Why aren't you guys watching 'Signs'?

[koshka]

Our family saw the movie yesterday.  It has a lot of heart.  I must be ready for "them" because I didn't flinch or jump at the prepared spots.  My family commented: "They [the human family] didn't have any guns," although it would have been a very different film if they had.  Bruce Lee commented on the fact that most martial arts films are set in ancient times because a firearm would simply end the drama -- blam!  Personally, I have a snap-on belt fitted with a Rossi .357 revolver and a large cartridge case.

[Tisha]

Call me a romantic, BUT.   I won't see the movie because I want to continue to believe that crop circles are a beautiful, magical, otherworldly  phenomenon.    

I believe that "space aliens" are a modern day twist on the fairies and the elves of ancient times.  "ET" notwithstanding, It distresses me that the Media tend to portray otherworldly visits as predatory/negative/frightening.  Everything from "space invasions"  to horror movies.  It just bothers me.

I don't want scary movies/books interfering with my sleep, or negatively affecting my REAL contacts with the otherworld.    On the Astral, the lingering afteraffects of a scary movie can make Freddy Kruger, the boogyman, or space aliens appear in your bedroom.  Who needs that?

I guess some people can walk out of a movie theater and forget about it.  Movies stay with me for weeks.  I guess that's why I don't go to many movies, since they are mostly nasty.

I believe we create our own realities.  For instance, remember Star Trek?  Just imagine all of the real-life inventions that have come to pass that were in those TV shows (tiny communicators, foreign language interpretation devices, stealth technology, etc.).  "Beaming ourselves up" may be a long way off for the general population, but I've been beaming myself all over the place lately, and if we keep on thinking about it, eventually it could become reality for everyone.

Life imitates art . . . art imitates life.  They kind of feed on each other.  We need to take responsibility for it.   Our continuation as the Human Species depends upon our understanding of this phenomenon.  Face it . . . someday beings from the Otherworld could manifest in our world.   So what's it gonna be, ET or Signs?  From what I am learning about Reality these days, we almost have a choice.

Anyone ever see the movie, "The Deep?"


Tisha

"As Above, So Below"

[PeacefulWarrior]

I am a bit of a film buff and I am about to go see the film (in 45 mins!) so I will post my "review" later.  

-D

fides quaerens intellectum

[PeacefulWarrior]

Overall I liked the film.  Of course it was a it dumbed down, but Shyamalan admitted this was a film for the masses.  I really enjoyed the whole struggle with faith, although I think it could have been written better the film had excellent direction and in the end did prove to be scary.

I agree with the whole notion that films such as "Signs" promote a negative view of ET life, but I think this film wa much better than say "Indepedence Day".  I can tell you one thing, it scared the heck out of my wife and sister.  hey held hands the whole time and then my wife held mine with her other hand and almost caused me to lose my circulation for the better part of the film.

Here are some critiques I got off my favorite review site,
www.rottentomatoes.com :

Shyamalan comes full circle


By Glenn Whipp
Film Critic


 


Mel Gibson, left, and Joaquin Phoenix play two brothers in "Signs."

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SIGNS

(PG-13: some frightening moments)
Starring: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan.
Running time: 1 hr. 47 min.
Playing: Wide release.  
 

Despite its "War of the Worlds" setup, M. Night Shyamalan's new movie, "Signs," is much more concerned with exploring the ideas of faith and belief than it is with alien crop circles.
The movie is a superbly constructed sci-fi thriller that falters only at the end when Shyamalan should have trusted his audience instead of grandstanding his technique.

Those put off by the funereal pace of Shyamalan's last movie, "Unbreakable," should find welcome relief in the tense "Signs." Shyamalan takes more chances here and shows that he can move beyond his fondness for uninterrupted takes into territory that gives his material room to breathe and cast its menacing spell. The biggest surprise is that the man who made "The Sixth Sense" actually has a sense of humor, which he expertly uses throughout the movie to diffuse tension and alter the mood.

You won't find any of those moments in the first 10 minutes of the movie, though. "Signs" opens with James Howard Newton's score of piercing violins, evoking Bernard Herrmann and indicating that Shyamalan aims to capture Hitchcock's magic with his new movie. Indeed, the first scenes are among the film's finest -- a series of jarring, quick-cut sequences that establishes an ominous mood right out of the box.

It seems things aren't quite right at the farm of Graham Hess (Mel Gibson). Graham, a former minister, lives in rural Pennsylvania with his two children (Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin) and his younger brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). Graham's wife was killed a few months ago in a horrible accident. As a result, Graham has renounced his faith, and although he seems calm on the surface, the man is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

So the last thing Graham needs is a crop circle in the middle of his cornfield. But that's what happens. Who left it there and whether that entity is still hanging around in the cornfield (is there a more menacing place in movies?) remains to be seen, and Shyamalan will indeed reveal all in good time. Meanwhile, what he really wants to know is whether Graham can be a good father, not to mention a functioning human being, without any kind of faith in his life.

Shyamalan again displays an uncanny ability to draw mesmerizing performances from child actors. Just as in "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable," the children here are the ones who can see and feel things that adults (in this case, the father) have forgotten. That is both a blessing and a curse, because usually these children have to go through hell in order to communicate the extraordinary to their elders.

It's a much more emotional journey than what Shyamalan has given us in his past two movies, and Gibson, stepping in for Bruce Willis, is the perfect actor to take us on the trip. Shyamalan draws upon Gibson's long- standing ability to convey wounded men seething with unexpressed rage; in this case, it's a man who can barely function because he has acknowledged all the sorrow and pain in his soul. Gibson's work is as spellbinding as anything in the movie.

Now for my one complaint. For a movie about faith, Shyamalan shows a surprising lack of confidence in his audience at the end, when it comes time to put two and two together.

Here, Shyamalan falters under the weight of his technique, and he stumbles. It's as if Shyamalan believes that he has to deliver some kind of twist -- and make sure that the audience sees it and knows it -- in order for "Signs" to be an "M. Night Shyamalan Movie."

Fact is, he's a good enough filmmaker not to need any gimmicks. But Shyamalan is going to have to realize that before his next movie, otherwise he'll have painted himself into a corner, making movies that conform to audiences' expectations and not the other way around.

An old-fashioned scary movie, one that relies on lingering terror punctuated by sudden shocks and not constant bloodshed punctuated by flying guts.
With otherworldly occurrences in farmer Mel Gibson's corn patch, "Signs" at first seems a mix of "Field of Dreams" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

But when the sun sets, M. Night Shyamalan's new thriller leans toward another farmhouse and alien movie combo. It becomes "Night of the Living Dead" meets "The War of the Worlds" (both the 1953 movie and Orson Welles' radio drama).

In short, "Signs" is an old-fashioned scary movie, one that relies on lingering terror punctuated by sudden shocks and not constant bloodshed punctuated by flying guts.

Shyamalan also borrows tricks from "The Blair Witch Project," which is ironic since that was the movie the media was buzzing about exactly three years ago when his "The Sixth Sense" blew out of nowhere to become the year's surprise hit.

Gibson plays Graham Hess, a former Episcopalian priest who lost his faith six months earlier when his wife was killed in a car accident. His brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), has moved into the family farmhouse to look after Graham and his children, Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin).

The family's overall emotional state is fragile already. The last thing they need is for crop circles to appear in their cornfield, which is how "Signs" begins.

Graham and the local deputy, Officer Paski (Cherry Jones), dismiss the crop circles as the work of pranksters. But soon similar signs appear in India, and then the rest of the world. Experts believe these are mapping devices made by an alien advance team. Everyone asks the question, "Are these E.T.s friendly or hostile?"

This worldwide panic intersects with Graham's crisis of faith. Dust on his bedroom wall shows where a crucifix used to hang. Father Hess no longer believes in God, just coincidence. "Couldn't you at least pretend to be like you used to be?" Merrill asks as the news outside grows grimmer.

Most alien invasion movies, especially "Independence Day," view their stories on a global scale. "Signs" never ventures outside Graham's rural Pennsylvania community. As he already has done with ghosts ("Sixth Sense") and superheroes ("Unbreakable"), Shyamalan treats his fantastic material realistically. He asks how an unremarkable family, already beset with ordinary problems, would react during a worldwide cataclysm.

The Hess clan watches the invasion unfold on CNN. Mysterious lights appear over Mexico City. During a boy's birthday party in Brazil, a frightening green figure is captured on home video darting across background. Meanwhile, the family dog goes mad and Morgan hears unearthly transmissions on Bo's old baby monitor.

When the invaders make their move, the family boards itself inside the farmhouse and hopes for the best. All they can do is hope, because prayer no longer is allowed.

Shyamalan weaves a terrifying atmosphere with low-angled cameras and languorous tracking shots. He uses sound effects expertly. Several times he makes the audience leap with a dog bark that's cranked up to 11.

From "Blair Witch" Shyamalan has learned to disorient viewers by turning away from the action. He focuses on a flashlight rolling along the cellar floor as the unseen monster attacks.

Shyamalan earns every scream by grounding the story in relationships and performances. In a single scene with the driver (played by Shyamalan) who killed his wife, Gibson shows more range than he usually does in an entire film. Shyamalan draws comic relief from Culkin, whose character treats the alien threat analytically. Young Breslin ethereally deadpans such dialogue as "Daddy, there's a monster outside my room. Can I have a glass of water?" and "I dreamed this."

In three films Shyamalan has developed a cinematic voice as distinctive as Spielberg's or Hitchcock's, his two clearest inspirations. While Hitchcock focused on the persecution of innocent men and Spielberg's recurring theme is the child searching for a missing parent figure, Shyamalan creates supernatural thrillers with spiritual centers.

He also has become famous for surprise endings (including "Wide Awake," which preceded "Sixth Sense"), so most people will walk into "Signs" wondering if it will end with another corker of a revelation. The safest thing to say is, "Not exactly."

With "Signs" the journey itself is more intense than the final few minutes.





A higher power
"Signs," the latest supernatural chiller from M. Night Shyamalan, shows once again he's a master of terror. But he wants to be a shaman, not just a showman.

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By Andrew O'Hehir



Aug. 2, 2002  |  M. Night Shyamalan does spooky thrills and chills better than any other Hollywood filmmaker to emerge in the last two decades. If he's not quite the legitimate heir to Alfred Hitchcock and the young Steven Spielberg that he thinks he is (and he's not, at least not yet), Shyamalan will nonetheless pack the multiplexes this weekend with hordes of eager victims ready to scream and leap from their seats for his new "Signs."


Yeah, Shyamalan knows how to scare us, all right. (Even on a scratched-up DVD from my neighborhood video store, "The Sixth Sense" had me pulling the couch cushions over my face.) And on that front "Signs" will not disappoint: We've got a wounded American family, an isolated farmhouse, a cornfield full of hieroglyphic crop circles, and some things that go bump in the night and don't seem all that friendly. Shyamalan is already a master of such tricks as odd low-angle and high-angle shots, subtly distressing details (a swing seat wobbling when there's no wind) and overly amplified ordinary sound (the woman sitting next to me squealed every time the family's German shepherd barked).



But what's scaring him? All three of Shyamalan's big-budget Hollywood movies (also including "Unbreakable") are tremendous mood pieces that build an intensely creepy atmosphere, winding the audience up to a pitch of near hysterical suspense, and then squander it all in promiscuous geysers of sentimentality and random New Age brain fog. Two things come to mind: One, Shyamalan is a clever craftsman trying to conceal the fact that he has nothing to say. Two, he's scared of God.


It wouldn't seem that both things could be true, but given that "Signs" is a movie about faith and miracles, maybe they are. This film flirts with religiosity more ardently than either "The Sixth Sense" or "Unbreakable," but finally never gets out of that pop-spirituality territory Shyamalan has made so uniquely his own. It might be a better movie if it did -- if we believed that its creator had a specifically Christian or Hindu or Muslim or, I don't know, Zoroastrian point of view from which to address the Great Questions of Existence. (It may or may not be relevant to observe that Shyamalan himself is a product of two cultures; he was born in India and raised in suburban Philadelphia, where he went to an upscale Episcopalian school.) Instead, we get vague, pseudo-universal nostrums: The world divides into two kinds of people, those who believe in coincidences and those who believe in signs.




 

Capote's 'In Cold Blood' -- in Salon's 'Masterpiece' presented by Lexus




Start your Summer Fling @ Matchmaker

 
 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Signs"

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) claims to be a member of the first group, a hardheaded realist who thinks we're all alone in a purposeless universe. He's an Episcopalian priest who abandoned his faith after his wife was killed by a dozing driver and now lives with his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) and his kids Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin) on their Pennsylvania farm.


When huge flattened circle patterns begin to appear in the Hess cornfield and thousands of other places around the world, followed rapidly by the arrival of floating lights in the sky over the major cities of the globe, we know what's coming: Graham must engage in a manly wrestling match with his inner demons and his Creator, and we're trapped in a remake of about seven sci-fi movies at once. The central narrative mystery of "Signs," rather disappointingly, isn't the question of who's behind the crop circles (that becomes clear pretty fast) but of whether Graham will recover his faith, learn to love life again, and weep masculine tears while hugging his children. (You get one guess.)


The wholesale homage to earlier films found in "Signs" is a new and not necessarily welcome development in Shyamalan's work. Those viewers who notice how much of the movie is imported from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Night of the Living Dead," "War of the Worlds," "Poltergeist" and "The Birds" (not to mention "Field of Dreams") may find themselves distracted from the things in it that actually work.


Shyamalan has a justified reputation as a fine director of actors, and he gets a fresh performance from Gibson here as a reticent, depressed widower whose love for his family is nearly matched by his bitterness; the star's trademark twinkle and action-hero mannerisms are largely absent. As in "The Sixth Sense," the director has a distinctive feel for the terrors of childhood. Culkin is the movie's linchpin as Morgan, the first member of the family to understand what's about to happen to them, and when Breslin, an unsettling little cherub, is onscreen you can't keep your eyes off her.


For the first half-hour or so, the story is brilliantly handled, even if almost all its elements belong to the American-nightmare back catalog of Spielberg and Stephen King. When Gibson chases a mysterious intruder through the 9-foot corn stalks, the ground mist, strange chattering noises, and half-glimpsed maybe-critters will have you hopping like a caffeinated bunny rabbit. There's also an unstable comic undercurrent to the film that sometimes clicks, as when Morgan persuades both his sister and his uncle to wear aluminum-foil hats that make them look like overgrown Hershey's Kisses, "so the aliens can't read our minds."


But good as Shyamalan is at atmosphere and extracting downbeat performances from stars, he's fatally weak when it comes to pacing and expository dialogue. We seem to go in a matter of minutes from bizarre signals coming in on a leftover baby monitor Morgan is using as a walkie-talkie (a Spielberg-King device if I've ever seen one) to a full-on attack of the Green Uglies. Shyamalan can offer nothing to convey the sense of worldwide calamity except some badly simulated TV news coverage that suggests he hasn't watched CNN since at least the Gulf War.


I shouldn't get specific about what actually happens in the latter stages of "Signs," except that the family locks itself in the basement while the Whoevers try to get in, as in any number of previous horror films, and that there's a lot of flatulent talk about prayer and miracles. (Graham swears he no longer believes in them, although of course his laconic brother -- well played by Phoenix as a good-natured, washed-up ballplayer -- knows better, as do we.) And that when it comes right down to it I've seen better costumes at office Halloween parties.


Shyamalan's title is itself an overly labored double-entendre. The crop circles are apparently road signs meant for the arriving spaceships, but the word also has a specific meaning in Christian eschatology: Signs can be miracles to show that God loves us, or indications that the End is at hand. Once again, the filmmaker gets incredibly wobbly at the end of his story, and his resolution of both the alien incursion and of Graham's crisis of faith feels more like a cheap trick than the product of a genuine belief in anything at all. Shyamalan is a considerable talent, but he's become too powerful too young. The sign I discern hanging over his career at the moment reads Wrong Way.



salon.com

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Andrew O'Hehir is the editor of Salon Arts & Entertainment.

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fides quaerens intellectum

[Nate]

Signs was one of the coolest movies in the history of ever!! I thought it'd be more like the mothman prophecies where you don't actually see the aliens, but man do you see aliens. The ending made me proud to be a primate. Not that that takes much...but anyway watch this movie!! taaa!!

-Nate

Do you have any idea how BORING immortality can get?! -Defalco