'Lady' is a bore

M. Night Shyamalan is one pretentious son of a bitch, and his latest film, "Lady in the Water," sucks.\nThere, I said it. \nThat was hard for me. I am, admittedly, an M Night Shyamalaniac. I thought "The Sixth Sense" was entertaining. I enjoyed "Unbreakable" and "Signs." I even thought "The Village" was pretty boss. \nBut sometimes things go too far. You trust someone to make a decent film, you welcome the guy into your home and readily defend his more questionable titles to people you assume are small-minded assholes. And the next thing you know there's money missing from the dresser and your daughter's knocked up; your trust has been abused. \nSo, on to the informative back-story. The concept for "Lady in the Water" was apparently born out of a bedtime story Shyamalan made up for his kids. He riffed extensively on it, tried to pitch it to Disney (the studio that produced all of his other movies), got pissed when they recognized it as a bad film option and took it to Warner Brothers.\nI'm not saying that "Lady in the Water" wouldn't make a good bedtime story, but you have to consider your audience. You could probably read tax code to your children at night to make them fall asleep, because they're more interested in your presence and company. The average viewer, on the other hand, doesn't want to snuggle with Shyamalan, and expects him to at least try to fill the gaping plot holes left in his imagination. \nHe doesn't. \nInstead, he spent a lot of money to make a film about a sea nymph (Bryce Dallas Howard) who shows up in Paul Giamatti's apartment building pool. The absurd folklore built up around her about wolf demons (gotta have an antagonist) and law-keeping apes roughly amounts to some half-baked bullshit about self worth sprinkled with fleeting references to progressive politics, and it gets old real quick.\nAnd just in case you're bored and disappointed with "Lady in the Water" before it's over, Shyamalan actually cast himself in a supporting role as a writer whose work won't be appreciated until he's passed on. I'm dead fucking serious. Maybe he wrote and added himself at the last minute as a get-out-of-jail-free card so popular opinion and common sense would lay off his piss-poor movie. Or maybe self-vindication is something he's into. \nAnyway, I trusted you, Night. I was on board. But apparently, all of my support and praise went right to your head, and you shat out something that I'm convinced will contend for the title of "biggest disappointment of the year." \n"Lady in the Water" sucks. And M Night Shyamalan is a pretentious son of a bitch. Don't see it.