When M. Night Shyamalan pitched his idea for Lady in the Water to Disney executives, he was rejected. But rather than react with a dose of humility and go back to the drawing board, Shyamalan simply went elsewhere. Luckily for us (or not), his vision reached the screens and became one of any director’s biggest self-tributes ever put on film. But other than watching a filmmaker proudly pat himself on the back for two hours, is there anything worth remembering Lady in the Water for?

Absolutely. Were it not for this arrogant bunch of baloney, we would not have been graced with the power and beauty of James Newton Howard’s score. Ever since he began his collaboration with Shyamalan for The Sixth Sense, Howard has delivered stronger and stronger work for Shyamalan’s crappier and crappier films. The score for Lady in the Water is perhaps Howard at his peak; even if the music struggles in vain to make the film seem decent, its mere presence lends it some credibility that skyrockets when you do away with the images entirely.

Lady in the Water tells the story of Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti), a quiet caretaker at an apartment complex filled with annoyingly colorful characters (a guy who only exercises one arm, a loud Asian woman and her mother, a film critic that everyone hates, etc.) His boring everyday life suddenly gets turned on its head when a mysterious woman named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) enters his life. She’s not of this world, and has come to deliver an important message to someone in the building. Only there are evil forces at work determined to destroy her, and it is up to Cleveland to make sure she succeeds.

I could try and explain all the mythos in the film, but it would take too much effort to think about it. And aside from coming up with funny creature names like scrunt and narf, I don’t think Shyamalan thought much about it either. The film was inspired by a bedtime story he told his children, and it shows – the whole film operates on a “and then this happened!” kind of way. Whenever Cleveland and Story face a problem, a character miraculously appears in the next scene with a solution. The eye-rolls become even worse when Shyamalan himself appears in the film as the most important person ever (something he did with a greater sense of restraint in both Signs and The Village.)

In the context of the film, Howard’s score sometimes threatens to overwhelm. It’s a constantly flowing piece of dark fantasy, with a chanting choir and a mysterious tinkling Celeste. It adds a touch of magic in a film that’s not all that magical, save for the badly-rendered evil creatures and a few more-than-coincidental parallels to The Little Mermaid (I mean come on! When you’ve got red-headed Bryce Dallas Howard as a woman who lives in the water, DON’T give her an underwater treasure trove filled with things she’s collected from the surface!)

The full impact of the score is felt in the finale, where Howard works as hard as he can to make things seem exciting. The final five minutes may be the least thrilling “escape from the bad guys” sequence ever seen; after all, Cleveland and Story more or less stand in one place and shout while the other characters move around them in slow-motion. But the music is thumping with intensity and suspense. Again, it veers on the edge of overwhelming the decidedly low-key action on screen. But hey, it’s the finale of an M. Night Shyamalan movie – shouldn’t we be on the edge of our seats? In Lady in the Water, it’s pretty much up to the score to put us there.

It’s hard to appreciate Howard’s work until the music is listened to on its own. Once you’ve gotten rid of the ridiculous action onscreen, the sheer brilliance and complexity of the music starts to unfurl. Magical and mysterious, the score as represented on CD turns Lady in the Water into the dark fairy tale it could never be onscreen. The cue for the finale, “The Great Eatlon,” is nothing short of miraculous. The swirling strings and wailing choir make your hair stand on end. The music alone creates a sense of suspense and tension that the film fails at, and is an absolute masterpiece. Howard has always been a strong action composer, and he’s in top-notch form here. It would be difficult to pin a composer down to any single cue that best represents their work, but “The Great Eatlon” should live on as exactly that.

James Newton Howard’s score for Lady in the Water deserves a far better movie than it got, and the soundtrack is a must for film score fans. Even the shoddy, downright embarrassing Dylan covers at the end of the CD cannot diminish its greatness. Regardless of whether Shyamalan ever makes a decent movie again (I’m still trying to figure out if he meant for The Happening to be as funny as it is,) we can take comfort in knowing that no matter how idiotic the script or how hammy the acting, the music will be fantastic.

Forgive me if my mind is somewhere else today. It is difficult to select new releases to recommend when I have recently received word that Bruce Campbell, The Chin himself, will be coming to the Twin Cities for the opening of My Name is Bruce. Which means I will get to meet him. This, along with meeting the Coen Brothers a few weeks ago, really makes me so much cooler then any of you. In my mind.

Anyways, it is slim pickings once again for DVD releases on Tuesday. I’m tempted to pick The Happening, which I actually did enjoy, but decided I’d pick a film I wanted to see but only had a split-second release in theaters. That movie being Boy A.

For theatrical releases it seems as if somewhere close to two dozen films are being released this weekend. While Flash of Genius, Appaloosa, Religulous and A Girl Cut in Two all look interesting enough for me to watch at some point, this week I am recommending a movie that I have already seen, enjoyed quite a bit and am quite confident most people will not like at all because nothing really happens in it. This movie is better known as Blindness.

As always trailers are after the break!

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Seeing Cormac McCarthy’s The Road at the top of the list for Entertainment Weekly’s The New Classics: The 100 Best Reads from 1983 to 2008 fascinates me. The 2006 book deserves all of the praise and attention it’s received since publication. Even Oprah Winfrey got it right for once when she ordered her minions to read The Road for her book club.

The Road tells the story of a father and son as they wander through an ash covered, post-apocalyptic America. McCarthy’s 2005 book No Country for Old Men – known better as a Coen brothers movie than a McCarthy novel – reads in hindsight like an appetizer for The Road. In the former book, McCarthy slowly dissects the American Dream and reveals the unpleasant possibility that it’s coming to an end, whereas in the latter book, he destroys America and shows us the possibility of what comes next. And what does come next? Well, a lot of despair, darkness and pain. Make no mistake about it, The Road is bleak; which is just fine for McCarthy, a writer who is notorious for never quite giving readers what they expect and want. For instance, outside of a “long shear of light and then a series of low concussions”, it is not clear in the book what caused the devastation. But really, it isn’t important what really happened – this is a journey story, one of survival.

More importantly, The Road is part of an interesting 21st century trend towards end of the world stories. (more…)

DVD releases take a bit of a fall compared to last weeks bonanza of films. Be Kind, Rewind is the big release but I’m not all that excited to buy it. The only movie that I find even interesting is Russel Mulcahy’s The Sitter. Sure it’s a terrible made for TV movie that rips off The Hand that Rocks the Cradle but it is Russell Mulcahy. Expect crazy camera work and barely sensible plotting to follow. Awesome.

But the big DVD release that I am unfortunately excited for is the release of the complete series of Galaxy High. Galaxy High is a ridiculous cartoon from 1986 that I absolutely loved when I was growing up. It’s about two Earth kids who are whisked away to go to an intergalactic high school where they have all sorts of wacky adventures and hijinks. Trust me, it’s totally awesome. And it has one of my favorite TV intro songs ever. Sure it doesn’t top Misfits of Science, but nothing will.

As for film releases the two big ones are The Incredible Hulk and The Happening. I have little interest in The Incredible Hulk, but I am pretty excited for The Happening. I’m probably one of the only remaining M. Night fanboys left on the planet, so take my excitement with a grain of salt.

For smaller releases their really isn’t much I am interested in. I may go see The Promotion, but I am more then a little bitter that it is replacing Stuck, which was one of the better movies released so far this year, but unfortunately it only had about 100 people see it all of last week. Boo!

As always trailers are after the break!

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