I also see good movies Tom Smith

The critics are jumping all over Night Shyamalan and his latest flick, Lady in the Water.  Finally, an articulate defense.  Who cares if the guy is pretentious, narcissistic, self-obsessed and vain?  This is the movies.  If you are looking for moral exemplars in movie directors, you have other issues that need to be dealt with.  I will come right out and say it.  Signs is a terrific movie.  I think it is a near-masterpiece.  I have watched it maybe a dozen time.  My kids say, oh no, Dad is watching signs again.  I’ve studied it.  To begin with, it is misunderstood.  It is not science fiction.  It not even horror.  It is a ghost story, and it follows the conventions of supernatural fiction with meticulous care and great seriousness.  Its pseudo-profundity is part of that genre and entirely appropriate.  Critics probably hate it as much as anything for its vague Christianity or at least theism.  Of the many things I like about the movie is the extreme economy of its exposition.  It only looks easy to tell a fairly complicated story, using flashbacks and other such techniques, so efficiently.

Yes, the Village was somewhat disappointing.  It lacked dramatic drive and tension.  But it was still interesting for the most part, and was visually gorgeous in as far as I could tell, an entirely original way.  What other movie looked like it?

I think the guy deserves a break.  He is trying to do something difficult, which is to tell spiritual tales in an age that wants Dead Man’s Chest, a quite enjoyable, but seriously, pretty dreadful movie in many respects.