On "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971)

If you want to view paradise, watch "Willy Wonka"

Star Rating: ***½
"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is a product of pure imagination. Enter a world made entirely of candy, where almost everything is eatable and delicious. A place where mushrooms are made of frosting—where chocolate plumbs grow on trees and a river is made of pure chocolate. It’s Wonderland—it’s Never-Neverland—it’s the Garden of Eden—it’s one of the most magnificent places on earth for both kids and adults. All this delight and splendor belongs to the mysterious candy man, Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder).

The candy man is one of the most admired people in the world. He’s the one who makes the world taste good. His unique candies and chocolates are adored by people the world over. His mysterious factory is his palace—like Buckingham Palace, or the Louvre museum. Everybody wants a look inside—especially rival chocolate makers.

Because many of his competitors were sending in spies posing as workers to steal his secret recipes, Mr. Wonka decided to close his factory, but as it turns out he only closes it to the public. The factory starts working again, churning out more delicious sweets then ever, while the front gates remain locked.
One day, Mr. Wonka decides to give an exclusive tour of his factory to five lucky people. He puts out a “golden ticket” in five of his chocolate bars, and the people who find them have won a spot on the tour. When the people of the world hear of this, they go crazy trying to find the tickets that could be anywhere in any place in the world.

Enter the main hero of the story, young Charlie Bucket, played by Peter Ostrum. Charlie’s family is very poor. His father is dead, his grandparents are bedridden and his mother tries very hard to keep the family afloat. When Charlie hears that Willy Wonka is opening his factory to give an exclusive tour to five lucky people, Charlie finds something to think about. He wants to find a golden ticket more than anything else—and just as it looks impossible for him to find one, he finds one. Charlie and his grandpa Joe, played by Jack Albertson, go on a fantastic adventure through the most amazing place on earth. In one day, Charlie (and the audience) learns more lessons than many people learn in an entire lifetime.

This screen gem was based on Roald Dahl’s novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As is common with most of Dahl’s work, the main characters are children. The hero, Charlie Bucket, is a child. The other four golden ticket winners are children. Each child is supposed to represent a fault or a flaw, i.e. vanity, selfishness, bad habits, etc. When a child breaks a factory rule due to their flaw, the moral “that this is not the way you should act” is outlined by a musical number from the small factory employees, the Oompa Loompas. Their songs always open with “If you are wise you’ll listen to me.” As usual, Dahl is using children as tools to create another morbidly fascinating fairy tale.

Dahl himself was involved in the making of "Willy Wonka". He began writing a screenplay for the film, but when he failed to meet the necessary deadlines, the project was taken over by screenwriter David Seltzer. Dahl was so displeased with the final product, due to the massive changes in the script and the story made by Seltzer, that he refused to sell the rights to the second book, despite the very warm critical reception the film received.

Despite what Mr. Dahl said, this movie is a masterpiece. It has a young tonality, having been made for a younger audience, but it carries lessons that are beneficial to everybody, young and old. "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is a beautiful, enchanting romp that is refreshing and will go down like a dash of hot chocolate with a little peppermint added.

Trivia Information: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067992/

On "The Shining" (1980)

Jack Nicholson in one of his "break through" roles

Star Rating: ***
The moment that "The Shining" begins, you know that you are watching a horror movie. Not only is there extremely creepy music playing in the background, but there is one long continuous shot of a car driving by lakes, through mountains and general rural scenery—in short, in the middle of no where. It is also based on a novel by Stephen King, the master of contemporary horror literature. Put two and two together and you realize that you are smack in the beginning of a horror movie. That is what "The Shining" is. There is nothing else that it *possibly* could be.

The main characters in this overpowered drama are the Torrances. The father, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is offered the job of caretaker in the enormous Overlook Hotel—a place that has gone down in horror movie lore; along with the Bates Motel and the Universal monster castles. The rooms are enormous, beautiful, empty and silent. There are endless mazes of passageways and it would be no trick to get yourself lost in place like the Overlook Hotel.

The new Bates Motel?

Jack and his family will have to live in this vast spectacle for five months over the winter, being virtually cut off from civilization. Before Jack moves in, the owners tell him about “the tragedy” of the hotel. The previous caretaker had gone crazy from cabin fever and murdered his wife and children with an axe and then committed suicide. “That’s not going to be the case with me,” says Jack smiling. Now why do I not believe that at all?

Sure enough, within one week of their arrival, Jack, struggling with a writing project, starts losing his marbles. When disturbed at his work, he unexpectedly flies off the handle. He visits the ballroom and encounters ghostly bartenders and guests. Finally, he follows in the footsteps of the previous caretaker and tries to murder his family. I know that Jack is supposed to be an unspeakably horrible character and boy does he deliver. Nicholson is good—perhaps too good. I found myself so unearthly disgusted by Jack. He becomes a psychotic slasher monster following in the footsteps of Alex, the maniacal killer from Kubrick’s "A Clockwork Orange" (1971).

Luckily, there is the unsung titular hero of "The Shining", Jack’s son Danny (Danny Lloyd). Danny is a strange child who likes to talk with his imaginary friend, Tony. Tony shows Danny unpleasant visions of the Overlook Hotel—blood pouring from an elevator and filling up the hotel lobby and two identical girl twins, the ghosts of the children of the last caretaker. In a conversation with a kindly hotel attendant, Mr. Halloran (Scatman Crothers), Danny learns (as well as the audience) that the reason he sees these visions is because he has a special ability to hear people’s thoughts and see things that other people can’t. Mr. Halloran, who has these same abilities, calls this gift “shining.”

When the Torrances are all alone in the hotel, Danny finds traces of the “tragedy” when he encounters the ghosts of two twin girls and a ghostly woman in a locked off room. Finally, he sees that his father is going to try and murder him and his mother Wendy (Shelley Duvall). It the dead of night, during a snowstorm that has barricaded the unhappy Torrances inside the hotel, Danny walks into Wendy’s room, warning Wendy of the coming catastrophe by muttering “redrum, redrum” (murder spelled backwards). At that exact moment, there is a big bang at the bedroom door. Someone is trying to break in with an axe. “Wendy, I’m home!” cries Jack Torrance from outside.

"The Shining" was filmed over eleven months from May 1978 to April 1979. Production took so long because Kubrick wanted to get various details of the film exactly correct. He had multiple takes for very short sequences, such as the infamous “Here’s Johnny” scene where Jack breaks into the bedroom with an axe, which took three days to film and required the use of approximately sixty doors for Jack to break through. For another example, the scene where the blood pours from the elevator into the hotel lobby took almost a year to get right. For one thing it took nine days to set up and could only be filmed in one take. Kubrick filmed the scene three times, arguing that “it doesn’t look like blood.”

Kubrick was very serious about his job, which unsurprisingly made him difficult to work with. He was hard on his crew, particularly Shelley Duvall. He would lose patience with her on the set and tell her that she was wasting everybody’s time. Duvall later said that he was probably just trying to get the best performance out of her that was possible, but that she never wanted to go through such an experience ever again.

"The Shining" received mixed reviews upon its initial release in 1980. Stephen King, the author of the original novel The Shining claimed that he was very disappointed with film, saying: "It's like a great big beautiful Cadillac with no motor inside, you can sit in it and you can enjoy the smell of the leather upholstery - the only thing you can't do is drive it anywhere. So I would do everything different." He adds, "The real problem is that Kubrick set out to make a horror picture with no apparent understanding of the genre. Everything about it screams that from beginning to end, from plot decisions to the final scene."

King had originally written a script of "The Shining" that was a more accurate adaptation of his novel, which had been rejected by Kubrick, who went on to write his own script with novelist Diane Johnson. King also felt that Kubrick had misrepresented his novel by casting the wrong actors—namely Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. King felt that Nicholson didn’t capture the good side of Jack Torrance, but skipped the conflicted feelings and skipped to the slashing violent aspect of the character. King disliked the choice of casting Shelley Duvall, whom he thought was too emotionally vulnerable to play Wendy, who was supposed to be a bright and sunny type of person. It is a pity that King feels this way because these portrayals have become so iconic. I can imagine that King would feel angry that his novel is considered in a way he so strongly disapproved of. If things had been done King’s way, the film would probably not be such a classic and certainly not the icon that it is.

Like many critics had been in 1980, the first time I saw "The Shining" I was repulsed, but not from fright. I had heard nothing about the film besides praise and assurances that it was absolutely horrifying. For my first viewing, I waited till midnight, shut off all the lights in the house and started the film. Even with the darkness I felt that it was an inspired story, but I was disappointed because I didn’t find it very frightening—just mildly creepy. The second time I viewed it, it certainly intimidated me. I grew up around the result of this trailblazing film. Since "The Shining" movies have gotten a lot scarier, at least visually scarier. Sometimes wish I had been alive in 1980 and had gone to see it in the theater to experience the fright it had provoked.

Today, there are very few horror films that I enjoy because it’s all about violence and what is onscreen. Considering "The Shining" is a film about many gruesome murders there is only one onscreen murder in the whole film. The rest is all in the mind. "The Shining" is an interpretive film, made up of several ambiguities that are up to the viewer to make out. I’ve also said this for Alfred Hitchcock’s "The Birds"–that level of ambiguity is what makes a horror movie effective. It begs the questions, why is this frightening or how is this frightening to you?

With this in mind, I certainly enjoyed "The Shining" after a second viewing. That pretty much sums up the film's past—overall mixed criticism to “shining” cultural reference. My main advice to approaching this film is to watch it a few times, rewind a scene or two if necessary and possible, and above all, just go with it.

Trivia Information/Writing Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/

On "Lady in the Water" (2006)

A touching moment towards the beginning of "Lady in the Water"

Star Rating: **½
Like "The Village", M. Night Shyamalan’s previous movie, "Lady in the Water" borders on being too somber. The main difference is that "The Village" was unforgivably somber, to the point of reminding me uncannily of a slab of very dry wood. "Lady in the Water" is not wooden, dull at times maybe, but nothing compared to "The Village". "Lady in Water" was interesting and charming, whereas "The Village" didn’t even have that in its favor.

Shyamalan first conceived the plot for the movie in the form of a bedtime story he would tell to his daughters. This is confirmed by the presence of a title card during the end credits stating, “To my daughters, I’ll tell you this story one more time. But then go to bed.” This movie feels like a short fairytale ala Hansel and Gretel stretched to two hours.

The film opens with a narration about humankind’s linkage with the “water-people”. As time advanced, humans had broken the connections with the water-people because “man’s need to own drove them deeper into land” and communication between humans and these water people had shut off. But the water people keep trying to find and help humans, but many are attacked by their fearsome enemies and don’t return. But they still try. (Inspired and biblical, no?)

This brings us to a modern day Philadelphia apartment building. A stuttering, down-on-his-luck hotel superintendent named Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) discovers one of the water people in the hotel’s pool. This is a Narf, a nymph-like creature named Story, played by Bryce Dallas Howard. Heep saves her from a vicious “Scrunt”, a wolf-like creature who tries to kill Story throughout the movie in order to prevent her from returning to her home. Story says that she has come to the human’s world to look for a writer who is writing something of such value, that it will change and inspire generations to come. When her mission is accomplished, Story will fly away back to her people on the wings of a great eagle-like creature called, “The Great Eatlon”. I guess the water-people still haven’t given up on humanity.

After interrogating all of his tenants, Heep meets Vick, a young writer played by the movie’s writer and director M. Night Shyamalan, who is writing a “cookbook” containing his ideas on politics and other world issues. Like Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense masterpiece "Rear Window", Shyamalan introduces a puzzling story and a set of quirky residents of an apartment (a man with a knack for crossword puzzles, a group of cigarette addicted slackers, a young college student who is always arguing with her mother, etc.) who all play some part in the story. What with the appearances he makes in his films, and the suspense mechanisms he uses (or tries to use) to advance his plots, I wonder more and more if Shyamalan is not in fact a Hitchcock buff. In this film however, Shyamalan doesn’t just make a cameo appearance—he stars in the film as one of the supporting characters. He is the one the lady in the water is searching for. It is Shyamalan’s revolutionary ideas that will change the (cinematic) world.

I applaud "Lady in the Water" because it is an endlessly energetic and inventive exercise. It takes a pure fairy tale that sounds pretty silly when you think about it, and it handles it contents moderately well. Note the world moderately—this film is not without its faults I’m afraid. Much of the dialogue feels improvised, while the other part of it feels premeditated. I was so happy to find comic relief here after sitting through "The Village". There are a few humorous things about Lady in the Water—such as a tenant whose husband is always in the bathroom, and his wife who tells the other characters something unflattering about him, like “he has a little gas problem,” and always ends with, “please don’t tell him I said that.”

In rebuttal of my own case, I’ve mentioned that this film has an endlessly inventive plot. It does—but it is a flawed plot and feels a bit hokey after a while. The reason this isn’t an epic fantasy tale would have to because of the lack of depth in the creatures, namely these Scrunt creatures. Its appearance, besides its monstrous desire to kill Story and anyone else it caught, isn’t really clear. I found myself thinking, “It’s true, in a fairytale like this there has to be a magical antagonist of some kind. Like the wolves in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' or the Nazgul in 'The Lord of the Rings', but their point in the story is always explained.” The Scrunt’s role isn’t really explained, or maybe the bare knowledge that it’s out for Story’s blood is all we need to know and anymore explanation would become too much exposition.

The creature’s names definitely need some alteration. Take the name, “Narf”. I can’t honestly find myself taking a magical creature too seriously with a name like that. The same goes for Scrunt. I appreciate with so much fantasy literature in the world today, finding original monster names must be a challenging task. Or maybe Shyamalan thought it sounded good. Point being, it doesn’t work here.

For all the negative things I’ve just recounted, "Lady in the Water" isn’t a bad film, but I can imagine it being some much more effective as a bedtime story. I don't give it thumbs up or thumbs down, but an encouraging rating of two and a half. I applaud M. Night Shyamalan for trying it out on screen however. I have respect for Shyamalan—he’s a good storyteller and he deserves a hand for his creativity. With a few more adjustments, organization and a little more scriptwriting instruction, "Lady in the Water" just might float.

Trivial Information: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452637/trivia 

On "The Village" (2004)

Joaquin Phoenix painting the trees with "the safe color" as a guard against "Those We Do Not Speak Of"

Star Rating: **½
M. Night Shyamalan’s "The Village" takes on the classic scenario of a small superstitious 19th century village, stricken by fear of the supernatural. That’s the premise. Not exactly original, but still interesting. The small village is surrounded by a thick forest inhabited by “Those We Do Not Speak Of”, which are supposedly fearsome creatures who object to humans living around their land. Here it starts getting a little too serious and overdone. To start with, the label “Those We Do Not Speak Of” sounds like something taken directly out of a Harry Potter story.

The conflict begins when the villagers start finding skinned animals, signs of the creature’s displeasure. Then a young man named Lucius, Joaquin, seeks permission from the village elders to go into the woods were these creatures live to fetch better medicines from the towns on the other side. The elders are much troubled by this request and they try to drill it into Lucius’s head how really terrible these woods are. The script doesn’t set these monsters up to be very interesting or intimidating. It just puts endless emphasis on how bad they are. This isn’t narration, more of a lecture.

Then the story shifts into a romance that Lucius has with a blind girl, Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard), the daughter of one of the village elders, Edward Walker (William Hurt). Then Lucius is wounded by Noah (Adrien Brody), a developmentally impaired man, who is also in love with Ivy. Ivy seeks permission to go through the forest to seek medicine needed to heal Lucius. (Great idea, right? Send a blind girl through a forest full of monsters). On her journey, Ivy trips over sticks on the forest floor and uncovers Shyamalan’s trademarked twist ending.

"The Village" is not a total failure, but it is far from a masterpiece. It has some interesting prospects, but they are not well meshed together. This movie is suspenseful and there are frightening moments, but the movie takes itself much too seriously. The dialogue tries to sound early like some kind of nineteenth century jargon, but tries too hard and just ends up sounding unnecessary and corny. It uses too many big words and turns a simple sentence like “We were told of their engagement this morning” into “We were informed of their intentions this morning.”

There is little to no comic relief, just stuffiness. The village elders are stuffy and annoying. The characters I liked the most were Lucius and Ivy, who were the most developed characters. Lucius is a very shy and quiet individual. Ivy, a more gutsy and talkative person asks him, “Why can you not say what is in your head?” Lucius replies sharply and satisfactorily, “Why must you say everything in yours?” I was pleased for something that made me smile after an hour of just shaking my head. The end of "The Village" brings a lot of character development to everyone and we understand the whole stuffy picture, but it doesn’t do much in the movie’s favor I’m afraid.

To sum up, "The Village" is fairly forgettable entertainment. As far as Shyamalan’s movies go, this film is certainly not memorable as "The Sixth Sense" or even "Signs", but much better than his latest picture "The Last Airbender". M. Night Shyamalan has interesting if not hokey ideas, but a lesson in scriptwriting is probably in order.

On "Signs" (2002)

Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin wear foil head-guards to keep the aliens from reading their minds

Star Rating: ***
After thrilling an audience with ghosts, M. Night Shyamalan thrills us with aliens. But don’t be fooled—"Signs" isn’t all about the crop circles and flying saucers shown in the posters. As always with an effect psychological thriller, there has to be something else in place. Signs follows the depressed Hess family living on a farmhouse in Pennsylvania and how they handled an alien invasion.

The father and head of the family is Graham Hess, played by Mel Gibson. Graham had been a priest, but had lost his faith in god after his wife was killed in a car accident, shown in flashback towards the middle and end of the film. This incident causes Graham, and his children, Morgan and Bo, to become somber and depressed. Graham’s brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) a former baseball league champion moves into the house to help Graham raise the children, Morgan and Bo (Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin). The atmosphere is far from happy throughout the entire film, however. This mass of unhappiness is just the perfect setting for an alien invasion.

At the beginning of the movie, the Hesses find several of there crops cut down, making a strange sign in the crops. They dismiss it as the work of the town pranksters—but then reports of these strange occurrences begin appearing from all over the world. And then when unidentified aircraft enter the earth’s atmosphere, people are convinced that it is an alien invasion.

With a well written script, Shyamalan sets the characters up to succumb to the fear of the so called “invasion”. Graham, who has lost his faith in god, believes that the humans were all alone in the struggle against the aliens. Merrill believes in miracles and that they were not alone. Not giving anything away, try to think about these two standpoints during the climactic scene.

Warning: Here be Spoilers:

The aliens land on earth and break into the Hess’s farm. There several long scenes involving the family bracing the doors while the aliens are on the outside trying to force their way into the house. The family runs into the basement, referencing the classic ending from H.G. Welles’s "The War of the Worlds". In the midst of all of this excitement, Graham’s son Morgan, who is an asthmatic, has an attack and nearly loses consciousness. Graham has to hold off the aliens and revive his son at the same time.

The aliens reminded me a lot of the ghosts in "The Sixth Sense". The difference is that the ghosts themselves were scary—here it’s more of the concept of the aliens that gets you. We see their legs and hands and we hear them “talk” over a walkie-talkie belonging to one of the children. We wonder what these creatures are. Shyamalan does a very good job setting us up for what is to come. When we finally see the aliens, they aren’t really scary—just unnerving.

Shyamalan loses some suspense by showing us the aliens sometime earlier (during a newsflash during the middle of the film). They are the pretty generic model of aliens that you might see in a costume-shop, i.e. tall guys in dark suits with oval shaped heads. It would have been more effective if Shyamalan didn’t show the aliens until the climactic scene, where he could have built this whole wall of suspense and then broken it down with a full shot of an alien. But what happened worked, too, and the picture is pretty scary nonetheless.

Spoilers Be Gone

M. Night Shyamalan said that he had been influenced by "The Birds" (1963) and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956) in making "Signs". He had also said that he didn’t want to reference The Sixth Sense as he didn’t want to make the same movie twice. Signs also features a soundtrack composed by James Newton Howard, who had also composed the score for Shyamalan’s "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable". Howard had intentionally written the score as a specific reference to earlier horror movie soundtracks like "Psycho" (1960) and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977).

In a way, "Signs" is a retrospective of the classic alien pictures, (i.e. "Close Encounters") but it is also a new alien picture of its own. Shyamalan puts so much work into creating this tapestry of emotion tied up with fear and the supernatural. He pulls it off very well.

"Signs" was the last really good movie made by Shyamalan. It was at this point in his career, the quality of his movies started going downward. By this point, a new young filmmaker had dominated the psychological thriller. Christopher Nolan had burst onto the screen with "Memento" (2000), a thrilling exercise as fresh and exciting as "The Sixth Sense" had been a year earlier. Nolan would later make his Batman movies and Inception (2010), which are also very satisfying thrillers. Nolan and Shyamalan are vastly different filmmakers with regards to style, but they do specialize in the same style of using suspense and psychology to tell a story. Shyamalan isn’t the screen’s contemporary master of suspense anymore—but he ranks among them.

Trivial Information: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286106/trivia

On "The Sixth Sense" (1999)

Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment in a suspenseful moment of "The Sixth Sense"

Star Rating: ***½
"The Sixth Sense" combines two kinds of thrillers: psychological and supernatural. The result is a very effective and clever movie that writer director M. Night Shyamalan should be very proud of.

The film opens with child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) who is shot in the abdomen by a former patient of his, whom Crowe had failed to help. A year or so later, Crowe finds himself working with a troubled eight-year-old named Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. Cole is a bright, yet depressed and isolated child who finds very little pleasure in anything. His mother, (Toni Collette), tries everything she can to find out what is troubling Cole and to cheer him up. Finally, Cole tells Dr. Crowe the truth—he sees ghosts “all the time”. These ghosts, who don’t know that they’re dead, get Cole to do things for them and Cole wants them to leave him alone.

This would make an interesting movie on its own, but the story is as much about the psychologist, Dr. Crowe, as it as about Cole. Dr. Crowe is troubled by two things. The prospect of his professional failure with his attempted assassin drives him to work harder than ever, shutting out all else, including his wife Anna, (Olivia Williams). Crowe loves his wife and is afraid of losing her but he is so preoccupied with his job that their relationship only becomes more and more distant.

Second to Dr. Crowe is Cole, who is supposedly troubled by the recent end to his parents’ marriage, but who finally explains that his unhappiness is due to his visits from the dead. Thanks to a good script and a good actor, (Osment), Cole’s personality is very tangible to the audience. You actually care about him and want to see that his problems get solved. "The Sixth Sense" is a very somber movie and borders on being a little too somber, but it is still enjoyable nonetheless. At the end of the long rope of suspense is a twist ending that is so cunning and brilliant that if you disliked the first half of the movie, you will enjoy the second half.

Aside from the depth of characters, the most “haunting” thing about "The Sixth Sense" are the ghosts that Cole sees. In the beginning, the audience cannot see them, but after Cole tells Crowe about his special ability, we also get the “sixth sense” and can see them too. These ghosts are nerve racking. They aren’t white, transparent creatures; they look exactly like regular people. Some have rather unfortunate injuries—such as an adolescent boy having a large bullet-wound in the back of his head. Some of the ghosts are scary because of the circumstances that include them in the scene. One of the most disturbing images in the movie is when Cole sees three people hanging dead from the ceiling in his school. He desperately tries to make Dr. Crowe, who is present with him in this scene, see the ghosts and begs him to “please make them leave!”

"The Sixth Sense" features a very Alfred Hitchcock-like premise. The most notable “Hitchcockian” trademark is the twist ending, a trait featured in most Hitchcock movies. For example, Hitchcock’s "Vertigo" has a similar premise to "The Sixth Sense"—a troubled detective shadowing a woman who is believed to be possessed by the spirit of her great grandmother; the same way that the troubled psychologist follows Cole and how Cole is visited by ghosts. Like "Vertigo", "The Sixth Sense" is a very suspenseful exercise with somber characters dogged by personal troubles that end in a climax that boggles the viewer’s mind. Shyamalan even makes a cameo appearance as a doctor in one scene. It’s getting easier and easier to decipher where he gets his inspiration.

"The Sixth Sense" isn’t the new "Vertigo", and Shyamalan isn’t the new Hitchcock. But the movies carry enough similarities that they make each other more interesting. "The Sixth Sense" is a frightening, touching and intelligent film that deserves a lot of praise. Mr. Shyamalan, you’ve done good.

On M. Night Shyamalan

Writer-Director M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan had made his film debut in the early 1990s, but had gone relatively unnoticed until he wrote and directed "The Sixth Sense" (1999). This eerie and macabre film stars Bruce Willis as a troubled psychiatrist whose client is an isolated boy played by Haley Joel Osment who is frequently visited by ghosts. The film was a great success and was nominated for six academy awards, including Best Picture. Most of all, it put Shyamalan on the map as a new and highly intelligent filmmaker. Over the next few years, Shyamalan made "Unbreakable" (2000), "Signs" (2002) and "The Village" (2004), all of which cemented his reputation a maker of scary movies with sharp twist endings.

Shyamalan has a particular style of moviemaking. Most of his movies are very sinister, and include supernatural backgrounds, such as the ghosts in "The Sixth Sense", the aliens in "Signs", or the “creatures” in "The Village". His main characters usually have had some trauma associated with their past that greatly effects the type of people they are and the roles they play in their movies. And of course, as I have mentioned, Shyamalan is known for his dramatic and unexpected twist endings.

His movies are similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s particular style of suspense drama, but the main difference is that Hitchcock’s movies are a lot easier to watch because they are not as sinister and have moments of comic relief. Shyamalan has cited Hitchcock as an influence for at least one of his films, ("Signs"), is not more. He also makes cameo appearances in his films the way Hitchcock had, and Shyamalan actually stars as a supporting character in Lady in the Water. To date, his latest film "The Last Airbender" (2010) is the only film where Shyamalan has not put in an appearance.

As his career progressed, Shyamalan lost the acclaim he had garnered from "The Sixth Sense", and went on to make "The Village" (2004), "Lady in the Water" (2006) and "The Happening" (2008), all of which were panned by critics (myself included). However, I do think that his movies deserved to be looked at and considered. For my Halloween segment this year I will be reviewing four Shyamalan pictures—"The Sixth Sense", "Signs", "The Village" and "Lady in the Water", all of which have Halloween themes. There is much to be said for all of these movies, but rather than explain it all here, tune in everyday from today to the 15th and read what I have to say about Shyamalan’s movies.

On "The Seventh Seal" (1957)

A Swedish knight who is bold enough to challenge Death to a game of chess 

Star Rating: ****
Ingmar Bergman’s "The Seventh Seal" asks the deep, complicated questions, does god exist and what is god? Why is this so special? Music and art has addressed these questions for years. It’s that Bergman asks this question in such an eerie, cinematic, literary and artistic way that you can’t help but consider The Seventh Seal a true classic.

The setting is fourteenth century Sweden. A knight, Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand), return from the crusades to their home in Sweden to find it ravaged by the Black Plague. Death, in the form of a man in a black cape (Bengt Ekerot), arrives to take Block. Block challenges Death to a game of chess with the agreement that, if Block wins, he goes free. This game is played out in scenes scattered throughout the entire movie.

A few scenes later, Block goes to a church and confesses to a priest the reason for his broadened time on earth. “My life has been a meaningless search,” he says. “I want knowledge. Not belief. Not surmise. But Knowledge.” He adds, “I want god to put out his hand, show his face and speak to me.” He tells the priest of his game with Death, and Block even reveals his own strategy. Then Block realizes that the priest is Death in disguise and that he has given himself away. He creates a new strategy and tries to fool death but Death reveals, smiling, “Nothing gets past me. No one gets past me.”

The film also follows a line-up of other characters, who come into the acquaintance of the knight and his squire. A mute servant girl (Gunnel Lindblom), whom Jons rescues from be assaulted by a robber. Jons recognizes the robber as the idealist who had sent Block off on the pointless crusade. “Now you’ve become a thief,” says Jons. “A more profitable trade for a knave.”

Later, Block, Jons and the mute girl make friends of a small acting duo—Mia (Bibi Andersson) and Jof (Nils Poppe), and a blacksmith (Ake Fridell) and his wife (Inga Gill). Together, the group travels through dark forests, the type that is often used to symbolize to fear in literature, to Block’s house in order to allude death. Ironically, Death is following along in their footsteps every step of the way.

"The Seventh Seal" was and based on Bergman’s own 1954 stage play, "Wood Painting". After drawing ideas from the play, he created the story for our film. Also inspired by religious murals in churches, "The Seventh Seal" has the spirit of a religious painting mixed with a medieval epic ballad. It is beautiful, it is sad, it is confusing, it’s whatever you want it to be. It gives a great feel for how Europe was in the middle ages, while providing themes and questions that people of that age may not have dared to deal with.

"The Seventh Seal" is a very religious picture, with its title taken from a quotation from The Revelation of St. John the Divine. When he was a child, Bergman, the son of a Lutheran preacher, often accompanied his father to churches around Sweden. Bergman was enchanted by the religious paintings in the churches. In "A Program Note: The Seventh Seal", Bergman writes:

"There was everything that one's imagination could desire: angels, saints, dragons, prophets, devils, humans. There were very frightening animals: serpents in paradise, Balaam's ass, Jonah's whale, the eagle of the Revelation. All this was surrounded by a heavenly, earthly and subterranean landscape of a strange yet familiar beauty. In a wood sat Death, playing chess with the Crusader. Clutching the branch of a tree was a naked man with staring eyes, while down below stood Death, sawing away to his heart's content. Across gentle hills Death led the final dance towards the dark lands."

He adds:

"My intention has been to paint in the same way as the medieval church painter, with the same objective interest, with the same tenderness and joy. My beings laugh, weep, howl, fear, speak, answer, play, suffer, ask, ask. Their terror is the plague, Judgment Day, the star whose name is Wormwood. Our fear is of another kind but our words are the same.

Our question remains."

Bergman’s interest in religious paintings are touched on in one of the earlier scenes in the film. When Block and his squire Jons arrive at the church where Block confesses to Death, Jons comes across a painter painting the “dance of death” on the wall, “to remind people of death.” “That won’t make people any happier,” says Jons. “Why make them happy! Why not scare them!” The painter retorts. Jons sits down and paints a picture of himself, remarking, “Here’s Squire Jons. He grins at death, chuckles at the lord, laughs at himself, and smiles at the girls. His world exists only for himself. Absurd to all, even to himself.”

Warning: Here be spoilers

The film deals with the question, “what is god”? In one scene, Block approaches a young girl accused of witchcraft about to be burnt at the stake. He asks her to show him Satan so that Block can ask Satan about God. Satan does not appear, and Block’s dilemma is never answered. Yet in one of the final scenes when Death asks Block, “Did you enjoy your reprieve?” Block replies, “Yes.” When Death arrives at Block’s home, Block, surrounded by his wife and friends, pleads to God but there is no answer. In the end, Death must win.

Spoilers Be Gone

With "The Seventh Seal", Ingmar Bergman has created a Shakespearean drama with a life of its own. It has spawned parodies and homages throughout the years, including Woody Allen’s satirical film, "Love and Death" featuring several quotes from "The Seventh Seal". Another is an extremely humorous episode of the animated television series, "Animaniacs", a show which often parodies such cinema classics. In this episode, "Meatballs or Consequences", Wakko is taken by the grim reaper for over-eating. Yakko and Dot try to win Wakko back by playing (and cheating at) a game of chess with the icon. These references seem to have left out the key elements of Bergman’s original masterpiece however. "The Seventh Seal" is as much about life as it is about death.

Life and belief seem to play major roles in Ingmar Bergman’s work. In "Wild Strawberries" (1957), he tells the story of a man reevaluating his uneasy life. Then there is his unnamed trilogy in the early 1960s, "Through a Glass Darkly", "The Silence", and "Winter Light" to consider–all three are about belief. What makes them so special is the enthusiasm and professionalism he brings to the screen—the actors, the crispness of the stories the scripts and direction—every time he makes a movie. "The Seventh Seal" is the work of a believer. Not just a religious believer—but a cinematic believer.

Trivia Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050976/trivia

Writing Source: http://bergmanorama.webs.com/films/seventh_seal_programnote.htm

On "Young Frankenstein" (1974)

Now this is what I'd call a *mad* scientist

Star Rating: ***½
The Universal horror movies of the 1930s and ‘40s are funny in their own way, but the “master” of comedy Mel Brooks takes the subtle humor in these films and uses them as a springboard for a funny movie. He proceeded to bring to life "Young Frankenstein" which is one of the crowning achievements of his career.

"Young Frankenstein" is filmed entirely in black and white, to imitate the cult horror classics we know so well (partially thanks to this film here). The film features a classic Mel Brooks cast. Firstly, we have Gene Wilder, (Leo Bloom in "The Producers" and The Waco Kid in "Blazing Saddles") as the headstrong Professor Frederick “Fronkensteen”, the grandson of Victor Frankenstein. Frederick does not like to talk about his relations to such a notorious madman, and thus tries to alter the pronunciation of his name.

After a comical science lesson in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, a solicitor informs Frederick that he has inherited the Frankenstein family estate. Frederick bids his emotional and fashion-obsessed fiancé Elizabeth (Madeline Khan) goodbye and travels to Transylvania (the setting of Dracula, whereas the original Frankenstein movies were set in Germany). Frederick is driven to the Frankenstein family home, the classic Universal monster-castle, by the humpbacked Igor, pronounced “Eye-gor” (Marty Feldman), a servant of the household. “I’m a rather brilliant surgeon,” says Frederick, referring to Eye-gor’s hump, “I could help you with that hump.” To which Igor replies, “What hump?” Awkward silence. “Shall we go?” A few scenes later the hump switches sides. Frederick asks “Wasn’t that on the other side?” Eye-gor: “Was what on the other side?” Frederick: “Nothing.”

Frederick meets his housekeeper, the sinister Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman). She is so frightening that the horses neigh at the mere mention of her name. I kid you not, even when her name is mentioned in another part of the house, the horses whinny. I mean, it is a comedy. Frederick’s other friend is his erotic and sunny laboratory assistant Inga (Terri Garr). Their first meeting is at the Transylvania train station, when Eye-gor drives Fronkensteen to the castle in a hay cart. She is concealed in the hay and Fronkensteen accidently hits her. She uncovers herself and says, “Hello. Would you like to have a roll in ze hay? It’s fun!” And she begins rolling around in the hay, while a relieved and confused Frederick watches. In another such moment in the laboratory, Frederick and Inga embrace. “Elevate me!” says Frederick. “Here, right now?” asks the alarmed Inga. “Yes, raise the platform.”

When inside the old Frankenstein house, drawn by the distant sound of eerie violin music, Frederick finds his grandfather’s laboratory full of much of the same equipment used during the filming of the original "Frankenstein" movies from the 1930s. At the other side of the laboratory is Frankenstein’s private library, where there is a book, How I Did It by Victor Frankenstein. Frederick reads these notes and realizes that “it—could—work!” He repeats his grandfather’s work and plans to create a great man. Instead, he creates a friendly, misunderstood, grotesque and slightly horny monster played by Peter Boyle in the roll that brought his career to life.

Unfortunately, Brooks’ creature has, in this case an abnormally comic brain, which includes the creature’s irrational fear of fire. Soon, the creature escapes to the outer world. He goes around town, having exchanges with a blind man and playing on a teeter-totter with a young girl. The girl tells him to shift his weight on the totter, and in doing so, he catapults her into her bedroom through her open window. Predictably, she lands undamaged in her bed.

Young Frankenstein can do two things for you, depending on whether of not you’ve seen the Universal horror films, or “Universals” as I call them, that it parodies. If you haven’t seen them, and you’re an aspiring film goer, then YF could convince you to see them. Comedy is a very effective way to create interest in a subject. It happens in comedy movies and in many other mediums as well—books, essays, etc. the first line or scene is witty so as to grab the viewer’s attention. This could be the first humorous paragraph that snags you into the Universal horror films collection.

If you have seen the Universal horror films, then "Young Frankenstein" could help you appreciate them more. I find it interesting to think that somebody could take material that was supposed to be dead serious and turn it into the epitome of hilariousness. But, expanding on the point I made in my opening paragraph, these horror films are humorous in their own way. They have a balanced degree of humor and seriousness, like any good movie should have. The Universals may seem like the deadest of clichés to a modern audience, but that’s only because that is where all the typical monster clichés began. Just like any genre of movie, this was totally new once.

So I have a lot to thank Mel Brooks for in resurrecting this material. I view "Young Frankenstein" as a comedy that doesn’t just parody the Universals, it salutes them. Like Victor Frankenstein, I can just imagine Brooks sneaking through old Hollywood, stealing ideas and bringing them back to a deserted studio and sewing them together to create—a comedy.

Trivia Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072431/trivia

First Annual Halloween Extravaganza

Good day to you, foolish mortals. It’s that time of the year again—autumn, cool crisp autumn. But most of all—it’s time for Halloween.

            Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. In addition to my love of getting free candy every 31^st of October, I love Halloween because it unleashes a creative side in me. The world becomes alive with images of witches, vampires and ghosts and other stuff that is completely fantastic and out of a fairy tale. This time every year, I take no greater pleasure than crafting ghoulish tales and writing them down on paper, thinking, “This would make an interesting legend.” But that’s not all. On Halloween night, I try on new faces and assume a different identity which I would normally be averse to—such as a monster or a gangster. I usually spend months in advance planning my Halloween costume, (I was contemplating the subject while mowing my lawn in July). That’s part of the fun. To me, that is the point of Halloween—to try new things. To try new faces, just like an actor or an actress.

            When September rolls around, and the leaves begin turning red and falling off, I always get myself into a Halloween spirit by reading creepy books and watching scary movies. This Halloween, from today to Halloween night, I will be reviewing twenty-four films that relate in some way to the spirit of Halloween. I hope to do this every year from now on, and for the first time I have carefully selected some very special movies to discuss. My first one is Young Frankenstein, a classic parody of the Universal Horror pictures of the 1930s. This is a spin off of spooky movies, and is purely a comedy. I fear though that the tone will darken.

            October 11 will bring Swedish film industry giant Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 allegorical masterpiece The Seventh Seal, a movie about life and death—a subject crucial to the Halloween theme. From October 12^th to October 15^th will be a spotlight on four films from writer-director M. Night Shyamalan: The Sixth Sense (1999), Signs (2002), The Village (2004) and Lady in the Water (2006).

            October 15^th to October 24^th will return to the 1930s and advance onward. These movies will be Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1932), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Devil & Daniel Webster (1941), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Harvey (1950), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), The Exorcist (1973), The Shining (1980) and The Witches (1990).  

            October 25^th to Halloween night is the finale of this eerie extravaganza and something I have personally been looking forward to—a spotlight on the great Horror films of the 1920s and ‘30s, including several made by Universal. In order, these films are Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Wolfman (1941). As I’ve mentioned above, I love to get myself into the Halloween spirit by watching eerie movies. My final review will be of my favorite Halloween film of all. It’s a 1949 Disney cartoon version of the classic horror tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, narrated by Bing Crosby.

            Some of these movies I’m reviewing are not as obviously related to Halloween as others (i.e. Harvey might not be considered a Halloween film while Dracula definitely is). For the films that are not obvious like this, think about them and try to understand why I chose them for this Halloween cycle. So over the next three weeks be sure to lend an eye—take a closer look at the haunted side of Hollywood.