THE DAILY DOSE

Sometimes it pays to view things with innocence.

Movies, for example. I must admit that I read two New York Times articles before AND after watching M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film. Both articles delved more into the director as a subject, with plenty of references to previous works and other facets of his own central character.

Which is precisely why I would tend to agree that movie reviews should be read with caution. But I believe that’s a given already. What I contemplate about more is the notion that film critics tend to be overtly critical for the sake of being, well, critics. Take this local writer who writes lengthy, more often than not, scathing reviews not devoid of yada-yada. A journalist friend, not suprisingly, holds the same opinion about this writer. Too much reference to film as an art, it becomes “science”.

Will you just please tell us if you think the film is good or not and spare us the verbose diatribe? From how this writer writes, not only it’s apparent that he sure knows a lot about film history, he comes across as a pompous know-it-all. But then again I would assume film critics feel the need for such analytical pinch if they have to churn out an article that contains several hundred words.

As for Lady in the Water, I’m inclined not to write a lengthy “review”, especially not after what I just discussed. But I liked what I saw. And even if the term “much-maligned” is more than once used to describe some of his previous movies (The Village included), I did find those post- Sixth Sense movies good. I didn’t see Signs, though.

Final note: Because I liked what I saw, I would recommend watching this M. Night movie. But don’t curse me if you didn’t like it. Hard to imagine, I know, but how it must be like to watch an M. Night movie without knowing anything about him or his previous movies?

LINK:

Wikipedia: Lady in the Water