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A few posts ago I said that I really liked the new movie “The Village”. I was a bit suprised to see everybody so divided on it. So I found something everybody might appreciate. Here’s the Ebert and Roeper analysis. Roeper loves it. Ebert doesn’t. They debate and it’s pretty interesting (I think).
Some may agree with Ebert and others (like me) may agree with Roeper. Give it a listen. It’s nice to hear both opinions presented.
I love Roger Ebert. I always tend to see things exactly the way he does. Sometimes I may disagree, but his remarkable ability to illustrate clearly exactly why he feels the way he does cannot be denied.
“his remarkable ability to illustrate clearly exactly why he feels the way he does cannot be denied.”
It’s funny you should say that because I’ve read his stuff for a couple of years now, and while he is normally very down-to-earth and intelligent about his critiques, I read his Chicago Sun-Times review of “the Village” and it was the closest thing to a mindless emotional outburst I have ever read from him. He basically said he didn’t like it, and really didn’t say why.
“”The Village” is a colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn. It’s a flimsy excuse for a plot, with characters who move below the one-dimensional and enter Flatland. M. Night Shyamalan, the writer-director, has been successful in evoking horror from minimalist stories, as in “Signs,” which if you think about it rationally is absurd — but you get too involved to think rationally. He is a director of considerable skill who evokes stories out of moods, but this time, alas, he took the day off.”
–Roger Ebert
First pararaph of the review.
Ebert’s review gets hysterical later on. He seems to be taking more delight in lambasting crappy movies lately.
VAGUE SPOILERS!!:
Critics were enjoined after the screening to avoid revealing the plot secrets. That is not because we would spoil the movie for you. It’s because if you knew them, you wouldn’t want to go. The whole enterprise is a shaggy dog story, and in a way, it is all secrets. I can hardly discuss it at all without being maddingly vague.
…………………………………Everyone in the village does everything together, apparently, although it is never very clear what most of their jobs are. Some farming and baking goes on.
…………………………………Something terrible happens to somebody. I dare not reveal what, and to which, and by whom. Edward Walker decides reluctantly to send someone to “the towns” to bring back medicine for whoever was injured.
…………………………………Someone finds something under the floorboards. Wouldn’t you just know it would be there, exactly where it was needed, in order for someone to do something he couldn’t do without it.
Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It’s a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It’s so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don’t know the secret anymore.
Of course… this is the same Ebert who gave Garfield: The Movie a thumbs up.
“Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It’s a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It’s so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don’t know the secret anymore.
And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we’re back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets.”
The Twilight Zone is alive with M. Night!
Nat
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