The Lady in the Wa-Wa
Yes, I'm on vacation, down the Jersey Shore, amidst a most oppressive heat-wave, but home temporarily on some business. I spent a couple hours in an icy theater watching "The Lady in the Water" because my daughter wanted to see it and I liked Sixth Sense and didn't think The Village was completely awful.
I'm really not sure what the movie is about, but the story has a representative of the water people visiting the land people in an apartment complex in Philadelphia via its swimming pool. The water people are called "narfs" which is a cute word which sounds like "nymphs" and they are terrorized when out of the water by wolf-like creatures made of grass called "scrunts" which is not a cute name but sounds like a half-heartedly concealed frat-house pejorative for insufficiently fun coeds. Somehow, the narf is supposed to save humanity by breaking some slacker's writer's block.
The film's star, Paul Giamatti, deserves all our admiration for gamely putting all he had into this performance while surely knowing the entire enterprize would be instantly forgotten. The narf is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who appears to be the victim of an unfortunate type of assortative mating. But about M. Night Shyamalan, we can only hope that one day he hears the words of St. Paul: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.
I'm really not sure what the movie is about, but the story has a representative of the water people visiting the land people in an apartment complex in Philadelphia via its swimming pool. The water people are called "narfs" which is a cute word which sounds like "nymphs" and they are terrorized when out of the water by wolf-like creatures made of grass called "scrunts" which is not a cute name but sounds like a half-heartedly concealed frat-house pejorative for insufficiently fun coeds. Somehow, the narf is supposed to save humanity by breaking some slacker's writer's block.
The film's star, Paul Giamatti, deserves all our admiration for gamely putting all he had into this performance while surely knowing the entire enterprize would be instantly forgotten. The narf is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who appears to be the victim of an unfortunate type of assortative mating. But about M. Night Shyamalan, we can only hope that one day he hears the words of St. Paul: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.
posted by ziel | 8/02/2006 01:11:00 PM
7 Comments:
You quoting of St. Paul there reminded me of a truth that has become more and more obvious to me over the years..............the Bible, and some words of Shakesphere are SO bone-true, that hearing them sometimes literally makes you pause, blush, and exhale.
Some of the verses in Proverbs............
"a fool and his money are soon parted" will be true eons from now. Its a shame that a historical document that shaped a religion that so influenced the West is not studied in public schools because of ACLU-mongered court decisions. Yet another advantage for private schools (as if they needed it).
I was intrigued the Six Sense, and enjoyed watching the ending where all the evidence that had been put before your eyes were replayed. It made me want to rent the movie and spot where I'd been fooled. M.N.S. has seemingly gotten himself into a rut of attempting to trick audiences with twist plots ever since. Perhaps the guy should just shoot a straight love story, expose', action flick, or drama. No supernatural elements to be contained. He might find it liberating and "find his muse" once again. He's a smart guy, or seems so in interviews. He's attempting to be "too cute" for his audience. Sort of like an offensive coordinator in football who calls several plays trying to set up one particular play for a touchdown when he has a superior offensive line and could be running the old standard plays with success, but would rather hear the announcers speak of "oh what a great call" when he watches the game replay that he is taping at home.
Yes I think it's time to put away the junior high sketchbook and maybe take on someone else's material. Not a bad idea.
Ziel, thanks for the warning, I think I´ll pass on this one. I really dug The Village and 6th Sense of course.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown, the dream is gone
What about the lady in the Wa-Wa??
...I have become comfortably numb.
Well that's not possible watching this movie - it's filled with jarring scenes, mostly centering around the scrunt - but since you just can't get into the story, such scenes are just unsettling rather than spine-tingling.
My only encounter with a potential scrunt was in the water, Cranford Pool one dark, late night if I recall correctly. Turned out she wasn't quite scrunty enough.
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