M. Night on The Daily Show:

The train wreck unfolds: Manoj Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water got reviews literally calling him mentally ill and questioning his sanity, very Howard Hughes. The movie opened to weak box office. Though The Sixth Sense was as wonderful as The Usual Suspects, Shyamalan, like Bryan Singer, hasn’t equaled it since.

… the latest [film] from… M. Night Shyamalan… bombed… The performances of Pirates and Lady in the Water represent a double victory for Disney, which chose not to release Lady in the Water after distributing Shyamalan’s previous three big movies…

Shyamalan’s last movie, The Village, opened to $50 million in 2004 and stalled at $114 million — half of what 2002’s Signs finished with. Shyamalan’s 1999 breakthrough, The Sixth Sense, earned $293.5 million…

The New York Post described Shyamalan as “a crackpot with a messianic delusions.” Even his hometown newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, said the movie was “extremely silly…” [Link]

I’m not a fan of Shyamalan’s slow-paced style. Although I loved his sophomore effort Praying With Anger, I haven’t seen any of his movies after the torpid Unbreakable. But he’s got balls, and I love the breadth of his vision. I will go see Lady in the Water, which appeals to me more than the blurbs for The Village and Signs.

It takes testicular fortitude to write yourself as a savior of Story (homage to Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories?) and mankind; to tear the head off a film critic character, a big fuck-you to the establishment and a likely explanation for the vicious reviews and low Tomatometer rating (20% positive — ouch!); to simultaneously release a children’s book with the same story and a tell-all book which flips off your former studio; to do a mockumentary promoting a prior work.

The movie’s Giant Eagle critter sounds like a stinker, like the monster in Rushdie’s justly forgotten first novel Grimus, but Shyamalan comes across as entirely sane in this Daily Show clip. Unless he’s suffering from Hughes-like schizophrenia, the critical trashing speaks more to hubris than actual mental instability. And just for the record, crit-lickers, it would be a Krishna complex, not Christ.

Shyamalan put himself in the trailer with Sarita Choudhury in an all-desi scene. He wears the same hairstyle, necklace, dress shirt and jacket getup on TV as in the AmEx commercial, which either means the makeover was dictated by a PR agency, or he just likes what he likes.

There were some great exchanges on The Daily Show: ‘paradigm shift sounds much better than twist ending’ — the debater in me thrills. And ‘That’s it? I was hoping you had demons, dude.’ Shyamalan’s interview became one of the first big desi American TV clips after Mohini Bhardwaj. Well-spoken with an American accent, he helps obliterate Apu of The Simpsons. And the first big movie about the desi American experience, The Namesake, comes out shortly. It’s a big year. Sadly, Shyamalan still can’t get the voice talent anywhere — in his trailer or on TV — to pronounce his name right.

Even a below-average film from Shyamalan will ride his name recognition, and many will go just to see what the fuss is all about. My prediction: the flick will do steady business over time, confirming the impotence of the critics. They see only arrogance when Shyamalan and Mira Nair pass on directing a Harry Potter, and for much the same reason. Ironically, creative merit doesn’t figure in their calculations.

Check out The Daily Show’s ‘paradigm shift’ ending:

And this Shyamalan interview by the Movie Guy:

Sepia Mutiny has more.