I Can't Swim...

For those reasons..I would never be able to do this movie. I found myself even being a bit, excuse my lameness here but "squirmy," during one of the underwater scenes. So, sometime over the summer I went and saw the movie "Lady in the Water," with Robyn. We actually went and saw "The Village," in 2004 together and she hated it and I came out of it with mixed feelings. Rewatching it at home I like it, but don't love it. I think it has grown on her as well from seeing it on HBO. She should leave a comment and let me know..I can remember her telling me something about it and how she always watches it but I can't remember what exactly it was she said..that's besides the point. We went and saw....

"Lady in the Water (2006)"

The outcome? I liked it, but thought it had a lot of problems. She liked it a lot, maybz she thought it had problems too, but she really liked it. She was even saying how she liked the score..which..I don't think I would've ever imagined her saying..but that's a different story. "Lady in the Water," is a fantasy/comedy/family movie about a Apartment Complex superintendant (played by Paul Giamatti,) who one night finds this woman named Story in the pool (played by Bryce Dallas Howard.) We then learn that she's a character from a bedtime story and he tries to help her get back to her homeworld while these animals try to kill her. Also she is trying to help save the human race. She has to talk a certain person and make sure something is done..I can't 100% remember EXACTLY what the plot was but that's the basic drift.

Paul Giamatti is great in the movie, I love Giamatti. My only problem was I found myself constantly thinking of "Pig Vomit," from "Private Parts." Dunno..just kept making me laugh. Bryce Dallas Howard is alright too. It's really the rest of the cast that is mediocre..there's a couple of apartment renters that you get to know. A chinese family, a mother and daughter. A guy who's only lifting weights on one side of his body. A dude who likes to do puzzels, a book author and his wife and finally the newest one a movie critic. The bodybuilder guy is O'Kay..the rest of them, so/so.

Here's what bugs me...and it has to do with the two chinese idiots in the flick: Giamatti goes to them to learn the whole "Bed time story," and she won't tell him unless he acts like a kid. This is funny at first but it carries on for way to long, and he visits the chinese family like 3 times to hear the story, a different part each time..it just gets ANNOYING. You're gonna tell me that this is the only way he can figure out about this shit? -Thinks.- How about this wonderful thing invented by the military known as the Intraweb? Or the fucking LIBRARY. I was really not happy with the way they handled the "unraveling," of the story.

Another complaint? It's minor..Shyamalan isn't a GREAT actor but I also don't think he's a terrible actor like everyone says he is. He usually only puts himself in somewhat small/minor roles but in this one he plays a big character and it works..but it also doesn't. I don't know, Shyamalan should stick to directing and not acting.

Almost everywhere I go to read about this movie a majority of the people hated it, which is a shame because the movie as usual was marketed TOTALLY WRONG. Everyone markets a M. Night Shyamalan flick like it's a horror. This movie had one jump scene in it...It was more of a sci-fi/fantasy/comedy/family film. I do think Shyamalans writing has gone downhill a bit more with each film, maybe he shouldn't write his next flick..He is a very creative guy though, I give him credit alone for doing something original.

Finally...the score is awesome, like always. Shyamalan always gets James Newton Howard to score his flicks and the scores are almost always completely amazing...

Also: I had a problem with the poster I used in the beginning of the post before the movie came out because I felt it didn't explain the plot much..buch after seeing the movie I've come to like that one much better then the other poster that you can see here. That blue one is nice but..it feels ugly to me and everything is jammed in there, it just feels messy to me..Back to the movie.

So what am I getting at? I like Shyamalan and MOST of his work and I liked it...most people didn't. If I had to give it a numerical rating I would give it a three and a half out of five. If you're into movies, check it out..just for the hell of it. It may suprise you..

IMDB link for "Lady in the Water."

Coming soon: If I had more people who read this I would let you all choose what I would post next..but here's what I have mentally "backlogged." "The Ringer," "Bad News Bears (2005)", "The Godfather," "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and "Domino." The smart thing would've been to write reviews at the time and just post it later but, I'm a moron..so. Wow, after re-reading this I made a lot of factual screw-ups including the wrong year for the release of "Lady in the Water," which I just saw about a month and a half ago.. All fixed now..