KCxWUH: M. Night's First Three

God, I don't know what if I want to talk about twist endings now, I guess we don't have a choice if we're talking about m and I shama, I mean, is that what I mean? You know? That's that's wikipedia is what I feel like Signs. I feel like the whole God, I feel like the whole idea behind Signs is the whole movie is a twist, or it's not a twist, or it's it's it's saying it's saying something different about twists. I think in general in movies it's almost commenting on twists in movies less having a twist itself.

It's kind of like Rosemary's Baby, where they're actually right about what's going on. Now that's maybe not a good example. There is something happening, she's not right about the exact thing that's happening. It's like Hereditary but she doesn't actually know what's going on. But something is happening in underneath everything.

The twist and science would be that it's not aliens. Right, It's suspected that it's aliens from the beginning. Right, The only real question is, you know, are people doing this or is it real? And that gets sorted out pretty quickly, so it doesn't really follow the formula, but I mean many of his other films definitely have twists. So on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host Krustache, and I am joined by my good friend all the way from the Wake Up Heavy podcast out there in podcast land.

He's part of the weirding Way media network. Your friend and mine, Mark Begley. I see podcasters. You live in California, so yeah, I bet you do. The joke in California is that everybody has a podcast, and in that state, you might be right.

In this state, probably not so much, but Wolf, on this episode, we're gonna be talking about m Night Shamalan's first three films, because you really want us to talk about his fourth, fifth, and sixth movies, I don't. You don't want us to because one of those movies is Lady in the Water, and if we want to talk about the three movies after those, the Last Airbender, after Earth and The Visit, only one of those is even a movie. So on this episode we will be talking about m Night Shamalan's first three films. We're doing yet another bonus episode for Horrortober. Those three films are The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signed.

You know the accident there? Yeah, someone get her? We did a lady he broke r neck? Oh my god, but you can see, yes, we're she standing next to my window? Baby?

Where shake care? Cold? What's wrong? Can ever talk to your mom about how things are? I don't tell her things because she doesn't look at me like everybody else, and I don't want her to.

I don't want her to know what I see dead people walking around like regular people. I don't see anything. Are you sure they're there? Sometimes you feel it didn't side, like you're falling down real fast. You ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck?

Hatch them? They get mad? It gets cold. How often do you see them all the time? They're everywhere?

And what ma, did you think spot them? I think that they know that you're one of these very rare people who can see them, so you need to help them, or if they don't want to help. I don't think that's the way it works. I do you know for sure? Is anyone there?

Pleasepectively? I'm working on so. The Sixth Sense premiered in nineteen ninety nine. It is written and directed by m Night Shamalan. It's produced by Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy.

So there is that. And it stars a very young hair having Bruce Willis, a very young Tony Colette, and an even younger Haley joel Osmat. Haley Joel Osmeat plays a young boy named Cole, who, like Mark Begley said, sees dead people will we will be spoiling this movie, but is this not the movie like the movie to spoil? Was this not the movie to spoil for like years? Yeah?

Well, and as I discussed with my daughter briefly, we watched this actually not too long ago because we were on an im Night Shamalan kick when Once Old came out. We watched that and I'm like, well, we gotta go back now and watch watched the other ones. And she's been doing episodes with me about what we watched during the month, and I said, you know, your mom and I totally missed this twist. We didn't see it in the theater we were. That was the year we met, and I think she had moved tire by then, just didn't get around and going to see it once we finally rented it which was probably pretty soon after it went to VHS.

I still didn't know the twist, so I was totally surprised by the twist. I did not pick up on the twist while I was watching it, interesting, and when it ended, I'm like, wait a minute, did they play fair with that? Because I was like, oh, I didn't catch on. You know, it seemed like they cheated. But the numerous times that I've watched it since then, I'm like, oh, no, they didn't cheat.

It's actually pretty obvious, but it's hidden very well. It is hidden very well if you had no idea. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people, especially these days, not that this was the first movie with a twist, obviously, but I think if first time back then, a good number of people missed it as well. I just didn't. I've said this a bunch of times, but I don't watch That seems like a cynical way to watch a film.

I am kind of naive. I'll just let movies wash over me, and so I'm not really paying attention. I I wouldn't have noticed that he's wearing the same clothes throughout the whole movie because he kind of switches up as outfit. You know, he's him as in Bruce Willis, he's in the clothes that he died in, and that's pretty true for all the ghosts that Cole sees. But it's a combination of the things.

Sometimes he's wearing the sweater that he had on at one point. Sometimes he's wearing a full suit. Sometimes he's just wearing the shirt and tie, blah blah blah. But it's all the clothes that he was wearing the night he was killed. So they hide that well.

The scenes with between him and his wife play out really well to where you could catch it. But also it makes sense that they're just, you know, things kind of fell apart after he got shot, right, and they're distant, and so yeah, I didn't catch it at all and was surprised by the surprise ending. So I had never seen the movie either. I used didn't see it when it came out at the time. I didn't see it when it came out at the time either.

But the twist is so ubiquitous at this point, like it's as ubiquitous as Luke. You know, no, Luke, I am your father, because that's the actual line. But you know, I see dead people is now in the pantheon of movie quotes of all time, forever and always. There's nothing that you can do to take that away from this movie. That being said, it's a good movie, but damn good movie.

But but that fucking twist man is not that big of a deal, Like it's if Like I know, I don't want to be mister smart movie guy, but they do so much to make it so obvious so early on that like I get that the twist is kind of like the one of the things that everybody gets hung up on, but like I think it's pretty obvious. I Am not trying to be mister smart movie guys. Like the way he shot Bruce willis not in the like not shot shot, but like the way the cameras and the m Knight shoots him along with Tad tack Fujimoto, which is just that you have tack Fujimoto working on this bat Man. It's so dude from Sounds of the Lambs, right, and and like that, that for me is what makes this movie good is that it's a really well made movie.

The twist, the twist doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter. It's it's so eighties earned. But they don't even earn it, like they don't have to earn it because the movie is just so good on its own. Yeah, yeah, it's not, since the twist isn't really about coal.

It is somewhat irrelevant, but it's it's touching and it's human and that's the thing at the end that always gets me. The two final scenes Cole with his mom and then when Malcolm Bruce Willis's character finally realizes when he gets home and his wife drops the ring, it's like, it's kind of devastating. So it's just an emotional it's more of an emotional release, and it doesn't have any bearing really on the problem of the film, which is Cole's issue, right, So yeah, it's not It doesn't change anything about him Cole, or his problems, or his issues with his mom or any of that. It's totally separate. But so yeah.

The device that they use is the character of Vincent Gray, played by unbeknowns to me, Johnnyberg. Doesn't look anything like him. No. I remember getting halfway through the movie going when the funck does Donnie Wallburg show up? I saw his name.

It's like fourth listed on the at the opening of the film. I'm like, where the hell is Donnie Wallberg. I'm like, oh, what he was? He was a dude in the bathroom. Yeah, recognizable, Yeah, yeah, he's he's real.

He's real, rough looking to put, super skinny and just yeah hair come forward and all that. It still doesn't look like him to me when I watch it, and I know it's him. Yeah, well, and that's that's the thing about this movie that I do appreciate is it is a hour and a half hound forty minutes. It doesn't overstay, it's welcome. Bruce Willis is really good, obviously, But to say obviously now feels like a shock to a lot of people.

Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a shame. I mean, you know, Bruce Willis now, given what he's been dealing with with his own health issues aside, that doesn't change what Bruce Willis was doing for the last decade, which was making a lot of direct to video and direct to streaming movies that traded on the cachet of his name. Movies like this are why oh yeah, because of how good he is in this movie, how good this movie is in a lot of ways because of him, but also because Hailey Joe Osmett turns in like one of the great child actor performances of all time ever, frankly top ten. Yeah, absolutely not precocious, believably troubled.

Yeah, very natural. And it's a nice bookend that they have with Donnie Walbert essentially playing in a lot of ways a grown up version of Hayley Joel Osmond's character that I feel like. That I feel like was the big twist of the movie, but they show it almost immediately. It's that Bruce Willis's character exists to prevent this from happening again, right, And and what I don't understand is when you see Bruce Willis's character sitting on that bench at the beginning of the movie reading the paperwork of someone who is clearly dead, for someone who he is going to try and help. Now, like, how did anybody think this was anything other than ghosts?

I just I don't. I don't understand. It's insane to me. It's it's it's that we just watched too much movies. It's it's hindsight though as well.

It's it becomes glaringly obvious once you have seen it the first time, or if you were privy to the twist before you ever see it. Then it's like every thing kind of stands out. But I think it's played really well in that opening. I mean, it's still when you hear the dialogue, you hear the things that Haley Joe Osmond says to him, like I'm going to see you again, aren't I stuff like that. It's like a lot of the dialogue has a dual meaning.

But you know, if if you're just sitting there kind of watching it, like, Okay, this is a kid that's apparently really disturbed and closed off, and doesn't you know he's meeting a new person, it plays out that way too. The one thing that always stood out to me that seemed odd was when he comes home. When Cole comes home and Bruce Willis and Tony Collette are sitting in those chairs, that's cheating And it's like, why aren't they talking to each other? It's not cheating though, because they're not conversing. She doesn't I know, but you and I both know.

It's as close to cheating as they get in this movie. I'm like, I think it's like the one scene, right, it's the one scene where it gets at where it's like again they don't show one another talking, but it's like, it's right there, it's at the cusp, it's the it's it's a it's one step just it's one step from the edge. That's what it feels like that scene, specifically, because they show it again at the end of the movie so further reinforce like there wasn't talking to him, he wasn't talking to her, Like it's that for me is the one moment where I was like, this is not you're not playing entirely fair here, And that was the one moment because again it's like, but we assume they were talking. It's like, no, they weren't talking.

They never were talking, because it's dead. Yeah, we assume they were having a conversation about him, and this is part of the treatment, and which good on him night for taking us to task his audience and assuming that that's what we're going to assume, because he's right. Yeah, it just it's a little too long of a shot to make it stands out as as odd. Yeah, like why are they there? I mean he's walked through the door, so you know, if they were having a conversation, they stopped because he came in.

But still it's just a peculiar even the way it's shot with them, you know, framed on the right and left of the screen and Cole right in the middle. So it brings I think it just maybe brings a little more attention to itself than most of the other scenes that have obvious dialogue. You know, he's Cole's trying to telegraph this to him throughout the film without really expressley saying it, which I appreciate that M Knight was like, let's make it so that the audience we are supposed to be Bruce Willis in this movie in a lot of ways, right, Bruce Willis is the audience, And most of the time that would not work, but yet it does here and again I think it goes directly to M. Knight as a director and a screenwriter because this is written and directed by which and we're here, I mean, really, why are we talking about the m Night shamelin movies?

We didn't even bring it up, but I feel like we both know why, because we talked about the one and only Jordan Peel, right, and he is getting compared to Jordan Peel in a lot of ways. Yeah, And I made that comparison myself on that episode, and yeah, because of the I mean I had seen it before and it's a pretty obvious comparison, but the red letter media thing on Nope and all that made me think, oh, yeah, I mean again high concept, this isn't really high concept. Maybe this is pretty simple stuff. I think Unbreakable, the Village possibly that happening. Some of the later films sort of get into that realm.

But yeah, I mean, this is so so much a human story that I mean, unless you consider ghosts high concept material, it's not really that. But yeah, it's so well made. And like you mentioned the time, I looked at that because I watched all three of these recently and I was like, wait a minute, are they They're all like the same. They're all one hour and forty six minutes. I think Unbreakable is one forty seven, you know, and maybe that has longer credits.

I don't know, but they're pretty much all the same. Yeah, inthut time, and it's it's sort of a perfect length. None of them overstay. They're welcome, I don't think, and they're not getting into that. Why is this two hours range at all?

I always kind of like a lot of people talk about you know, ninety minutes. Why aren't more movies ninety minutes? I like ninety minute movies. Sometimes ninety minute movies feel like they're three hours long. Sometimes three hour movies just fly by.

These are movies that don't oversay, they're welcome. Like I said, they move quickly. The pacing is great in these three films. Unbreakable might kind of lose it a little bit. It's a little bit slower paced.

But everything, to me, everything in these first three movies needs to be in there because a lot of them are set up and payoff scenes, almost especially in this movie. Yeah, this is all I mean, this is constant. Signes I think is like the worst offender of that. I think signs Is should be renamed set up and payoff the movie. But A sixth sense has a lot of it.

But again a lot of set up for sure. Yeah, and then the big payoff. And I think that the payoff at the end feels earned as much, I mean as much as I'm it's not like a not not that I'm not a fan of it. It's just like, yeah, of course he was dead, Like, yeah, I don't like the story always makes more sense if he's dead, like his journey never makes sense unless he's dead, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, he always feels out of place in the story. Bruce Willis does so to me.

It's like everything always, everything always in movies feels so weird when you're dead, especially if it's a you don't know you're dead thing where you're interacting with people and they're not talking to you again. And my Chamlin does enough, I think, to give enough of the audience a bit of plausible deniability that he's They can convince themselves he's not dead long enough to be surprised by the twist, but I think it's pretty obvious and it makes the story better, Like it's a better movie because he is dead, he is a ghost. It makes more sense, it's more interesting and compelling story because when you watch it again after knowing the twist, like you said, Haley, Joel Osmond is really trying to get him to the fucking point right, get him too, because again, Bruce Willis thinks that he's saving Haley Joel Osmond, and I think he is, but at the same time, he's also saving himself or coming to terms with what it would take to save himself.

They're helping each other. I mean, Haley Joel Osmond is helping him as much as he's helping him, because he says, at some point, you know, they don't know they're dead. See what they want to see, right, and he's I think he's aware enough to know that he can't say to Malcolm, you're a ghost too. That's why you scare me or scared me early on and why I didn't want to be around you. Your wife is not stepping out on you.

Go solve this now because they're not going to hear that. So he you know, that's one of the one thing that always kind of I question, like why isn't he just tell him they're having they're creating this relationship. He opens up to him finally at one point when he's in the hospital bed and then it's like, well just tell him, get the guy a break. But I think that line of they see what they want to see and they don't know they're dead again shows how smart him Night Shamalan was in writing the script, like that question's kind of answered for you. They not only does it work better, but it sort of makes me feel better.

And this is kind of a weird thing. To say it, It makes me feel better to know that he's dead, because the stuff with his wife always bothers me. Her co worker, those scenes with him the younger guy that's like trying to move in on her, like, you know, because I kind of hate that shit, like and so I feel and felt for him, Malcolm going like, yeah, keep moving cheese dick. When he says that line, I'm like, yeah, man, she's married. What the fuck are you doing?

Right? They might have a shitty relationship right now, but they're still married, And so sort of a relief at the end to me, Okay, she's not stepping out on him, She's not this guy isn't being really untoward. It might be kind of soon for her. It's only the next fall according to the titles. But it's sort of a comfort to be like, yeah, they're not they're not being disrespectful to their marriage.

I don't know that. To call me old fashioned, well, and what I what I don't understand about those scenes is how do you if you're an audience member sitting in the movie watching those scenes in nineteen ninety nine, how do you explain to yourself what's going on in those scenes where like Bruce Willis comes to the store and punches a hole in the glass window outside and then walks off, and they see him like, what is the explanation you're giving yourself? Because tac Food Jamoto is doing a very good job as the cinematographer at making it clear what the characters are seeing and what they're not reacting to. Does that make sense? Get the best kinds of these movies have characters reacting to things that at times they can and can't see, and also lack of reaction to things that we as the audience can see, And the sixth sense is trading in that almost entirely, frankly, which I think is what I just get this out of the way now.

What makes this the better of the three movies that we watched. It's the most horror of the three movies. It's the only horror movie of the three, frankly, which I think is why I like it so much, because it does something with the conventions of the horror story that I appreciate, which is a very human story about what it might mean to be dead and not feel like you got everything you needed to get done done in your time on Earth. I appreciate this story a lot more than I appreciate the retelling of a superhero story, and more than I appreciate whatever the hell signs is supposed to be to get ahead of ourselves. But the sixth sense is the look.

If anyone wants to argue what m Night Shamalan's best movie is, there's no argument. It's this movie. It's this movie. It just has to be. It's so good it's and you know what, even even if this is not the movie you like of his the most, it's like with Jordan Peel, this is Jordan Peel's best movie is get Out.

It might not be my favorite movie of his, but it's his best movie. This is m Night Shamalan's best movie. It also happens to be his movie that I'm so far of the ones I've seen like the most. I would I don't know if I would want to rewatch it, because you mentioned before we started talking that this one always hits you in the fields. I had never seen it before, and it hit me in the fields twice at the ending and then the scene in the car.

And the scene in the car is a just masterclass in in screen in screenwriting in a way that doesn't feel maudlin and saccharin because that scene doesn't work ten times out of ten, eleven times out of ten, that scene doesn't work, and it feels fake and unearned. But in this movie, I was crying, like the whole scene. Yeah, it's very touching, and it is not only the screenwriting but Tony Colette and Haley Joel Osmond. I mean, oh my god, it's just a devastating And it's not they're not talking about anything tragic. It's just that thing with Tony Colette's mom and the you know her mom's answer to her question when when do they get to that part?

Man, I fucking lose it fairly. I don't want to talk about it right now that you know you make do I make you proud? And the mom's response was every day. And it's just like, oh my god, yeah, and then it keeps going, and the scene keeps going for like another five minutes. I was like, oh my god, how is how is this the same guy who wrote so many bad things?

Well, it's you what, No, it doesn't make any sense because this is this is a film that someone makes who has been doing this for a long time, who hasn't just been making films for like five years at this point. This is a this is a filmmaker, filmmaker, filmmader, filmmaker operating at peak performance with this movie. I mean, this is this is like what happened with Tales from the Crypt. The first episode of that show is the best episode of that show, at least it was when I watched it recently, until we got about three quarters of the way through the third season. But it was the joke with that show as they put their best foot forward so hard that it's kind of hard to undo that you did such a good job with your first movie.

What what else is there to say? Like, I'm not saying don't make any more movies, but when your first movie is get Out, When your first movie is the sixth Sense, where where do you have to go? Like that's it's the pinnacle. The sixth Sense is as far high into the sky of quality horror movies and important horror movies that as get Out is in a lot of ways. I mean, technically it's his third film because we have I know, Wide Awake and then the was it Praying with Anger or something like that, Yeah, but praying it he started he started oh my god, I haven't seen that written by and that one was directed by him, But I don't think Wide Awake was No, it was oh yeah, okay, yeah.

I'm not counting those two for a number of reasons. Most people don't for a number of reasons. I'm talking more purely to when he was doing these kinds of things tonally. And that's the thing. This was such a success.

Forty million dollar budget. This had a whole boatload of issues coming into it, with Bruce Willis's Broadway Brawler fallout, which is the reason he's in this movie. It's because that movie fell apart so hard because of him. And then this movie with a again, first time director in this kind of movie, screenwriter, first time again, let's not say first time. He, like you said, had worked on other things, but nothing like this.

And then you have this movie that relies on a twist ending ends on the twist. The twist is the last scene in the movie, right, which is again like a stroke of genius on Shamalan's part. But you have this movie that gets him the notoriety that he is still trading on now in twenty twenty two, puts Bruce Willis back on the map because Bruce Willis in nineteen ninety nine is I mean again, if Broadway Brawler and all the fallout from that is to be believed, which I have no reason not to believe it, Bruce Willis was not exactly the easiest guy to work with at the time. This gives him a lot of cachet going into the two thousands, and then it also helps someone like Tony Collette who gets nominated for this movie, and Haley Joel Osmond gets nominated for this movie, and Haley jo Osmond has a career because of this movie.

He's still acting. I mean, he's not doing as much as he used to, nothing like this. He's in Tusk, which is pretty he's pretty good at He's pretty good at Tusk. I like seeing him pop up and stuff these days. Yeah, it's just so, you know, he looks so different from when he was a child, and usually he looks so different, but he doesn't though, you know, right, Yeah, his face it's like his little face is still in there.

But he usually plays a quirky side character, like so many child stars of that time end up doing not maybe not side characters, but think of like Daniel Radcliffe or who's the other one who just like may bank on franchise films and then just play a bunch of weird parts, the kid from Harry to No No No, not Rupert Great, He's not the one I'm thinking of, but anyway, just people that don't have to necessarily not that hilly. Joel Osmond was in a big franchise, but I'm sure he still gets money for six cents. Well, I mean he was also in Forrest Gump, which we will be talking about next year. Yeah, very little dude in Forrest Gump. That was his first movie.

And then he's also in Pay It Forward. Remember that movie. I never saw it, but I know what you're talking about. It was also an AI. Yeah, I saw that in the theater Country Bears.

He's pretty good in AI. I didn't like it the first time I saw it, but I watched it recently and was like, oh, yeah, I can't believe Tusk is eight years old at this point. I know I also saw that in the theater because I've seen a lot of his films in the theater. I like Tusk a lot. I know that's an unpopular opinion.

I know it is, like I ain't got no problem having an unpopular opinion about that movie. It's pretty crazy. I don't think i've seen it since I watched it in the theater. Actor, I haven't seen it in a long time. I just remember Michael Park is really good.

Yes, I like justin long so Red State saw that. Yeah, that's a rough one. That was you know, those those would be those interesting three movies of Kevin Smith's. I think it's interesting about this movie is tach Fujimoto's cinematography really comes through. Speaking of directors and quality of the films that they're making.

I really appreciate tach Fujimoto's eye. It reminds me and I forget that he did this and he did signs. But when I realize that and I look at the films, I'm like, oh, yeah, there's a lot of the same tones that I really love. In Silence of the Lambs. He's got a thing for earth tones and filming stuff that's it's not dark, but it never feels like it's full daylight.

And there's a lot of that in Suns of the Lambs. There's a lot of that in this. I mean, part of it obviously is the weather. Right, this is a very fall and who knows if they even shut it in the fall, But it's very much a fall movie, which I appreciate. Yeah, and I always feel that way about Science of the Lambs as well.

And Science isn't that so much as much more bright sunlight in that film. But there's always oranges and browns and those kind of calming fall colors. And that seems to be at least of the movies that I'm aware of that he shot seems to be his color palette. Yeah. Well, and and that's well, at least in this movie.

I mean, the posters even orange, right, Yeah, it has that. I mean, I know part of it takes place around Halloween, but it's Yeah, I just I love movies that make me feel like it's fall because it doesn't feel like it's fall here right now. So we're getting there today for fuck's sake. Oh yeah, it's like in the fifties here today. Yeah.

Well, yeah, it's pretty nice. I will thank you, I will enjoy it. Ninety two today doesn't get down to the seventies and tell next week Jesus. Yeah, it's been real fun. And you know what else is crazy about this movie?

This movie comes out in I guess what a lot of people would consider to be one of the best years in movies in the last I guess what last thirty years almost thirty Yeah, I mean we're getting close. Ninety two was thirty years ago. So yeah, this is in the same decade as ninety nine Man, Phantom, Menace, The Matrix, sixth Sense, Austin Powers. I mean, I'm missing so many al Radar, Which Wild Wild West, American Pie Eyes wide shut? Oh my god, Like that is actually why we didn't I don't know why we didn't go see this one.

Saw most of those movies Mystery Men, Iron Giant, I mean just like one after another after another, and it's like the entire year I mean was and this was the one that did better as it went along. As far as box office, I remember surprised I didn't catch on on the twist before them, but I remember hearing like every weekend, instead of dropping, it was getting Yeah, the box office was going up because of the word of mouth thing. And this is you know, the internet was around. I didn't really have it. I don't think I had a personal computer at that time.

Like when I met my wife or who would become my wife, I always had to borrow either my sisters or I was going to National University at the time, and I would go there and use the computer, but I was not constantly online. That's one of the reasons I told my daughter, I'm like, I miss this because of you know, there wasn't a Twitter to spoil it for me, and I wasn't sitting there at the computer twenty four hours a day or on my phone. But yeah, I just remember it really ramped up, like every weekend, it just did better and better, and that's all the people were talking about. Well, it was the second highest grossing movie of nineteen ninety nine in a year of those big movies, the Matrix. It's like Phantom Menace for fuck's sake, like jeez, and it puts him Night Shamalan on the map.

Yeah, not his first movie, but yeah, definitely puts him on the map again, revitalizes Bruce Willis's career. Bruce Willis would go on to work with him Night Again. But I think, yeah, this is like clearly the movie that for me is his best movie of all the things that I've seen of his Like it's just I get it now, I get I gave this movie a genuine emotional reaction. I don't do that with a lot of stuff. Yeah, I bet if I watch it again, I'll have the same reaction you or you couldn't even talk about it.

I yeah. And then to follow that up with, like I said, the scene between Bruce Willis and his wife is very touching as well. And yeah, it's uh, I think it goes down to that the humanness of it. Yes, it's a ghost story. Yes it's genuinely creepy.

The scenes of many of the ghosts that Cole encounters are played out like a horror movie, and they are effective in that way. That idea, though, of the premise of the film is that ghosts are here because they want somebody to help them. And you know, they tried it with that Vincent Gray character, the Donnie Wahlberg character, and you know he didn't get the help he needed and didn't understand that as a child that that's all they wanted to do was talk or have someone listened to them. So it's an interesting take on the ghost story as well. Yeah, we didn't.

We haven't really even talked about the horrorness of the movie. They play out as hauntings in a way, because they are frightening, especially to a young kid. The woman that he thinks is his mom in the kitchen, and she's obviously been abused her whole life and probably got beaten to death by her husband. Yeah, it's and she's screaming not at him, but at her husband's horror. We're fine or no, she kills herself, that's right.

The kid that finds the dad's gun, all that stuff that Misha Barton character when we first encounter her, it's kind of the one jump scare in the movie. But it's pretty reason jump scare. Yeah, there's a reason that it's frightening because they're scared as well because they don't, you know, know what's happening. They can't get out of this situation. And that whole thing with that with her character and being poisoned by her mom and stuff is pretty narly.

Man. Yeah, when I remembered something about that, I like, I said, I've never seen the movie before, but when I watched that scene, I was like, this isn't going where I think it's going. And then it's like, yeah, it's just fuck. This movie is brutal in a lot of ways. It is just what the worst thing about that is that that shit happens.

Yeah, well there's that. I mean, fuck poisoning your kids. I mean, Jesus Christ for the attention that mom and that mom and I dho who just killed her kids buried him in the backyard of their like property, like it's it's awful and like but again like it speaks to this human idea of like, you know, suffering now, but does your soul suffer after the fact, And it's like, yeah, clearly in a lot of these cases it does, because you feel like you have unfinished business because you're taken before your time. And I think the thing that I appreciate about this movie the most is that the Vincent Gray character's entire story is tied into ghosts and him seeing ghosts. Yea, and Bruce Willis dies because he doesn't help somebody else who sees ghosts, so he in turn becomes a ghost, you know, not a fitting punishment, but you know in a Twilight Zone episode, that's the thing, Like, this is a Twilight episode really, and that's but I think that's what works about it is when we talk about twist endings, we think about formative or I guess format styles like twilights, and I think this works, but I think it takes a deft hand to make a hour and a half long twist movie, right right.

I think, like we've both said, it's earned, it becomes obvious once you've seen it at least once or have had it spoiled for you already. But it's done in such a way that, oh, wait, okay, so no, you may think about it even early on and then have it kind of reversed for you in the process, especially with I think him him and his wife in that restaurant is the scene that sort of made go like, oh, no, they're just in a bad place, because she says happy anniversary in a sarcastic way, and you're thinking that, oh, she's talking to him because he's there and she's just really hurt by him or devastated. You know, something has happened after his recovery because they're not in a good place. I think. I think the thing that I appreciate about this movie the most is that the twist is just the end of the movie.

I think that also really works, and I don't see you don't see that often with twist movies. Normally there's a twist and it's like in the last in the third act, right, but it's not the final scene. Well, and like, I think that goes to what you said as to where it's not really it doesn't matter to the story. Yeah, I don't think it shouldn't. It could have just been that he needed to She felt second place in his life.

That's what this whole thing brought to her mind when he was shot by this kid that Bruce Willis couldn't help. She was second place. He's going to improve that, he's got to help a kid so he can feel okay about this and then and he's got to work on his marriage. And it could have just been that. But having that additional thing where he's dead just add to me.

It just adds to the humanness of the story. There is no fixing this. Really, she's alone now. She's devastated, not because she felt like she was second place, well there's probably still that, but that you know, the love of her life is gone. And I think it works.

I think it's sad, it's touching, it's a good scene. And even in the scene, they give you this moment of kind of doubt as to whether or not he's alive where she starts responding to him and you're like, oh, okay, and that's like, no, no, he's just she's sensing its contrivances. But it's fine. It works. It's a little it's a little contriving, but it's okay.

It works in the scene because at the end of this, you know, hour and forty minute movie, it's earned. That is one hundred percent earned, even if it doesn't have any bearing on the story writ large, which it doesn't, because by the end of the film, Haley Joe Osmond knows he's not gonna see Bruce Willis again. Bruce Willis just doesn't know that. And that's again what I what I appreciate from this movie is that this movie understands the two stories that it's telling and understands how to end both of them satisfyingly. The way that Cohl's story ends is that's the only way this movie could have ended is him and his mom having that conversation, and then you could have ended the movie there.

But the fact that they push it to the next level with that scene and really recontextualize the entire film, I think that's when a twist works. The best is when it not only reinforces how good the movie is while watching it before knowing the twist, but also in preview or in subsequent rewatches. It recontextualizes the entire film, which it does. Like you said, every time Haley Joel Osmond talks to Bruce Willis, he's literally trying to say without saying, you're a ghost, you're dead. Yeah, yeah, I mean the fact that Bruce Willis can hear other ghosts on those tapes should have been a red flag, I guess, but just not because they haven't thought about to see each other, right, they don't notice each other, That's what Haley Joel Osmond says.

Yeah, so I like this movie a lot. I'm glad I finally got around to watching it. Yeah, it's it's a good one man. It's it's a movie I actually own on DVD, so that tells you something. But there's one other thing I want to talk about with this movie, and we're going to see it two more times.

But here it's probably the least egregious m Night Shamalan. His cameo I love his cameos, Oh lord, and his cameos. He is. I think he's taken the Hitchcock route. Yeah, I think he's taking the hitchcock round and then some Yeah, I love it, I love him.

I think it's I think it's a little I think it's a little much because he just kind of gets in the way because it's like, I can't help but be like, that's ms such a recognizable dude. I think, well, now he is, But think about it, at the time, no one had any fucking idea that that was the director of the movie. But one could say it hasn't aged well, then yeah, sure, I like I like his cameos. I think they're all in these three movies. I like who.

I think it's that I like who he's playing in them. Sure, this one, it doesn't really have much of a bearing on the story, but particularly in Signs, it's all, oh god, this is the guy that Yeah, when we get to Signs, he's less Oh yeah, yo, yeah, it's Look, I appreciate putting yourself in your movies. I'm glad it's not like Tarantino level. And yeah, m Night is a decent actor, but the issue for me is it's just distracting that it's him, you know, like, he's not a bad actor at all. Like he's not fine, but it's just I know who you are, and so it's a little distract and funny, like I chuckle every time I see him.

He just looks so out of place every time. It's just every time he looks out of place. Hey, you gotta have some diversity in your movies. I mean, only one Indian American making movies. That's like ninety five percent white casts.

I mean, I mean it's not like they're Indian actors working in Hollywood or anything, right, I mean he uses the ones. He's the one Indian actor working, and he uses that one guy, the dude buying the ring, and this one is the same guy buying the comic art in Unbreakable. So he's got that guy on the on the payroll. All right, So let's move on to m Night shamalan sophomore film two thousands, Unbreakable. Hi, you're in the emergency room in the Philadelphia City Hospital.

Now it's just some questions. Where are you sitting on the train against the window in the passenger car. Yes, you're certain you were in the passenger car. Yeah, where are the other passengers? Your train derailed, took a curve too fast, a second train collided with yours after it derailed.

The debris spread over one mile. Why are you looking at me like that? There are two reasons why I'm looking at you like this. One because it seems you're an the only survivor of this train, right And two, you don't have to scratch on you. I know what's going through the mind right now.

You're searching for meaning in all of this. No one thing. One hundred thirty one people died so you could finally understand the destiny for what you were born? Are you ready for the truth? So once again, written and directed by our friend m Night Amalon, this one stars Bruce willis again.

I mean, hey, hey, that last movie made that much money. Why not? Why stop a good thing? You know? Yeah?

It also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright Anta Yeah again. I think the other thing that I appreciate about our dear friend, mister m Night Shamalan knows how to make the most with very little, always a very small cast, always like one or two people. Now you know, one or two big actors and everybody else's just consistent character actors. But Bruce Will, Samuel Jackson stars of the show here and Bruce Willis plays a former football player slash security guard who is in a car a car crash.

Will he is in a car crash, but he's also in a train accident where the train de rails and he is the soul survivor, soul survivor being a key phrase in this movie. Samuel Jackson plays a comic book collector and dealer who has a brittle bone disease aka from thirty Rock Bird Bones. Mister Glass, Yeah, mister Glass, it's m night gives it away at the beginning of the movie. I feel like that was my problem with this movie is he gives away where he's going right at the start. It telegraphs where he's going, like it's the same at the top of it.

Yeah, it is very obvious once you have gotten through it. I mean maybe again, I probably missed that twist in this one, even though you know already probably heard rumbling this one actually saw we went and saw in the theater, but going in thinking, okay, what's the twist. What's the twist is Bruce willis dead the whole time, and it's possible because you know, train derailed, he's the only survivor or what and yeah, all the talk of villains and the common just comic book lore and tropes, but it takes a while to get there to that him being in purple practically the whole movie stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, I think I was still a little surprised by the full magnitude of the twist. Sure, but I've watched this yesterday with my daughter and I was like, I was realizing while I was watching it, Oh yeah, I fucking watched this movie a ton.

I bought this Vista Series Special Edition DVD when it came out, Sure, and watched all the extras because when we were watching it, I'm like, wait a minute, doesn't he talk to the reverend after the funeral, you know, the mass funeral that he goes to. And I'm like, oh, no, that was That's a deleted scene. So I watched all the deleted scenes multiple times and thought, yeah, this was a big deal. I think at the time I liked it even more. I definitely watched it more than the sixth sense, And I think it was because once we get to the end of the film and realize what's going on, I was like, Oh, this is a fucking origin story and this is pre you know in this is two thousand, this is pre two thousand and one, This is pre Spider Man.

Yeah, this is pre MCU, pre just everything, pre the inklings of an MCU, Like you say, with Spider Man, those individual films that came out like a whole Spider Man and then on down the road with Iron Man, before that was all going to be what it is now. And because before that, superhero movies were kind of cheesy, kind of lame Captain America movie from the nineties with Ronnie Cox, what are you talking about? Ears? They're great, think about they were treated as Saturday morning cartoons. You know, nothing was taken very seriously about Superhero, right, And I was really taken with that idea, like, oh, this is an origin story for a superhero that has no ties to these, to DC or Marvel or any of the small companies whatever.

I was like, that's a really interesting idea to me. A normal person who goes on this path of discovery, helped along by his arch nemesis to figure out that, Okay, there's something special about me and I don't know it just it caught my attention really strong, and I just realized watching it the other day oh shit. I watched this movie a ton right back after I bought this DVD, so in the early two thousands, I probably watched it a couple times a year, maybe even more. And I'm really and I still really like it. I hadn't watched it in a good while, and I was like, this is still I mean sophomore slump maybe a little bit.

It's sort of dour and pretty an hour. Yeah, it's pretty bleak. It does. But I think this story has to be like the story that they're telling here has to be because it's an origin story, and in so many characters, like David Dunne, the origin story is not positive. It has to be negative.

It has to have some sort of a loss to gain something. You have to give something up to gain something. I mean David Dunn does it twice effectively in his life. But yeah, I you know, it's like the first Spider Man movie has Uncle Ben dying, you know, you know, a year a later year later, like you have to have the heroes always have to give something up to get something. Yea, And in this not really well give up not really like give up football career, but like seems pretty easy to do.

Would he have been happier with their marriage. I mean, the implication is that they wouldn't have gotten married if he had continue with football, right, But they're not in a good place. It's and this is a thing that runs through these first three movies. This I don't want to say dysfunctional family, but these broken families in the sixth sense, it's both families. You know, the single mom.

Dad is gone, and the relationship between Bruce Willis and Olivia Williams is he I mean, as far as we know up until the twist, is broken in some way. And in this that was the thing that really threw me about this movie when I watched it is their relationship him and Robin Wright or Robin Wright pin Is, she's credited in this film, and how it just that's the dour part for me, is their relationship and just that when they go to the hospital after he's released and the sun puts their hands together and then like two seconds later, you know they've dropped each other's hands. It's like, oh, they're not in a good place. This is going to be a bummer, and it is. It's a bummer.

That strained relationship of theirs gives this movie that dour and bleak tone. It's not the rest of it. It's not the destruction and all that stuff that's going on, all these you know, mass tragedies that happened in the film. It's their fucking marriage. Man.

It's a downer. It brings me down, man, I mean it isn't it? Yeah? I think I think my issue with this movie is it just it gets a little u gets a little wrapped up in its own mythology a little too easily of what it's trying to create. Because Bruce Willis's character has superhuman strength, but he also sees the crimes of people he touches, which seems like the deusex machina in the Machine, And I feel like that's maybe the step too far in this movie, is being able to touch people and see their crimes, Like I don't that feels like that exists to give us the twist at the end of the movie, doesn't it.

Yeah, he's now I'll have you shake my hand. When he said that, I was like, okay, right, right, of course, this whole right, this was this is all building too. Was him touching his hand and to see what he did? Oh okay, Yeah, Well the superhuman strength definitely on its own could be enough and it, but then it's like, well, what do you do with that? What do you do with that?

How does he then it? I think it becomes just that super like walk around the streets and try and find danger or whatever. It is a bit of a cop out to have him be able to sense it and then do something about it instead of just stumbling upon things like Spider Man does by swinging through New York City. It's like he's Superman meets Spider Man. It's yeah, it's it's spidy senses and Spider Man can't just touch someone and know their crimes like that's that's you know what that is.

That's like the Dead Zone. Yeah, I mean Spider Man gets, you know, a sense, but he doesn't touch someone. He doesn't touch Mary Jane's arm or touch Doc Ox's arm and go, oh my god, I know your crimes like that. For me, it felt like it felt like they never justified why he had it. Outside of that scene at the end of the movie where Samuel Jackson's now shake my hand, like, oh my god, movie that the twist in this movie.

The twist in this movie doesn't work because it's like, so what this twist feels like a so what twist, Like, so what if he did all this stuff, it should be pretty obvious this dude's nuts anyways, Like I mean, yeah, it further reinforces that, oh, he's actually a bad guy. But at the same time, it's like, I don't know, the twist is just kind of tenuous at best, like he's a mastermind this whole time. Like it's sort of the same idea as the sixth sense, where the twist is to help. I mean, Elijah says, now that we know who you are, I know who I am, as if you didn't have to know already. By they're helping each other out again kind of scenario.

It doesn't recontextualize the film for me at all. It just makes me go, Okay, so those three things that were mentioned, you did them, yeah, and possibly numerous other things. I don't know how we're supposed to imply that, oh my god, he's been just committing murders for for years now. But I don't think it is because a lot of them are are around the world. I don't think he's traveling to Mexico to create a mudslide and things like that.

But wouldn't it have made more sense if like him and Samuel Jackson and David Dunn had just been born, or Bruce Willis had been born on the same day and he was looking for him as like, oh, if you were like someone born at the same day the same minute as me, right, Like, then it's like, okay, well, if there are people like me in the world, like Samuel Jackson have brittle bone disease, there must be people like Bruce Willis that are uncharacteristically strong and that can't be hurt, right, Like you can be hurt very easily. He can't be hurt at all. Right, why is that? Why is that? Why was that not part of it?

Because then then it makes more sense. Then you have something to kind of be like, Okay, they're faded to be doing this, they're tied together cosmic. No, it's just like, oh, he just happened to be in Philadelphia. If if it had been that kind of direction, it would have also been able to justify why in Philadelphia, Oh, you were born in Philadelphia. He was born in Philadelphia.

There you go. Well, that's the issue with high concept, like we got into with the Jordan Peel thing. Once you start peeling back the layers, it falls apart. This is very much us in a lot of ways, because all of a sudden it falls underneath the premise right at the end. It's like, oh, now he's just able to do everything.

He's going and making trains crash and causing planes to hit buildings and causing buildings to catch on fire. Like yeah, and luckily for him. Luckily for him. Like you say, they live in the same part of the you know, maybe not in the same city, but very close. Another question, are we also led to believe that at no point in the movie Bruce Willison Samuel jacksn't touched one another.

Yeah, I think so. I mean I think that bears out was Spruce wall Is touching people in the movie and feeling that he could sense them before the car crash, before before the train track crash, Like I don't. Yeah, I never explained he It's one of those things where I always took it as this is something that he never really paid attention to, that was more just like a feeling. And once Samuel L. Jackson and that guy with the camouflage coat, he sort of spurs done on to pay more attention to that as not just a feeling, but you know, hone your skills type of thing, right, And so yeah, then we start to get the images, the various images of bad things.

That's when him Night Shamalan shows up again. Play he does, playing the supposed drug dealer. And yeah, I don't know. I like those flashes. I like how they're done.

And I don't think tech Fujimoto did this one. I believe it's another cinematographer, but Eduardo Sarah. Yeah, I mean again, if you start pulling at the threads, the sweater is gonna unwind, the cards are gonna your house of cards are gonna fall. But it's still I think for me now, I probably wouldn't even consider watching this as much as I did back then. I think I watched it too many times to be honest with you.

But yeah, the like you said, the twist doesn't doesn't change the story because they meet so late in life and his accident, things that have shaped Dunn's life have already happened. There's really no what does it matter whether he played football or not things like that. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't. I mean, I guess it does sort of get him and his wife back together, but I don't know to what end well, and that, for me, I think is the my issue with this story is just to what end does any of this matter? Like at the end of the movie, Samuel Jackson's in jail, Bruce Willis has now killed someone, saved a family, but killed someone, so he is a hero now and then and then you know, there is a universe where we have nothing else to talk about, you know what I mean?

There is a universe where Split never came out, and Glass never came out and m Knight never got to make those movies. But you know what, I think Split is a better movie than this movie. If we're talking about an origin story for a villain, Split is a better movie. And Split, the character of the Horde was going to be in this movie. And what did they do cut him out?

Why? Because he was too good of a character to not have his own movie. I didn't see Glass. I know why I didn't see Glass because I heard it was awful. Yeah, like not even questionably, like oh I enjoyed it, Like I heard overwhelmingly it's not good.

Don't go watch it, it's actively bad. I watched it once. I don't know if I would go that far, but it was nothing like Split. It's amazing questionable choices in that in Glass. I mean, if you want to talk about suspending disbelief, that's pretty much what you have to do through the whole movie in Glass.

Yeah, Split was good, good, and it didn't need that connection to this universe because it just led to Glass and that was just kind of crapped out the story. You know. Well, and that's and I think that's the issue, is like I to talk about Unbreakable without talking about Split and Glasses almost unfair to Unbreakable because it those at least Glass, from everything I've heard, diminishes the quality of Unbreakable. And you know, Tarantino said that this was one of the top twenty films released since nineteen ninety two, so he's not wrong. He's a smart filmmaker.

I mean, this is a good movie. I just I don't particularly find this superhero universe that he's concocting particularly interesting, like I do, because you're effectively saying, like Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy is a super villain. That's effectively what they're saying, right, Like serial killers are super villains. In this universe, well, which is interesting, Like, I mean, if you're tying in Split with that, maybe, well I'm tying in Split because Split's part of this. But as far as splitt is taking place, I mean Unbreakable.

M Knight himself said that the character from Split is in this movie isn't Ununbreakable And they mentioned it in Glass, right, Like, doesn't something and unbreakable have to do with that kid's dad, you know, James McAvoy's character or something. I remember reading something like there is some tie in I think is a train. Yeah it's the train, Okay, yeah, yeah, So which James macavoy's dad enuous at best? I mean that's easy. That's an easy connection to make because everybody fucking tied on that, so right right, Um, there could be all kinds of connections.

I mean there is I think, what do they say, one hundred close to two hundred people or one hundred and thirty one or something die on that. Yeah, a lot of people. So you've got all kinds of got one hundred and thirty one potential connections to make to him. Just one of them happens to be a serial killer, super villain, creature monster whatever the hell James McVoy is in that movie. Yeah, I like that movie a lot.

Yes, what's good. I liked it too. That was That was back on the way up. That was I was a visit. Yeah, way on the way back up.

It's got Anya Taylor Joy in it, who I always love in movies, not to be confused with Florence Pew. I always get them confused, really, yeah, just because they were both coming up at the same time in horror movies. And then the chick from it follows. She's the other third one. Oh yeah, yeah, the one whose name I don't know, Mike Monroe, but yeah, she's she's good and stuff.

She's she's always good. I like Taylor Joy is always good. She's the best of the three. I think, oh yeah, yeah, she's great. She actually made me like The Witch.

I liked The Witch because as of her performance, and I didn't like it the first two times I watched it. She Yeah, she's another one like Haley Joel Osmond who has that uncanny, naturalistic yeah acting style where you buy her very easily and whatever role she's playing. And I think Michael Monroe actually has that as well. Florence Pugh not so much. I think Florence Pugh is gonna be in another horror movie, but I haven't seen I definitely haven't seen as much of her in films.

Yeah, only I can only think of a couple. Anna Taylor Joy is really good and Split though, yeah, she's very good and Split. I mean, Split's just a good movie. Split is more like this than anything else, if it's similar, like and there's a reason m Knight said, oh, this is a spiritual sequel to Unbreakable. It's like, no, it's actually a sequel.

It's an actual fucking sequel. When you put Bruce Willis, I remember, did you see Split in the theaters? No? I didn't. I remember sitting and seeing that thing at the end of being like what because I've never seen Unbreakable, I just knew.

I mean I knew obviously, right, uh, because we did a podcast on it. I mean that's how long it's since the podcasting, since that movie came out, and I remember just being like what really, Like, okay, I think we said something on the on the podcast the effect of like, well, I hope they stick the landing. Yeah, yeah, I had pretty high hopes, probably because I sort of remembered really liking Unbreakable and watching it a ton and thinking, oh, okay, so we're gonna, I guess, bring everybody back. But isn't he in an insane asylum? Well at least they said it in this in this insane asylum.

Yeah, for the for the most I'm really the one thing that sticks out to me about Glasses Sarah Paulson, and now I just couldn't stand her. I just want to say, can we is there is there a time and a place to talk about Sarah Paulson's proliferation into things maybe unnecessarily. I mean, she's good, don't get me wrong, but like there was a time where she was in like every thing and yeah, and this isn't even by Ryan Murphy, but she's in it. But this, this was around that time where she was like in everything. Yeah, and I was she's great too, She's but yeah, Sarah Bless is good, but just not.

I think Sarah Parson is good in certain things. I'm not sure. Like she's good in a lot of things I've seen her in, But then she's in Glass, from which I've heard she is actively not good in. It's not only that she's not good in it. The character is just absolutely annoying.

It's all get out. I mean, it's just it doesn't make any sense. But whatever, I mean, Glass has I need to see it again. Actually, I want to watch Split again before I watch Glass again the same same I want to I want to rewatch Split. I haven't seen it in a very long time.

But I remember, like I said, really enjoying it. And that movie does have a twist ending. That movie totally has a twist ending, and it kind of works. I mean, the visit has a twist ending. That happening has a twist ending.

Yeah. I don't think that that label is fixed to Shamalan directly. Old has a twist ending. Avatar Last Airbender doesn't. Yeah, and The Lady in the Water doesn't either.

And I was hoping for a twist because that fucking movie just absolutely made no sense to me. Oh, watch just about everything. I've never seen The Last Airbender because I don't have an interest in that. It's really bad or wasn't there another sci fi one? He did after Earth with Will Smith and his son Boy in twenty twenty two.

It isn't that's unlike something you want to be watching. Will Smith outcast of his own creation and his son obnoxious human being of their own creation. I'm good, I'm real good. Yeah, I just didn't have any interest in those. But I'll watch pretty much any of the genre films, the horror films.

That's what he's good at, right, He's good at making a genre film. I mean, my daughter and I watched The Happening. I'm like, we might as well watch this one because it's it's wacky. What No, but the opening of that movie, man is fucking solid. It's so creepy.

He's got he knows what he doing. And my wife and I watch and love servant. Um that show is just wild Rupert Grint, right, Yeah, he's absolutely horrible in it. But it's is not a great actor though, and it's very apparent in this and as his American accent is just awful. But it's gonna say a lot of hard ours.

It's it's very it's very mannered, like his later films become that very mannered acting and line delivery and dialogue. But for some reason, in this world where you're not quite sure what's going on at any given time, it really works. I mean, it even works for me and the happening in a way where that odd acting and dialogue sort of enhance my enjoyment of the film. Remember when m Night Shamalan was going to do Tales from the Crypt I don't remember that. Yeah, he was gonna he was involved with the reboot, but the Gaines family wouldn't give him access to use the crypt keeper.

Oh my god, I mean, what a show for him to work on. What a show for him to be involved with, Like the twist ending show, right, yeah, Twilight Zone. I mean again, like it's it's funny because Unbreakable and Signs definitely have twist ending or Unbreakable on the sixth sense definitely have twist endings. Signs doesn't not really, No, I didn't want to say though in the When I watched Unbreakable this time, I really noticed that Chamalan pulled out a lot more directorial tricks. There's a lot of interesting shots, cameras moving a lot more.

I just always remember that shot in the hospital when they're talking to David Dunn, you know, asking him questions about where he was sitting on the train and all that, and there's a body like laying right in front of the camera, and so it's out of focus. But you're watching that the whole time. I'm always talking. Then all of a sudden, slowly blood appears, and I was like, oh, yeah, he's getting a little bit more stylistic in this one, and I appreciate that. In the movie, we're about to head to style land, Baby, We're heading to a stu I a land for the climax of this movie.

My my guy. Well, oh, like we said, talking about signs, it's all it's all set up and payoffs in this one. Signs signs. Everywhere, there's signs. Yeah, so let's talk.

Let's let's let's bring this episode home with a lively chat about two thousand and two's signs Welcome make team matric, shapes of signs for football field? What kind of machine can been to stock a corner? Break? Can't be by hand? It's two part of the aliens can't read our mind.

Some animals around the county been acting funny, some of them violent sounds like they act when they smell a predator around. I'm on and Irobi, Bengalore and Jerusalem as the flamestairs and every station, every station it is the eighteen reported cropside in that country in the last seven eight, two hours. I'm a little scared all this stuff on TV. Joe Gills was in here talking about the end of the world. They're staying in the shadows.

It's called probing to make sure things are all clear. Clear for what For the rest of them. There's a more stretch, im rooms, a glass of water. Ground forces are being assembled. Seven eight.

Don't be afraid. It's like one of the world. Believe it's going to pass it. Don't be afraid. They're in the house here it cops.

Don't be afraid. So once again, fritten In directed py m Knight Shamalan. This time he also produced it along with Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. They know a good thing when they see it, right, maybe hey man. They paid him five million dollars to write the script, highest paid screenwriter up to that point because of sixth cents and Unbreakable.

So this movie stars everyone's favorite Australian actor Mel Gibson also walking, I mean Joaquin right just out of the gate. The people that were mentioning at least the two main leads, yeah, Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. Our leads Rory Coulkin and Abigail Breslin play their kids, Mel Gibson's kids. He's an Episcopalian priest who lost his faith after m Night Shamalan who play played God in his own movie and killed his wife and killed his wife, and after that happens, he loses his faith and then sometime later out in the dittle dick of Pennsylvania, aliens show up and start to harass him, his family and the world at Larde. Oh and by the way, his brother is a former baseball player.

That will that will come into play at the end of this movie swing Away. I swear to God, so you know what I get to I get to start this one off this time. I saw this movie in the living room of my parents house when I was twelve or thirteen, and I remember not having much of an opinion because I saw it that one time once. But you know what, I have seen a lot because I really like this one and the first one in the third one because I've never seen the second one. Scary Movie three parodies this movie and Ring the Ring almost exclusive.

Scary Movie three is my favorite scary movie of the Big hat That isn't that what that's from? Cherry Jones character in this the local Share for whatever. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, camerable what that actress's name is. But she's on she's on the new iteration of law and order, but she's on the practice. And I always think she's actually in this movie because I've seen Scary Movie three so many times and then her her hat keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Leslie Nielsen is in Scary Movie three, which is the only scary movie that he's in. I want to say, oh, it also has some Simon Rex Who's who is hilarious. It's it's actually I know that those movies get a bad rap. I know that those movies have diminishing returns. But Scary Movie three is also it's Kevin Hart in it, which is like Kevin Hart, like Kevin Hart's sole playing Kevin Hart.

So like not a big deal, but obviously I mean a big deal. Now. So I know the plot of this movie through something else, which is second time that this has happened this year. It happened earlier this year when we were talking about Lethal Weapon, and I knew the plot of Lethal Weapon primarily through National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon one. So It's interesting because again I hadn't seen Signs in so long that I essentially I forgot almost all of the beats, I think, except for the I remember the climax of this movie.

I don't know why so vividly. I'm shocked at how kind of haphazardly put together the script is because M. Knight loses the subtlety and the craftsmanship that came into the first two movies that he did in place of it is the literal dumbest way to write half of this stuff. It's there. It's not given any subtlety or any sort of easing into any of this.

It's just like swing away, Meryl, because you played baseball and that like what? Like what? It's the way m. Knight gets to the conclusions and the plot points and the plot beats that he does are so dinky at best. And yeah, this is set up and pay off the movie, and it's like he tells you everything that's going to happen.

It's like, what is the fun in this movie? I don't I don't get it. Like what there's like one or two decent scares with the aliens. Is that what everybody is? Everybody remembering this movie more fondly than it actually is, because I don't know, I don't I don't get this movie.

I guess I still really enjoy this one. I saw it in the theater on the strength of Six Sons and Unbreakable, and it's the one that my daughter asked. I told her. I said, I can need to watch all the m Night Shamalan or the first three again, and we've watched them all recently. Said which one do you want to watch with me?

And she said the Alien one. I'm like, all right, So we watched it yesterday afternoon after Unbreakable, which she hadn't seen. So anyway, I like that this is the Alien one. Yeah, I told again, And we talked about this on one of the episodes she did with me, and I said, I think this is where I first started to notice that mannered acting and strange dialogue. It's not apparent in this as it would be in the In the Happening Old and some of the other films where people don't really act like people really act, But it sort of goes back to Unbreakable and the sixth sense.

There's always this It seems like he wants to approach human interaction the way it actually happens, which is sometimes awkward and weird. Right. That one thing we didn't talk about it Unbreakable is that scene where you know, his son has kind of figured out that his dad is special along with him, and they have a gun in the house and the kid pulls the gun on Bruce Willis and it's like, look, i'll prove it you're not. I'll shoot you and you'll be okay. That interaction I forgot about that scene good is bizarre.

It's like it's kind of realistic but not really. He talks to his son like he's three years old and he's not. He's like or eleven or twelve or something like that. It has this weird disconnect in some way where their imagine or he really thinks that this is how real people would react to this situation of having a gun pulled on him, but it doesn't quite work. And that's what I see in this There's a lot of a lot of the dialogue and interaction is striving for that genuineness and it's missing the mark.

And then you know in later films it's just really overly mannered and stuff. But I still really enjoy this one. It's definitely the clunkiest of these first three, but again it has that human element to it, where we're with this family and our concern is with them and how are they going to figure? They're getting news from the outside world, but they're isolated and on their own. We once again have the broken family, not by choice.

Obviously, his wife is killed, but then that puts a strain on the the family because he doesn't have his faith anymore, but the rest of them still do, or at least the kids do, and that causes problems between him and his children. His brother has always looked up to him and now he can't or doesn't because of this, and that has put a strain on their relationship. So you get that deep human interaction, but it always has to be caused by outside forces. Something has has caused this family to break down, and I think he gets away from that finally after this, where we don't have to have a broken family to be the trauma of the film. You know, we have so many horror films these days that are all about trauma, and I think you could run a through line with these that way, but I don't know.

I still I still find it pretty fun. But you do have Chekhov's water glasses. You've got Chekhov's baseball bat, and Chekhov's this and that and the other thing where everything is said, Chekov's Night, Shamalan, Chekhov's Night, Chekhov's two fingers, check the baby monitor. It reminds have you ever seen Don't Breathe? The first one?

Yeah, they when they break into that house, they linger. There are shots that linger on everything that's going to be utilized in the film, you know, as weapons or as whatever, like like specific like oh, I'm gonna sit here for five seconds so that you notice this hammer, and then the hammer comes into play later on. It's sort of like that. Oh it's worse than that, because this is like weird things. This is not just like a thing.

And that's why I say this movie is so hinky dude, because like it's, oh, it's so dumb. I just can't fathom. I don't want to drink water. And the water glass thing, it's so specific and just nonsensical to the point where it's like you're doing this so that at some point in the movie a water glass knocks over. It's is Rube Goldberg by way of m night Shamalan.

Yeah right, it's an m Night Shamalan machine. Like it's what it feels like, these kinds of movies like Sixth Sense, not like Unbreakable, but like Sixth Sense. Put the cogs in and then turn it on at the right time, but you're not worried about the cogs being put in because you're focusing on something else. This is like punching you in the face every time she doesn't drink water. He played baseball.

It's like, come on, movie, why why be this overt when we know you don't have to be, when we know you don't need to be, when we know that the last two movies have been at least the first one was so subtle that so many people didn't even realize it. Like Jesus Christ, you're a seasoned movie watcher. It caught you, you know what I mean? Like, if you can do that with people, why be this overt if you've already proved you don't have to Because he got paid five million dollars? Is that what it is?

Like? I think if you miss that, the water glasses are going to come into play at some point. I'm pretty sure in this one I didn't miss that or the baseball bat or the baseball. They don't really show the bat, but they are constantly talking about his prowess as a hitter. Oh and the kid's asthma.

Tchehov's asthma too. That's the one. That's the one that's just like such. Oh when they're like they spray poison gas the five minutes before it happens, I you know, that's the that's the other. Oh, dear Jesus, you want to know the thing in this movie that irks me, irks the ever loving shit out of me.

All right, well we'll play the scene out. You and I just had a character in action. I went to sleep. I'm gonna wake up now. Now you're going to tell me the rest of the movie happening offscreen.

Oh, the aliens left. They don't like this, they don't like that. This that that's like he gives them like five minutes of exposition. Mel Gibson's like, so they left? What what everything is told off screen in the third act?

What? What? This is this a visual medium? I just I don't understand. I don't understand at this point.

Why not just show it? Like I get that the scope of this story is what it is. But you showed, you told, not showed so hard that like one of the things that your character says comes into play in the plot of the actual character interactions coming up pretty soon in the next scene. And it's just though, this is the first time we've heard about the gas thing, and it's in Joaquin just exposition dumping onto mel Gibson. Is that not just such a strange scene.

Yeah, a strange way of doing it, I guess is a better way of plunk I said, it's it's a lot clunkier than very clunky. Why that's secondhand information as opposed to them all hearing it on the news at some point. Why. I mean that book that Rory Kulkin buys in town again, everything that he reads is right, it's so convenient and yet like it's contrived. It's a lot more strange.

You saw stranger things right the latest season. Yeah, you're remember how Dustin was saying that thing about the villain that wasn't true. How often do they do that, Like in a lot of these stories, that that is the screenwriter or in this case, the filmmakers, way of telling you that's what's going on without telling you, like there's if if in the narrative, there's no other rules that they're dictating other than the rules that they heard from some book or some other thing found in the narrative, that's the rules, even if they never overtly say it. And I like, I don't understand why everyone can't just agree that that's what's going on, and it's better to sometimes subvert those expectations then constantly say, well, you know, we don't know about the arc, but it might be a way to talk to God, and if we open it, we may get the power to talk to God.

And then they open it and what happens fucking roastsome alive. That's subverting the expectations because the filmmakers told you one thing it's going to be and then it ends up being something else. Yeah, Like, you don't always have to just tell us what it's going to be and then also show us that it is that, Like, you don't have to. Yeah, the plot points are telegraphed well in advance, and this one, and maybe that was to avoid the All I do is twists, Moniker, there's no twist everything there. Rory Culkin reads everything they hear on the news, the information that the m Night Shamalan character gives him bears out, Oh I heard that they don't like water, so I'm going to the lake.

And they could have very well done the same thing, and they choose not to, or they vote not to. I should say it's still I really enjoy this one because it's mainly because of the kids. I really like Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin in this. It's one of the few times that I can handle Waquin Phoenix. I think he plays an enjoyable character to watch.

He's not some brooding asshole, which he seems to be playing a lot of, regardless of what he is like as a person. I mean, just as far as characters go, Um seems like a unique dude. Let's just put it that way. Yeah, which is fine. Hey, there used to be a lot of those people in Hollywood.

There seemed to be a lot less of them now. But yeah, he's in the vein of a lot of actors of days gone past. Is like him and Letto, Like a lot of those dudes are just like weirdos. But they were like Brando and Nicholson were weirdos. Like you know, It's okay, I mean it's okay, you know.

Yeah. My issue with him is, and he's probably a very introverted person in real life, doesn't like giving interviews, which I totally understand, then don't give them, because every time he goes on a show or does interviews, he acts like an asshole. And it's if it's a defense mechanism whatever, then don't fucking give him. Have that in your contract that you don't do interviews. I think Jonah Hill is so Jonas Cache is large enough.

I mean, good grief, the joke, you know, even for that movie, prior to The Joker, even, oh yeah, he can write that in I'm not going to do publicity for this film. Me being in the film is enough. And if you know, I'm sure there are plenty of people who are willing to work with him under those circumstances. So just fucking stop giving interviews if you are going to be an asshole every single time, right, I it's my issue with him, it's it sours me on him when he does that. Yes, yeah, I'm with you, but this like early enough where I like him though, Yeah, I like him when he plays enjoyable characters.

We talked about him briefly I don't know, and maybe in regard to my own private Idaho or something, but him as a kid, like in Parenthood and early roles and stuff he played it was enjoyable to watch. Have you seen her, Spike Jones? I haven't seen it. I've seen really good and really good in it. Yeah, I don't know why we haven't watched it.

To be honest with you, it's not because I don't want to because of him. It's for some reason because of him. But like even Inherent Vice, which I don't care that much for, as a film, he's pretty fun in that he's goofy and weird, but not not the weird, angry in cell type of character. Oh, it's so popular, we're getting a sequel. And even in that Oh what is that one movie you were never really know?

What is it called? Oh, the one where he's a you're talking about the one about the Andy Kaufman thing he was doing? No, no, no, no, um he plays I think he's trying to find his daughter. Oh it came out what last year? The year before Lynn Ramsey movie fucking rough.

But I mean I liked him in that, I don't He's not somebody that I go I will never watch his movies because I think he's a jerk in real life. I don't normally do that. There's maybe a few people avoid because of that. But anyway, the whole point was he's he's nice in this movie. He's an enjoyable character, a little bit quirky.

It's nice that he's the error helping out his brother. His motivations for being there are are positive. They're pretty pure, and he has a positive he's having a positive impact on his nephew and niece, and so it's just a nice character. And he has the best scene in the movie. Move Children, Bobos is the best scene in the movie, is it not.

It's a scene that's stuck with me all these years later. It's the one that gets shown when you talk about this movie. I think it's a great scene that in the scene with the hand in the great in the basement. Is that's it? That's a good one.

There's the one that gets my daughter. There's some good scares in this movie like this is you know, the sixth Sense is a horror movie, and this movie I think trades in that. I don't think it's I guess it is a horror movie. I'm sure. I guess if we're gonna call it something, if we're gonna if we have to nail things down with a genre, I guess it's a horror movie.

But it's not very it's not doing the thing is that you would expect this kind of movie to do. Even Nope, does more of the things. There aren't the kinds of scares you would expect. There aren't the kind of plot beats that you would expect. This is a subdued like.

For as weird as this movie is, it's also very subdued. Yes, a lot of nothing happens for a very long time in this movie, and it's just like down, look at clacking noises and weird weird things and oh look a crop circle. Like crop circles on their own are not really scary. You have to know. It's interest.

It's interesting how subdued this is, given how not subdued at least Unbreakable is. And it takes its time like the other films, and we're again we're talking about an hour and forty six minutes right around that same amount of time, so you have a little don't have to cram everything in all at once. They have some experiences before everything is revealed. They've got, like you say, the crop circle, and then I think the next thing they encounter is the creature on top up of the barn, and then that leads to not so much scar as it's sort of comical them running around the house and mel Gibson, who can't curse or doesn't know how to curse, saying his strange yelling, his strange dialogue, you know.

And then it's slowly as they're discovering things, then they're finding out what's going on in the rest of the world at the same time. And then that all sort of intersects when they're down in the basement and that, yeah, there are some That great thing is a good scare. Yeah, that's the one that I creeped my daughter out well found out. It allows you to leave it shows it to you twice too, which I really appreciate. It's so well thought out that they they do say at one point that they can change the color of their skin, yeah, which which like they I appreciate that they say it.

And I feel like that's one of the few things in the movie that he gets right that like it's it's it plays into the finale in a way that you forget, because like that's when these set up in payoffs as you set it up, but then you give it enough time where the audience kind of forgets that you set it up. But yeah, that that hand on the Great is that's a good. That's a good one. That's a real good. The hand under the door, that red door, that's a good.

That's like a typical horror movie image. It might not be as scary as the Great, but you know, the fingers and claws coming up under the door are are as a startling image. And the whole encounter in the vet's pantry, you know, when he chops the fingers off, that's a good. Yeah. I had a nice little jump to it's what's m Night doing in this movie?

Hey man, he's the vet. I finally realizing the vet. Yeah, I'm like, why aren't they taking the dog to the vet? And then I'm like, oh, well, he's the vet. So he's the guy that kills Mel Gibson's wife in the film.

Doesn't just killer though. This is where the movie gets a little strange. It kind of takes a weird turn right in the in the climax, which we haven't talked about yet. Mel Gibson has kind of been having these flashbacks throughout the film of the night that his wife died, and they're playing out piece meals, so we're kind of seeing it, and then we're seeing a little bit more, and then we're seeing a little bit more, and then we're seeing a further and further into the scene. Fine, I'm not a fan of that.

Oh really, I like it. I'm not a fan of it because it's always used like this where it's like and then at the end it's like something changes everything. It's just it's never it's not that it's never landed, but it's like nine and a half times out of ten it's not. And it's the bad ones that you remember and the good ones it doesn't even matter that there's a twist in them. That's how good the twists are.

But his wife gets pinnedto a tree, essentially cut in half, but she's alive enough to talk to him before she dies. Yeah, it's like, you know, once they back the truck up, her insides are going to spill out and she'll be dead. So it's this is so how real life works. Well, I mean, I just I cannot watch the scene without thinking of the scary Movie three scene where he goes which which half of her doesn't work anymore, toop after the bottom and she's like, I don't I don't understand it. It takes like a hot dog and like snaps it in half, and he's like, you mean she broke her Wiener, Like I can't like it's it's so goofy.

Even in the serious version of the movie, it's kind of goofy. It's kind of again, it's kind of keen. This is how you got here, like you had to jump through eight million hoops when there was just like one thing to just clear over here. I don't know. Again, though I don't know, I can see where I'm coming from, right.

It's so weird. It's in sixth cents and unbreakable. It were things that like, oh he's wearing that poncho, it's kind of like a cape. Okay, it can make sense. Oh he's got the bird bone thing, so he assumes that somebody else must be unbreakable.

Yeah, makes sense. Sure. In this movie, it's like she doesn't drink full glasses of water and wouldn't you know what the aliens don't It's like, why does she not have to drink glasses of water? Like why does why does that? You could just have them find out or knock the alien into a pool or into a water tank like you're on a goddamn farm.

There are easier, less idiosyncratic ways to get to the conclusions of this movie. And instead of it being kind of straightforward, it's like, no, we're going to have this as complicated as humanly possible. See. I like the quirks, though I guess I don't have It's fine. It made me laugh yesterday as we were watching it because it's like, why don't you at least that's a lot of glasses, Like you're going to run out of glasses if you haven't already, go dump some of these out.

I mean, he picks up a couple to take into the kitchen and then he puts them back where they were, and I'm like, well, her thing isn't that she needs them around for comfort. It's just she never finishes a glass of water because it's contaminated or has dust in it, or has a hair in it, or taste weird or taste old, blah blah blah, And then wouldn't you know it that those contaminated water kills the alien. But I'm like you, I put these in the sink. People are going to need glasses for their other dreams. Real people don't exist in m Night Shamalan movies after a certain point, like we're as humanistic as six senses.

This is like these are honestly, you know what I said when I was watching in this movie? Are these The twist should have been that these people were robots because they act so fucking weird. But that's the thing. That's the thing that it ends up roots like why wasn't that the twist? But that happening.

It's like none of these people act like real people. They don't talk like real people, they don't act like real people. And that's what has continued. I mean Old God, It's like no one is a human being in that movie. It's bizarre, but it's bizarre for me in an an interesting way.

I like Old. I will watch Old again. No one acts like a normal human being in that movie, but I know I'll watch it again because it's interesting. It's fun to why, and I can understand people being like, Nope, I'm done with his movies. I can't watch these.

They're too weird, you know, And I think it starts here. I need to watch the Village again because I don't know how much of that bears out in that. I know there's a massive twist in that, but as far as the human interaction between people, I don't know if it's as mannered in that as it becomes shortly thereafter. But I don't know. Man, something about his oddness works for me.

It's just a like individual thing. I don't feel like I'm giving him a pass. I just think it works for me. That water stuff, it's so obvious as it's as obvious as sixth cents is subtle. Yeah, but it's I don't know, it still works.

The big question is the big question is, though, why would aliens go to a fucking planet that's ninety percent water? If water is there? Bugaboo? That's the question. Because they're they're smart aliens.

I mean, you know, if you think about it, and they don't really get into this, but a lot of places they show the locked so you know, I mean it's if you're in a spacecraft and you're you have the technology and the smarts to travel light years or whatever, then you can probably suss out where the water is and go to the places where it isn't. But I mean we still have water fountains and sinks and fossils and beings are made out of water. I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, it's a it's a bit hinky. I still enjoy it.

You know what else I don't really like about this movie. Mel Gibson's performance Man is not remotely good. I think it's we I think at some point mel Gibson just like should have turned these kinds of rolls down because this is not the kind of person that mel Gibson, I think can play believably, is like a father figure, like he's mel Gibson has made a career off of playing a certain kind of character that I think is just one dial click to the right of who he is on the right hand sid if you know what I mean. And this is just a weird performance, right, Yeah, And I think that's it's very strange, right, It's strange for mel Gibson, but I think it's common in the Night Shamalan movies. I think at some point he starts pulling some really strange performances from people.

It's that overmannered. I don't mind him so much in this it is, But would you mind him more if there was no Joaquin Phoenix, if it was just him, Yeah, because that's like what we could have been looking at with this kind of movie. Because again, in sixth sense, it was just Bruce willis really as like one at like the main male character. I think this movie really only works because Joaquin's Phoenix's character is so likable. Like, the only reason I would rewatch this movie again, other than to just like sit and sit and be in how weird it is as a movie, is because Jaquin Phoenix.

I think you're right. This might be the one of the few movies I like him in. He's just remember that Johnny Cash movie. He is good in that. But he's good in that for the same reason he's good in Joker.

It's because it's tapping into like a part of himself. This is Joaquin Phoenix playing very against type. Now we know this is against type. This is more like the character he plays in Her, like a gentle soul, very affable. Yeah, I guess that new one, Um, what does it come on?

Come on? Or something like that. He plays a more affable character. I like him in affable roles. Yeah, I don't know what he's like is I mean again, I feel like we could make subpositions about who he is based on things that he's shown the world, But I don't think he's probably a super affable dude in real life, so you know, but he's married to Rudy Mara, so she must like him.

I'm sure he's fine. I just yeah, he's brothers was a kid. Yeah right. His public persona gives meis but I'm sure he's quote Sean Bean, give the man a moment's rest for pity's sake. Yeah, yeah, Look, this is this is the moment though for M Night?

Is it not like this is kind of the weirdo inflection point those first two movies. We're kind of maybe keeping what we're the first two movies, keeping the m Night the night part of the M Night Shamalan he was pushing it down and it kind of you know, I think this is the moment, like if we go, what's the next movie after this? Right? Well, the next is The Village, And that's why I want to watch that one again. It does have a twist, but I'm I'm trying to remember it's been a while and I'm trying to remember.

It's another twist of twists for all of these ways, right, there's some I know there's some odd stuff like with the Adrian Brodie character, but he is he's a mentally disabled character, so I don't I don't recall if like we're starting to get into weird stilted dialogue at this point or mannered acting as well. It's been too long since I've seen it. I just know that that was the last one that I liked before seeing the Visit and Split and stuff laid in the water. Just I don't even understand that movie at all. It's a modern fairytale.

It is a modern fairytale. But I think that's all I'm night ever said, That's all I remember from when the movie came out, was like, it's a modern fairytale like Cares. It was just the tone of that movie. And I think that's when the acting and the dialogue just became so bizarre that it's like I was waiting for the twist because I wanted the movie to make sense and it wasn't making sense to me, and I'm like, I don't know what's going on in this movie at all, so an m Night movie where he's in a lot of it. I don't remember.

I've only seen something else. We saw it a sneak preview of it, so before it even came out, and I have not seen it since, just having to had zero desire to check it out. I think the other thing for signs, I think that really not others me, but makes me just question, what all is the point of something like this? Is this like anti twist stance that he takes in this movie, Like I'm not going to give you a twist. This is one of the few Mni Shamalan movies that doesn't have one.

There's no twist here. It is aliens. It is aliens, and it's it's actually fucking aliens, Like it's actually aliens, and it's everything that the kid has read or that they've heard on the news bears out. So it's almost to me, like, is it trying to say purpose anti? What is he saying?

What is m Knights saying? I can do a movie without a twist? That's what he's saying. I mean, he did a movie. How well he did it?

Again? I think that's subjective. It is a well made movie. It is a nice to look at movie, but fuck me running. The climax of this movie is a mess with a capital M.

Everything from when they come out of the basement to the end of the movie is I almost feel like the movie lives and dies on the climax. If you can get on board with the climax, you're probably going to have enjoyed the movie. The climax is so clunky because they have to pay everything off, but they do it in the most ham fisted way possible. Yeah, it is. And they wait with that fucking conclusion of the flashback to that scene, and I couldn't believe it when I watched, I was like, they're waiting.

We know what happened, we know what she said. He already told us what she said, Like why are we seeing this? And on top of everything else, it's like five seconds it's and it's clunkily written. Mel Gibson asks the most asinine questions that you would ask someone if they were in that situation. He's not like, hey, honey, you have like a couple of moments I love you like you put yourself in that position, which is why six Cents worked so well, because you put yourself in the position of Bruce Willis in the finale of that movie, and in this movie, you're supposed to put yourself in mel gibson shoes, and he's asking the most idiotic questions, does it hurt?

I'm pinned against a tree, you fucking asshole. Of course, if you know, it's like stupid shit. But then she just starts going off on a tangent and it's like, oh, right now she has to start expounding on what we're supposed to look for in this movie. I don't I don't understand saving it to the end of the movie. Well, there's a few odd things, and it could very well be that they needed to or somebody felt that it needed to be reinforced, because there we get and this happens in Unbreakable as where as well, where I don't think the studio is like trusting of the audience to understand things, so we get scenes repeated for us, And here we get the scene between mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix where they're talking about luck, like, are you the type of person that believes that things?

You know, that luck means this, or that luck means that. They replay that scene as well as a bad miracle as well as the flashback, and so it's like, hey, audience, pay attention. Yeah, this is what's going to happen. Now. That's all I can think of, was that is there is there such thing as a bad miracle?

Like it was. It was very close to that symbols from Nope, that same thing. Oh my god. Yeah, it's like, why are they I know why that. I know why they're beating us over the head.

Now that you put it that way, I can see it making sense. But like, man, you gotta trust the audience a little bit more than that. Come on, I mean, it could have been from test screenings, like I didn't understand why this What does that mean? Um? Why is?

Why did she say those things? Like? It was not the glasses of water all around the house that were the problem. It was why the wife was saying swing away when they mentioned eight million times that Joaquin Phoenix is a fucking baseball player. Oh, it means to go have sex with other people, That's what it meant.

Oh swing away? Like I don't like And then you get Then you get the alien in the living room and mel Gibson pushes the TV in, and you get what I'm sure. What I'm sure M and I thought was the greatest shot in the history of shots in his movie, the reflection of the alien in the TV, which he does wants to really stunning effect, and then he uses it five more times in the scene. And then he starts zooming in on the CGI alien's face, and the closer it gets, the worse it looks, to the point where you're just like, maybe you didn't need to show him. They don't look that great.

They look awful. Seventy two million dollar movie. Where did the budget go when you see the Aliens three times? Yeah, well they should have a guy in a Suit's not a great option, I know, But then rewrite the Climax movie. That's what they would do today.

What a guy in a suit? Well, they would do mo cap because the Aliens are tall. That's that's the thing is like, we don't have I mean, got some pretty you know, Navier bow Tit. What about the guy Doug Jones are both tall? Linky Guy Jones has been working since at least nineteen ninety two.

Oh yeah, you guys, from what I've heard, No, he no, he was in hocus Pocus. Did you know they were both around at this time. Yeah, but I don't get it like it looks It looks so bad. I can't imagine a studio going green light guys, like what because it looks like it's one hundred percent CGI, like it wasn't. I mean, they could have done some motion capture stuff, like for the scene in Brazil or whatever, but it, yeah, it's not.

The get scene works, and the scene in Mexico works because it's already grainy footage, so it doesn't matter. It's great looking, though it's not that great looking. But also you can get away with it when they freeze frame on it, okay, well, okay, fair, But when they don't when okay, when they don't play the scene over and over again and they play it once and they don't freeze frame it, it looks pretty good. It's a pretty good scare. But that's a good scare.

You see the alien in their house and you just go, this is the same thing, like we're supposed to be scared here and he's holding Rory Colkin and it looks super weird too because it's a CGI and it's been somebody green screened out and just oh y YOI And then Rory Colkin doesn't inhale the toxic gas because he's asthmatic. Yeah, Joaquin Phoenix kills the alien because he likes to play baseball. And then Abigail Breslin, because she doesn't drink water, kills the alien with water by accident. Mel Gibson does nothing gets his faith back because all these things lined up not by chance. What if there are no coincidences, it's by providence?

So oh my god, Oh no, he's got a collar back on, you know, and I think about providence turn it off? You know what? I think. I think that it's mighty convenient. And when they say what you know, what if there are no coincidences, I get the double meaning.

I fucking get it. We all get it. But that's the premise of your movie. What if there are no incidents? Like okay, yeah, I get it because things aren't but they are whatever.

Fine, but you can't hang a lantern on it, Like, come on, that's lazy, isn't it? Is it not? Is it not lazy? I just don't. I don't know.

Like apparently I'm in the wrong here because this movie was rather well received when it came out. So Roger Ebert gave it four stars out of four. Dude, if you could believe that, Yeah, I didn't know. I'm actually surprised because I thought that this was sort of this was a disappointment. That's why I remember about it made a lot of money, seventy two million dollar budget, four hundred and eight good.

I guess you're right and I'm wrong, Roger Ebert said, m Night Shamalan Signs is the work of a born filmmaker, able to summon apprehension out of thin air. When it is over, we think not how little has been decided, but how much has been experienced. At the end of the film, I had to smile recognizing how Schamalan had essentially ditched a payoff. He knows, as we all sense, that payoffs have grown boring. He didn't forego a payoff, Ebert.

He had the goddamn alien in the house. If they you know what, I'm just gonna put this out here. Here's how you write the ending of this movie. They go upstairs, the aliens are gone. There you go.

Why was that not the ending? If you want to talk about miracles, there's your miracle that the aliens came to our planet. Could clearly annihilate us because they talk about how many people are dead and they just one morning left after they've been there for a couple of weeks, Like is that not a miracle? Like that should like the macro level problem of one alien is fine, but why would they like what they said the I guess they said some of the stragglers were left behind, but like, okay, yeah, well the injured they left. They're injured.

And I think this guy was just out to get mel Gibson because he cut his fucking fingers off, right, But you know what I mean? Like I feel like, if we're going to talk about a real like subverting of your expectations, they should just come upstairs and go, you know, walk out and see the ships leaving, and then cut the credits like there's your there's your quote subverting of expectations, there's your lack of a twist, because then the twist ending is you don't there is nothing like there, you know I what Roger Ebert is getting at. I feel like I could have enjoyed that movie where it just ends like there, you know, it's like ten clover Field Lane where we talked about that, like she gets out of the bunker.

I would contend it never should have been aliens. Like she just leaves and it's like, what what the fuck was going on? Because the alien part is the worst part, and in this movie, the alien part is the worst part. It's the problem that the entire movie has to put pieces into to fix. They have to put the water glasses in, they have to put the fucking baseball bat in, they have to put the asthma in, all for that final one scene to make sense.

So all these other things are so weird throughout the movie, but they make sense in this one scene, Like that is that is shortsighted filmmaking. Tell me another movie that does it like this. This is like the only movie I can think of where things are so obviously weird. The water glass thing is just like, that's not It's like Alison Will eating dry cereal with milk, Like nobody really does this? Do people actually leave glasses of water around their house?

Unfinished end mass If you do reach out to us and let us know, tell me I'm wrong. I mean, I don't know. I'm not going to argue with you about that, but I think it boils down to I'm not going to give you a twist in this one, which is fun, but I think you could have done a better job giving us a twist. Yeah. I think he's setting up people's expectations for a twist and it never comes.

So you know, it could have just been an exercise and breaking free from a stereotype that was generally you know, based on two movies. Is what happens at the end of Unbreakable of twists? Not really, it's just a revelation, right, it's not. It's a really like the thing in sixth Sense is a died in the wool twist thing in the Unbreakable is like yeah, okay, so what like all those people still die? Yeah, like I guess it doesn't.

Does it matter who killed them? Like I guess for the context of this story, it does. But again, like it's in that movie, it's subtle, but it's obvious, but subtle with like, oh, it's obvious that he's going to be the bad guy. It's obvious that he's like understanding when he says the mister Glass thing. It's like that was the moment in that movie room Like okay, you know that sounds like a bad guy's name, Like it sounds like a villain's name, and then didn't even give Bruce Willis a name in Unbreakable.

I guess he's given a name in Glass the Overseer. Yeah, yeah, it's not great, probably why they didn't give him one. But in this movie, I think if they had really wanted to subvert expectations, they should have just had them come upstairs and the aliens are gone, and there you go. Yeah, there's no real what's the point, Like, what what's the point of the aliens? What's the point?

Yeah, but isn't that a twist in and of it itself? No climax? Roger Ebert sitting here saying that that's what they did anyways, But they but that's not what happened, because you spend all this time fucking trying to get the kid to breathe again, and the alien is there and the aliens not fighting back. It's it's head beaten in and then a like one little glass of water. Is it's so very all right, guy, Jesus Christ.

Yeah, it's very dorky, mister Bagley. I like it. It's fun. It's a fun movie to watch. I don't know how good quote unquote I find it to be but it's a fun I will give you.

M Night Shamalan's movies are fun to watch. The worst they get or the weirder they get, the more entertaining they become outside of just the what's being presented to us. Like, how weird this movie is is kind of part of the fun of it. The charm of it for me is how weird this movie is. So I said, I'm not gonna say I don't like this movie.

It's just really fucking weird. And the choices that he makes are so specific that can't argue that m Night shamalan made the movie that he wanted to that's for this is his movie through and through. I agree. Yeah. I haven't seen The Village though.

Yeah, it's good. I like it. That has like actually massive twist, right, yeah, it has a real big twist. Um. Yeah, I mean I constantly say that I'm up for whatever he does next.

I'm very curious about the new movie. I know nothing about the book that it's based on, but it looks interesting, just interesting. It will just be interesting with him adapting someone else's stuff, yeah, which which is interesting because it's got him like stamped all over it. As as far as direction and the especially the direction of actors, which you know what, I give him massive amounts of credit for that. He knows what he wants.

It's just very strange. Check out servant. It's a it's a trip. It's you have to go in knowing that all of that stuff, the weird acting and dialogue is going to be in there. But it's it's really good.

It's really interesting. It's interesting how mild it is in the sixth sense, is it so weird, how like dialed down, toned down it is in that movie comparatively to something like those two movies later. Holy cow, man, he just like fully embraces what he wants in screenwriting. Yeah, it's definitely the one film where people act like people and it's very human and very even keeled. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And Unbreakable I think still kind of is in that same world. Yeah, maybe a little less because I think it's I think to your point, it's a little bit more high concept. But then you get to this and it's like all bets are off, they're all weirdos. They all talk. Every time they talk, they say something strange.

They don't Yep, we're not remotely human sounding. Yeah, not remotely human acting not they don't react to one another in a human way. Yeah, it's where it starts. Yeah, that's my contention is this is kind of it starts. And I would be one percent in Clyde to agree with you, because once again, by the end of this movie, I just all right, sure whatever, you know what I mean.

Like by the end of this movie with mel Gibson and he's you know, he's fixing his collar and he's going out, it's like, but fucking aliens, man, we're in your house. Everybody's just so blase, back to normal. Yeah, like I get I guess, so all right, I want this. Yeah, because they talk about in the film, you know, a lot of times they come back. Yeah, if they get defeated, they come back with more, So that would be pretty good.

I would watch that. But in it, those two kids are still acting manure Orry Colkin pretty good for the most part. Yeah, I mean those Culkins have that I don't know something, man, They've got something. One of the better parts of Scream four. Yeah, talk about it.

That's a whole other story. Talk about a movie where people don't act like real people, and not in a good way, not in a fun weird way. More it isn't like a very generico way. Before we close this out about science, do you know who is going to play the Joaquin Phoenix role but had to drop out because of surgery and they have no idea? Mark Ruffalo dave to himself that would be something that would have been That would be something.

They kind of look more like each other than Joaquin Phoenix and mel Gibson. Yeah. When I was watching it, my wife was like, is that supposed to be his brother or his brother in law? I was like, that's supposed to be his brother. She was like, blollo nothing.

Yeah, yeah, you know, it's funny. I'm glad we didn't talk much about mel Gibson because he doesn't deserve it. Yeah, there's not a whole lot to say. He's fine in this. Yeah, it is an odd role for him.

Like you said, it's it's the Bruce Willis role that Bruce Willis didn't play right, because Bruce Willis seems to actually be able to move within the acting space and have a little bit more acting legs to him than mel Gibson, which is fine. Mel Gibson does one thing very well. He's kind of been trading in that his entire career, Bruce Willis. I think I think everybody always forgets that Bruce Willis was on moonlighting. Like I know, but people my age, like, I mean younger, like, do not remember that Bruce Willis is not action star Bruce Willis.

It was comedic rom com, you know, lead with Sybil Shepherd for fuck's sake. Yep. Yeah. There were people at the time who are like, die hard with that guy. Yeah, right, he's not believable.

Now it's like Bruce Willis action star. No, he's a ghost, A sad ghost, a very sad, depressing Maudlin ghost. Yeah. I think, you know, I walk away from this episode probably sixth cents. Like I said, it's it's his best movie.

Um, I think it's my favorite of the movies of his that I've seen. But then I also really like Split and I want to rewatch it. I think I'm breakable is okay. I think I'm breakable now kind falls under the immense weight of other projects that have come since that have kind of done things to that movie that you can't It's like it can't. It's like it's like watching The Matrix, right, Like people can't really watch the Matrix anymore because it, like everything else, you have to just ignore it, like ignore two, three, And if you didn't like four four, Like with Signs, you don't have to do that.

With six Sense, you don't have to do that. They're their own singular contained thing, Unbreakable. Like I said, there is a universe where nothing else ever happened, And I think Unbreakable is it would have been long term remembered better if nothing else had ever come after, right, yeah, well definitely not Glass split Man, and it made no difference in Split I mean, you create exercise. It wasn't even really a twist in that movie. That was just like a little bonus cherry on top.

Yeah, it kind of didn't even recontectualize the movie. It just made it made sense why the movie was the way it was, because now it's like, okay, so with if that universe exists where people can just be superhuman, there must be people that could just be like on the spectrum is like a weird superpower thing like it right right right makes sense? Yeah, but yeah, no the everything else like post that just yeah, and and these I think these two movies are pretty good. Signs and six ens are pretty good, self contained little stories. One works a lot better than the other.

And you know what, I'll give Signs credit for being an alien story. I love a good alien story, and there are not enough of these kinds of alien stories, like out on a farm aliens fucking with people. It's very Kelly Hopkinsville Goblins. I mean it's inspired by a lot of real things, you know, it's that end. It's Whitley Strieber and a bunch of stuff.

So I appreciate that. I know where m. Knight is drawing his influences from. But then you have Mel Gibson and Joaquin being just it's being strange. So final thoughts Begley on all three of these, this film journey we've gone on with our friend, our dear friend, mister M Knight.

Sham Well, I'm a fan of all three of these, and I agree with you. I think The Sixth Sense is definitely the finest of these three. Probably. I mean, when I think about the rest of his movies, it's the most I don't want to say well made, but I think say well thought out. Yeah, I mean everything fell into place for that one, whether it was luck or whatever.

Everything a little bit of providence maybe in sixth sense. Huh yeah. And I'm I'm willing to go to bat for the guy. Like I said, I'm up for anything he's putting out. It will be interesting if nothing else, Yeah, I mean that that.

I think the final part of your statement is the part that I definitely like think about most with M Night Shamalan is he's not going to do something that's not weird at this point. That's a given, Like he's just gonna do that. The twist, Yeah right, what a twist. It's just a normal movie. It's just a drama.

M Night Chamalan's second movie, then, is the real twist that Rosie o'donn movie? Real twist? I want. I want a sequel to that movie with James McAvoy in it. Yeah, yeah, whatever he's called the Horde.

Yeah, no, I'm with you. I think you know M and I definitely am and I definitely has a way of making things interesting and a way of I think, contributing something positive to the filmmaking landscape overall. I mean, the success of his movies I think is going to vary from person to person. But six if if nothing else, we got the sixth sense out of it, right, Like that's that the movie's great movie is genuinely a classic, a classic of the genre. And you know, we always talk about putting your best foot forward, Like that's that there's a few better feet to put forward than something like The Sixth Sense.

Really, so everything else is kind of gravy, to be perfectly honest, like everything else kind of doesn't matter. You know, There's going to be some hits and missus, but for the most part, they're generally pretty interesting and if nothing else, a little bit weird. Yeah, And you know, will he ever make a movie that is as good as The Sixth Sense or Eclipse Eclipses? It? Probably not, but you know that's okay.

It's such a good movie. It's I don't expect any Like it would be hard to make something better than The Sixth Sense. I wonder if m Night Shamalan feels like he's always chasing that or if at some point in his career he will feel like he doesn't have to anymore. But like, hopefully he doesn't feel that one. I hope so, because like the at this point, like you you're the one who made the Sixth Sense, So what else do you have to say for yourself that you could do it again.

You've already done it once, like most people never even do it one time, so you know, let alone four or five times like somebody like Spielberg. So and hopefully. I mean, you know what's funny is you know, the to bring it full circle all the way back to the reason we did this episode. I have a greater appreciation for Jordan Peele now because like, comparing the two of them, at least in character dialogue, feels unfair. Peele's stuff feels a lot more humanistic.

I mean, I think that's what makes it so good is because it is so humanistic and real. And yes there is a heavy dose of word play and double entendre layered on there, but it's they still feel real, and I think that's why those double entendres still work. The black Mold thing, we left a piece of mom in the kitchen, Like the first time you hear it, you don't even think anything of it, but the second time it's recontextualized, like great, Yeah, it's the same thing you get with with these movies, Like once you've seen it, then you can go back and go, h yeah, that's obvious. But but then you get to something like Nope that doesn't have a twist, right, I mean it's and it worked parallels pretty directly.

I mean two Signs. Yeah, it really does. Like I said, to bring this full circle, like, I think Nope and Signs are a good one and two if you want to if you want to do Nope with a more contemporary movie versus doing it with something like we talked about, like a Spielberg like a Close Encounters or a Jaws, to do it with Signs would be I would be pretty good. I think they're they're you know, there's a fucking farmhouse in both. There's aliens, you know, and it kind of I think both of them have kind of an anti climax in a lot of ways, like Signs definitely has a climax and sodas Nope.

But I think they both insist on pulling back. I think Nope does a better job at pulling back than Signs does. I ain't Nope has a better conclusion anyways, But yeah, they're like very much in the same camp. But I mean Nope's better, I think overall, I think overall, but I think Signs Doug and I can't deny that Signs doesn't do weird things. Well, it's just like, don't pretend that.

Don't make a don't make me feel like I'm crazy to not think that these things are weird and not common place. Definitely weird, I know, but I'm not just make In the other movies, it's like a character goes, yeah, that's weird. In Signs, it's like, yeah, it's weird, you know what I mean, Like it's it's not they're they're playing it off like it's no big deal. In Signs. In in sixth sense, it's like, this is weird, Like this is strange.

Like Tony Collette's character in sixth Sense, her entire character throughout the movie is mad because she thinks her son is fucking nuts or fucking with her or something. Yeah. Yeah, there's none of that, Like there's none of those kinds of character moments in Signs. And that's what it was missing, that's what it desperately needed, and they try. I just think probably the injection of religion into the movie also didn't help.

It's just two on the nose. Yeah, that's another through line that kind of creeps into his films, along with the broken Family. And I'm always curious about that. I mean, it's pretty heavy and servant, not that I mean servant is something where he's executive producer. He has written some of the episodes, not like solely his Christian not writer director M Night, but he has written and directed a lot of the episodes.

His daughter's written or at least directed some of the episodes as well, and it has his feel around it as well. And it's it's very religious, informed by cults and other religious things. Interesting. Interesting, It's a fucking trippy show man. I'll have to check it out.

Like I said, I mean my kind of critique of signs aside, Like I said, like I definitely enjoyed it this time a lot more than I had last time. It's just like, don't try to pass off weird things as commonplace too, because like I'm not here for that. I'm not in this day and age, in this day and age with screenwriting the way that it is, Like this kind of story, this kind of screenwriting doesn't exist anymore. It exists because m Knight's doing it. And that's about it, you know what I mean, Like anybody else would be like this is stilted and strange, weird, but when M Knight does it in a more contemporary movie, it's like it's an M.

Knight's Shamalan film. When a movie is you because you made it, Like yeah, right, I guess we're just gonna give you a pass then, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's sort of his thing. Now Yeah, good for him. Good. You know what, it's hard enough to be successful in the movie industry, and it's really hard to make your own like play in it, So good for him.

Yeah, seriously, And I'm gonna check out Servant on your suggestion. So Rupert Grint and a robot baby doll, isn't it? That's all I know about it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I'm sure the show is straight far from whatever that was at this point, but and there are I mean, there are some genuinely creepy scenes like throughout the series and weird shit and gross shit like it's it's one of the shows that I genuinely look forward to the next season of. And I can't honestly say that about too many shows.

Sure, we'll have to check it out then, like I said, on your suggestion alone. So so until the next time you and I bring the listeners, God knows what collaboration. Where can people find you, mister Bagley? What's going on over at the wake Up Heavy podcast? Well, you can find me at wake Up heavy dot com on all social media at wake Up Heavy.

You can also find this show, the Culture Cast, and numerous other shows at weirdingwaymedia dot com and right now the latest episode is on Angelhart that's available with Mike White and Colin Gallagher guest hosting. Pretty soon here I'll be doing the second part of that Make You Work double bill with Barfly and probably pretty soon I'll have the latest episode with my daughter and I talking about the movies that we watched in September. Check all that out. Sometimes you don't have a very long, busy answer, but it's that time of the year, folks and parks. Beagley is busy cranking up, cranking that podcast content out.

And you can find the Jordan Peel episode on either wake Up Heavy or the Culture Cast. It's right and you can find the Culture Cast, like Mark Beagley mentioned over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, along with nineteen shows I guess eighteen other shows, but nineteen shows in total. If you want to find something to listen to, that you're probably gonna love and want to listen to a lot of Boy, there's almost a thousand episodes of the Projection Booth and there's almost six hundred episodes of the Culturecast. And that's just two of the nineteen shows that you can find over Weirdingwaymedia dot com. As for me, if you want to find the stuff that I specifically work on cstashu dot com, cstacchiw dot com, that's my link tree.

Go there if you want. You don't have to, because, like I said, everything else is a Weirdingway Media. As for this show, culturecast dot com, Patreon dot com, slash Culturecast, all the places you can go to support the show financially or non financially. But the place to go non financially supports the show is iTunes. Rate and review the show and give us a listen there, mister Begley, until next time, It's been a pleasure as always and fun.

We always talk about three movies. We're always talking about a lot of stuff. Feels like the old days of this podcast where I used to do two movies a week. Yeah, two movies in episode twice a week actually worrow, Yeah, that was real, the dark days of podcasts, and yeah, well we'll catch you on the next episode. He