M. Night Shyamalan's Snap Judgment

Well, the studios have finally popped their heads out from under their blankets to see if the scary Pirate's still there, and that means a whopping four actual movies with which I must dispense. So let's get the dispensing started, shall we?



Lady in the Water (fantasy, sort of, I guess, rated PG-13, written/directed by M. Night Shyamalan)

Yeah, I had to use this poster, even though it's an older one, because of the sheer awesomeness of "A BEDTIME STORY WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN." You know why it's awesome? Because I totally bet this poster is not the first time he's used that. I bet when M. Night sits down on his kids' beds to tell them stories every night, he uses the exact same phrasing ("Hey Saleka, are you tucked in with your teeth brushed yet? Want to hear a bedtime story WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN?"). I bet his bedtime stories have digital surround sound, murky opening credits, and surgically precise ad campaigns. And before the kids can even hear them, they have to sit through crazy schizophrenic Sprite ads and trailers for John Tucker Must Die. Also, if Saleka walks down the hall and reveals to her sister the shocking twist ending to the bedtime story ("...and they all lived happily ever after!"), then that kid is OUT OF THE FUCKING FAMILY! But come to think of it, I do wonder what kind of bedtime stories Ron Howard told his daughter when she was of a young impressionable age. I would've thought he'd told her the one where the up-and-coming actress hitches her star to the hottest up-and-coming director so the two of them can share in the joy of killer box office and stupendous paychecks, but instead he seems to have told her the story about the up-and-coming actress signing on to the first really shitty movie by said up-and-coming director, then being lured into an even shittier one with the promise of top billing and a permanent space in the hearts of all mermaid fetishists. Oh, and Paul Giamatti? Well, I'm guessing his excuse is that he saw The Sixth Sense, fell into a 6-year long coma, and was finally awoken by a call from his agent offering him the lead in the new Shyamalan movie. "Holy shit, the I-see-dead-people dude? I'm so fucking there!" Apparently his stupor lasted long enough to film the entire movie and do publicity for it, but I have to assume that if nothing else, this story should alert him to the fact that it's a long time since 1999.



Clerks II (comedy, rated R, written/directed by Kevin Smith)

I kind of have nothing to say about this, except that I do remember a time when you had to be fairly hip to even know who Kevin Smith was. But it's not like I was one of the first people to see Clerks at Sundance or anything, so I can't really play the in-on-the-ground-floor card here. I saw it on video, in a friend's dorm room, sometime in late 1996. Naturally, I thought it was genius. By now I'm more of the mind that Kevin Smith's career is genius, since he's been able to elevate himself to the status of a sort of dick-joke Hitchcock, wherein his personality alone sells the movies. Really, he's got the status that Indian-Pennsylvanian fellow we were talking about before wishes he had and probably could have if he didn't keep shooting himself in the foot.



Monster House (animated, rated PG, directed by Gil Kenan, written by Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, Pamela Pettler)

Oddly enough, I hear this is really good. And I say "oddly enough" because right smack dab in the middle of the poster are the words "Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis present...", and in this day and age that's bound to make anyone a bit suspicious. Sure, in the 80's, if Spielberg made a movie it was E.T. or Indiana Jones and if he "presented" a movie it was Goonies or Back to the Future. These days, he's fighting an uphill battle to throw enough Minority Reports and Munichs out there so no one notices that (seriously) he's a producer on Transformers. And Zemeckis? Well, he was last seen basking in his coup of making Harrison Ford into a psycho killer (and SHOWING THAT TWIST IN THE FREAKING TRAILER), then moving on to turn one of my beloved childhood books into some kind of bizarre digitized robot freakshow. So, to sum up, if this movie came out 20 years ago, the words "Spielberg and Zemeckis Present" would be enough to sell out the opening weekend even if it turned out to be a documentary on pink highlighter ink. Today it's a harder sell. However, no matter who's attached to it (or who's putting their names on it in return for being owed a lifetime of favors up to and including a kidney), it is a movie about a living house terrorizing some kids. And that sounds kind of cool.



My Super Ex-Girlfriend (comedy, rated PG-13, directed by Ivan Reitman, written by Don Payne)

Yeah, I don't blame Uma for smashing that car with her foot. I'm guessing she was promised Owen Wilson, then showed up to set to find the inferior one waiting for her with a copy of her binding contract. He's just lucky she didn't have any leftover Hattori Hanzo swords handy. Could've gotten ugly.