Its fascinating to watch and observe the fights critics and fans/moviegoers are having over the latest movie (Lady in the Water) from Manoj. Sounds a wee bit weird to start off with Manoj and not with Night or M. Night or just Shyamalan. Who knows why he doesn’t prefer to be called what he was supposed to be called.
Well – what’s in a name – as long as you are good at what you do.
There are distinctively 2 camps of people – he would say – in this world. Those who can see dead people and those who cannot – just kidding
Rather – those who like him and those who despise him – and I don’t mean like – ‘hey I don’t like the movies he make’ over a cup of tea kinda hate – but like ‘hey I’ll suck his blood dry’ hate. I don’t know – I like his movies – though I haven’t seen Signs – but the other 3 were nice and watchable films. People don’t usually have any problem with Sixth Sense – so let’s leave that out – but Unbreakable and The Village were not completely trash and were actually, quite enjoyable. His way of story telling is kind of weird and, I must say, unique – which might be a reason critics absolutely love to hate him. After Sixth Sense, they all compared him to the next Spielberg – so he did have the bars raised pretty high for him. I must say, though, that he is one of the very few in the industry today who has had 4 movies in a row that had some ripple or the other.
For Lady in the water, it’s a pretty much split decision. IMDB, where reviews are by readers have a much higher rating than Rotten Tomatoes – which tracks the professional movie critics – so early indications are that there is a huge divide b/w the critics and the end user – well - numbers will tell who’s right – as for me – I would be going to see it soon – and will write about what I saw.
