make an interesting film about shopping for groceries. Just imagine the commercial, "Leonardo Dicaprio in Aisle Five! BUUUUURRRRNNNT! Directed by Christopher Nolan." But I couldn't tell if The Room had a good plot. It seemed interesting, but I wanted to know more. I wanted explanation as to why everything was happening, because everything happened out of context to something unknown to the audience. I wanted at least one actor to be good. I wanted to watch the movie and say that it was so bad it was good. But I can't, in my right mind, say anything truly good about The Room.

The only way this movie could be enjoyable is if I watched it high, because I'm pretty sure Tommy Wiseau was on something when making it. When I die and inevitably go to Hell, Satan is going to force me to watch this movie over and over again for all eternity! It's that bad of a film and that's all I have to say about that.