Movie Review: I Origins (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

There's no way around it. I Origins is one of the worst films I've seen all year and maybe even ever. Worse yet, it isn't even so bad it's good. As nicely acted as it is, the new-agey romance is excruciating to sit through. It's one thing for I Origins to be hokey. That's not often my bag when it comes to romances. But frankly, I expected more from the team of writer-director Mike Cahill and actress Brit Marling, who last collaborated on the well-received Another Earth. That's one I hadn't yet caught up with and now, I'm not so sure I want to.

Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

Its poor box office returns are by no means an indication of the quality of How to Train Your Dragon 2, a worthy sequel to its high-flying predecessor. Like the first, this follow-up is the rare movie actually worth seeing in 3D because of its plenitude of dynamic point-of-view shots. You're continuously immersed in the action, often seeing things from the same vantage point as Dragon's underdog hero, one-legged Hiccup (Jay Baruchel). Hiccup is the resourceful dragon rider of Toothless, a rare Night Fury with his own handicap in the form of a mutilated tail.

Movie Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

Unless you're one of the multitude of Wes Anderson detractors—I lump these in with critics of directors like Tim Burton, the Coens and other filmmakers who mistake their unique, oddball aesthetics, clarity of vision, and consistency for laziness and a failure to evolve—then you probably subscribe to the idea that there are no bad Anderson films, just lesser ones. (This was sort of my answer to a recent poll inquiring about the best/worst Anderson films.) In fact, though I'm partial to The Royal Tenenbaums myself, The Grand Budapest Hotel might possibly be even better than that. It will take some time to fully grasp whether that's really the case or not. But it's really an argument of degrees, isn't it? This is to say that The Grand Budapest Hotel is a refinement of what Wes Anderson has always focused on in his films.

Warner Bros.' Big Plans for The Wizard of Oz's 75th Anniversary

by Tony Dayoub

Fans who were left unsatisfied by the recent prequel to The Wizard of Oz will find cause to celebrate as my friends over at Warner Bros. inform me of their big plans for its 75th anniversary. A new 3D remastered version of the film is the basis for numerous cross-promotional ties, including

• a one-week theatrical run in IMAX 3D starting September 20th
• a five-disc, limited Collector’s Edition debuting on October 1, a set that will include Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD and UltraViolet versions of the film, a new documentary, "The Making of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," bonus features and premium collectibles
• three other editions which will also contain the new documentary and extra content: a two-disc 3D/Blu-ray, a one-disc Blu-ray and a two-disc DVD

Not Your Father's Camelot

More than thirty years after its theatrical release, John Boorman’s Excalibur is still an outrageously galvanic depiction of Arthurian legend

by Tony Dayoub

"...Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha. Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha..."

- Merlin, reciting the charm of making

On the occasion of director John Boorman's 80th birthday, I call attention to my personal favorite of his films. Boorman's bloody, erotic, violent and ultimately enchanting Excalibur (1981) is the definitive motion picture version of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. There have been many notable film adaptations, each focusing on a different aspect of the legend: Knights of the Round Table (1953) centers on the friendship between Arthur and his best knight, Lancelot of the Lake; Disney's animated The Sword in the Stone (1963) adapts the T.H. White version of the story, a humorous look at Arthur's magical upbringing by the wizard Merlin and the events leading to Arthur's coronation; and 1967's Camelot (adapted from the musical of the same name) riffs on White's later stories about the love triangle between Arthur, Lancelot, and Queen Guenevere. Excalibur's strength lies in the way its story, told in a short 140 minutes, encompasses all of the other films' themes while still introducing its own central motif. Boorman's film most resembles Knights of the Round Table because both share Malory's tale as a primary source; such iconic imagery as a meeting of the knights at Stonehenge, or a floating, shimmering Holy Grail appearing in a vision to the brave knight Perceval (Paul Geoffrey in Boorman’s version) are important to both films. Excalibur also integrates the playful relationship between Arthur (Nigel Terry) and his mystical mentor central to Sword in the Stone, and the idea of the king's betrayal by his closest loved ones as the root cause for the kingdom's destruction (as touched upon in Camelot). Yet Boorman also brings an auteurial component missing from previous filmic endeavors.

Movie Review: Red Riding Hood (2011)

by Tony Dayoub

Red Riding Hood, Catherine Hardwicke's uninspired take on the traditional werewolf tale (by way of the Brothers Grimm and Twilight) reminds me of those Syfy Original Movies which play round the clock on Saturdays. They are usually designed to capitalize on something familiar, like the recent Tin Man miniseries, a sci-fi twist on The Wizard of Oz. Their cast is usually an odd mix of fresh faces, has-beens, and character actors culled from Syfy's own original series. And the movies are often set in one barely adequate-looking studio set made to look even cheaper by the inclusion of horrible CGI effects work.

Excalibur: 30 Years Later, at Nomad Editions Wide Screen

by Tony Dayoub

"...Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha. Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha..."

- Merlin, reciting the charm of making

Today, I discuss one of my personal all-time favorites, John Boorman's Excalibur (1981) over at Wide Screen. It's a film I never get tired of watching, and the gorgeous new HD transfer on this week's Blu-ray release ensures all will enjoy it for years to come.

CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN

Movie Review: Clash of the Titans (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

Why revisit a great movie when there are so many lesser movies that could be improved by a remake? Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans is a huge improvement on its predecessor. And let's be honest, whatever feelings of nostalgia get stirred up when thinking of Ray Harryhausen's 1981 version, the designation of "classic" hardly applies. The acting in that one is wooden even by fantasy genre standards, with Laurence Olivier slumming as Zeus (no doubt after Alec Guinness' appearance in Star Wars made such a thing acceptable) and Siân Phillips generously wearing a permanent grimace on her face in order to not outdo the stiff Judi Bowker who plays her daughter. Concessions to the trends in fantasy at the time—like the requisite robot sidekick, in this case a metallic owl named Bubo—only served to highlight the great expanse between Harryhausen's increasingly antiquated effects technology and the ILM visual FX burgeoning at the time. Eight-years-old at the time, I saw the original on opening day in 1981 and recall it fondly much less for its story or visuals than for its two scenes of gratuitous nudity (not unusual in a PG-rated film back then). Ironically, today's political climate allows Titans to retain a PG-13 rating by eschewing the nudity but amping up the violence.

Movie Review: Avatar (2009)

by Tony Dayoub

Okay. It's not that Avatar should be ranked on any end-of-the-year "best" lists, to be sure. But I had such a fun time falling into James Cameron's fantasy, I can't deny how enjoyable it is. Is it a landmark achievement in filmmaking? I think so. But the problem lies in whether it will feel like such twenty years from now, when this technology will feel commonplace, or worse yet, outdated.

A former visual effects cinematographer, Cameron has a natural inclination towards spectacle. What I also give him credit for is using his vast wealth to fund the R & D for not just his own pet projects, but projects that will help the medium itself move forward . Avatar, its fairly evident, is just such a project. In one scene, where hero Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has gotten lost in the woods of planet Pandora, he meets Neytiri (Zoë Saldana), one of the warrior natives known as the Na'vi. The scene is one that immerses both the viewer and our proxy Jake in the engrossing environs of the Na'vi's planet. Its CGI world simultaneously feels artificial and alive. Everything from the flora to the fauna to the heroes that populate its world have an organic relation to each other, their sympathetic bioluminescence serving as the vehicle for this holistic harmony.

I saw the film in 3-D, and to see it any other way is to lose a crucial part of the story. The paraplegic Jake, a former marine, is tempted into taking part in an experimental exercise by the opportunity to experience the use of legs again after he transfers his persona into a human/Na'vi hybrid avatar. Cameron wisely uses restraint with the 3-D, generally avoiding the in-your-face shots of projectiles launched toward the screen, visuals that usually distract viewers from any reality the film is striving to achieve. Ironically, 3-D films have long felt like gimmicks in their attempt to reach a sort of visual realism. No, Cameron's use of the effect is nuanced, his camera skimming over and past and through the dense rainforest that envelops Pandora three-dimensionally. Cameron mitigates the artificiliaty of the effect by making Avatar's central characters blue-skinned aliens, creatures that look unnatural to begin with. He also transcend the gimmickry of the 3-D by making it essential to the story. As you experience the immersive quality of Cameron's 3-D artistry, you immediately identify with Jake who is experiencing his own sense of wonder with the new virtual world he finds himself in. Good thing, too, since Cameron's script isn't strong enough to get you to connect with the film's characters on that visceral level so necessary to make the film a true success.

Some have cited the problematic nature of the film's topicality, stating that their seems to be an obvious point Cameron is making with parallels to the Iraq War. While I do see several phrases like "shock and awe," or "fight terror with terror," designed to elicit some sort of reaction, I truly feel these phrases are there due to the Barnum-like Cameron's desire to drum up critical good will in the film—irresponsibly I may add—but nothing more. It is no secret that the American (?) military is given quite a black eye by their villainous depiction in this movie (particularly by the excellent Stephen Lang as Colonel Quaritch). But the film is so clearly derivative of a specific classic science-fiction novel which predates, and in fact somewhat predicts the War on Terror, that I'm surprised more hasn't been made of this elsewhere.

Frank Herbert's Dune, like Avatar, is an ecological science fiction novel. Published in 1965, it predicts much of the current Mid-East unrest and its ties to oil production (spice production in the novel) and the disregard for the sensitive ecology of the planet, themes that dominate the news today. Ignoring David Lynch's inferior adaptation of the film, Cameron uses the novel as a template for the story. From the outsider messianically sent to deliver an alien race from their human oppressors to the insurgent tactics of a clan-like people finally united against a common enemy; from the hero's acceptance into the alien community after he tames a powerful, mystically revered beast to the hero's introduction of an aural technology to help the resistance gain an advantage over their oppressors; even his schooling in the way of the natives by a beautiful female warrior that eventually becomes his wife; many of Avatar's story beats can be found in the original Herbert novel and with a higher level of complexity.

And it is for this reason that Avatar cannot reside in the pantheon of great films. Once technology catches up with the innovations presented here, just as it did with Lucas' Star Wars and Cameron's own Terminator 2 and The Abyss, what's left is a movie with a lot of flat dialogue and story points ripped off from superior sources. I would be lying to you if I said I didn't feel the same sense of exhiliration when I left the screening of Avatar as my 5-year-old self did when leaving the theater in 1977 after seeing Star Wars for the first time. But twenty years from now when I refer the next generation to Avatar as a landmark achievement in special effects, I expect to get much of the same reaction I do now when speaking of Star Wars, "What's the big deal?"

Movie Review: The Princess and the Frog

by Tony Dayoub



Not necessarily destined to be a Disney classic, The Princess and the Frog goes one better by effortlessly capturing the regional and temporal flavor of New Orleans in the Jazz Age. That means lots of French Quarter Architecture, Dixieland-style musical numbers (by Randy Newman, on loan from Pixar), creole-spiced food, and even a welcome touch of Cajun-style Zydeco in the form of "Gonna Take You There," sung during a short side trip into the swampland.




To some extent, credit for this minor gem—a return to Disney's traditional two-dimensional animation—should go to John Lasseter (Toy Story) who became Chief Creative Officer for Disney Animation after the company acquired Pixar. While Disney cartoons became grander and grander over the previous decade—reaching for Oscars after their unexpected Best Picture nomination for Beauty and the Beast (1991)— Lasseter's influence over Pixar drove that animation factory into doing narrower-scoped stories which grew increasingly more resonant with audiences than the out-scaled fantasies by the more established animation house.



Of course, the origins of this production stem from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, "The Frog Prince," so Disney hasn't completely abandoned their traditional template. But by concentrating the story in a specific time and place there is a transportive quality to this story that beckons the viewer in a different way than say, Sleeping Beauty ever did. That is because the French Quarter is somewhere one can actually visit. Sure, it may be a lot rougher around the edges (especially post-Katrina) than the magical New Orleans depicted in The Princess and the Frog, but if you squint you can kind of see it.



One inspired sequence in the film is complete fantasy, though. Taking a cue from the yellow dress Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) wears before the setpiece begins, it is a monochromatic dream in which she imagines opening her own Cotton Club-style restaurant in a flat, art moderne-influenced style. Broadway star Rose performs her solo, "Almost There," with verve, bringing some independence and moxie rarely seen in even the pluckiest Disney princesses.



Another welcome bit of casting is the deep, rich, sonorous voice of Keith David (The Thing) as the evil voodoo priest, Doctor Facilier. His mellow tones show surprising elasticity in his solo, "Friends on the Other Side," a showstopper where he rallies the spirits of the underworld in his effort to magically manipulate the prince (Bruno Campos) for his own needs.

Zeroing in on a landmark era in African-American cultural history, The Princess and The Frog fuses the smaller scale sensibilities of Pixar with the classic fables of traditional Disney to create a charming little return to two dimensional animation. It should have audiences anticipating Disney's inevitable followup.

Movie Review: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

By Lissette Decos



Fortunately, Fantastic Mr. Fox is not just for children. In fact, the showing I went to had all of one child under the age of 10. Don't be fooled by the fact that it's based on a children's book or by the stop-motion animation. It's Wes Anderson. And he's found a way to make it more for adults, more like Rushmore meets The Royal Tenenbaums with a splash of Life Aquatic... heck, it's like all of his movies (which are, in effect, like all of his movies), a very funny, excellently scored series of beautiful and meticulously crafted images.


Roald Dahl's original story—about a fox that is hunted down by three evil farmers—has been tweaked to fit neatly into le petite lexicon of Wes Anderson themes. These recurring themes being of course: sons coming to terms with their flawed fathers; sons coming to terms with their own quirkiness; and fathers and/or sons that just don't want to grow up.

I was surprised at first, but after seeing the film I realized that stop-motion is actually a perfect fit for Wes. He's the kind of director/artist that likes to control it all, designing everything down to the suits that his main characters wear (which, incidentally, look an awful lot like the ones the director wears himself). The scenes in his films have always had that dollhouse feel, like we're peeking into an adorable scene taking place inside a shoebox. I bet he loved making this film because he could manipulate every single shoebox moment frame by frame. No doubt a stuffed fox is easier to manage than say, Bill Murray. Not that any director would want to manage Bill Murray... Speaking of which, George Clooney and Meryl Streep as Mr. and Mrs. Fox make for an unexpectedly appropriate addition to Anderson's recurring posse of misfits—Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson.

Recurring elements or not, I'm a huge fan and I have found that other fans of "All Things Wes" do the exact same thing. After the film is over, we go back to our list (which we keep safe in a shoe box in our hearts of course) and carefully place this film where it belongs among the rest. Each person has his or her own list. In fact, you can tell a lot about a person by how they rate Wes Anderson's films.

Here's my list, and where Mr. Fox now lives in it:

1. The Darjeeling Limited
2. Rushmore
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. (tie) Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums
6. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

How does Fantastic Mr. Fox rate on your list?

Movie Review: Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

by Tony Dayoub



The growing realization that childhood is finite fuels the sad Where the Wild Things Are. This means that I'm not ready for even my oldest son to see this beautifully rendered adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic book. But Spike Jonze's film strikes me as less of an evocation of Sendak's tale than it does as a personal story for the often elusive director. It's as if one could see his therapist suggesting he draw on his own childhood issues to inform his next film, and this is what was spit out. That's not to say I wouldn't recommend the film. Actually, I believe it is a movie with rewards both large and small. But be forewarned. Those seeking the joyous celebration of innocence and thoughtless playful abandon will find the film lacking in this regard.

NYFF09 Movie Review: Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard)

by Tony Dayoub



I'm starting to see a trend at this year's festival. Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard) is another film in this year's fest by a director who has earned a reputation for shocking moviegoers, Catherine Breillat. However, with Barbe Bleue she seduces us with the fearsome fairy tale's intrinsic luridness instead of her usual sensational embellishments. This exquisitely mounted fairy tale also, surprisingly, turns out to be quite a personal film for Breillat, making Barbe Bleue one of the festival's most wonderful surprises.

Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds

by Tony Dayoub



"We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us, and the Germans will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, at our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us, the Germans will talk about us, and the Germans will fear us. Nazis ain't got no humanity! They need to be destroyed." - Lt. Aldo Raine

Happy Monday everyone. Hope you all had a great weekend. Let's get down to some way overdue business, and discuss the big movie this weekend, and perhaps this year, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. I saw it at noon on Friday, but held back on discussing it here for two reasons. One was my desire to contemplate the film a little longer than I usually do with other movies because it is complicated enough to merit such pondering. Notice I say complicated, not profound... more on that later. The second reason is because I plan on discussing it in toto, spoilers included. So anyone who hasn't seen it, please skip the rest of this post, go see it (requirement: you must see it in a theater), and come back once you have. Trust me, whether you end up liking the film or not, this is one flick that every movie lover should add to their lexicon.


Basterds is a World War II triptych with three protagonists: Nazi S.S. Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) a suave snake who has earned the nickname of "Jew-Hunter" for his ability to ferret out Jews hiding throughout occupied France; Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) is a young French Jew who manages to escape Landa's clutches before he massacres her family; and Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) is the commander of a band of Jewish soldiers, nicknamed "the Basterds" by the Germans for the brutal retribution they carry out against them, always leaving scalped Nazi corpses behind. Eventually each protagonist's storyline crosses paths in curious ways, even if they themselves don't always meet, until synchronicity strikes at the end of the film, with Shosanna exacting her revenge on the Nazi elite at a movie premiere in a theater she owns, which also happens to be where the Basterds have decided to wipe out Hitler and his goons.

Much has been made of Tarantino's highly fictitious postmodern Holocaust revisionism for, as some say, irresponsibly playing fast and loose with facts and casting the former victims as vengeance seeking "perpetrators" no better than their Nazi executioners. However, unlike the recent District 9, which tries to trick the viewer into passivity by deceiving him with the faux-documentary look at Apartheid, Tarantino clearly instructs us from the beginning to look at Basterds as an alternate history, a fantasy, by beginning the movie with the words, "Once Upon a Time... in Nazi-occupied France..." He continues to encourage a dissociation from any reality by rooting his story in the history of film versus the history of the world. For instance, most if not all of the soundtrack is made up of musical cues from other films (and anachronistic ones at that). David Bowie's theme from Cat People (1982) is heard as Shosanna "gets into character" before the climactic movie premiere. Italian Western themes are also ubiquitous. And I just about had a heart attack after I heard the "Bath Attack" theme from Sydney J. Furie's B-movie, The Entity (1981), when Shosanna is reunited with Landa midway through the film. Truth be told, I might feel differently about the "exploitation" of the subject if I had any Holocaust survivors in my family. But I don't. And from my perspective, it doesn't look or feel like Tarantino is being disrespectful of the historical facts.




Instead, by inverting the players in his drama, Tarantino is simply presenting this violent parable as a reframing of history to highlight the ease with which genocide occurred, calling into question whether the complicity and collaboration by many Germans can truly be justified by the loyalist fervor that was promoted by the Nazi propaganda machine. In this case, it is the audience that is complicit in the cathartic joy of vengeance, cheering the "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth) when he whacks one Nazi soldier with a baseball bat, delighting at Bridget Von Hammersmark's (Diane Kruger) rage-filled dispatch of a young soldier after a personal insult, and reveling in Shosanna's laughing visage onscreen and aflame as the theater burns with the Nazi High Command locked inside. Tarantino is creating an alternate propaganda here. This last image of the burning theater more than anything recalls the evil of the gas chambers (its setting accusing moviegoers, us, of participating in the same celebration of killing the Nazis did), and any pleasure we take in the film's climactic destruction of the Germans complicates our usually automatic dismissal of any justifications heard in the past by Nazi apologists who say they were swept up by the populist frenzy at the time since we, the viewers, are also guilty of the same.

It just may be that some critics are right in accusing Inglourious Basterds of luridly exploiting a horrid chapter in humanity's history. But at least it does so without hypocrisy.

Movie Review: Up

Up is perhaps the first Pixar movie I can think of that is specifically aimed at a general audience rather than child viewers. Sure, the other films have a broad appeal. But none of them seem especially geared towards adults as much as this one. Its storyline focuses on love, commitment, loss, and renewal... adult subjects that will certainly go over the heads of young ones. Ed Asner voices Carl, a crotchety old man who, as we learn in Up's prologue, wasn't always this way. Like in last year's Wall·E, this sequence is almost completely devoid of dialogue, and recounts the story of Carl's lifelong romance with Ellie, an audacious girl who fanned Carl's smaller spark for adventure into a grand flame. Their dream was to search for a long missing hero, Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), who had disappeared in South America. But like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Their meager savings end up redistributed towards more urgent needs, and dreams get put on hold. And one day, Ellie is gone. Carl is alone, holding onto everything he owns, his house a mausoleum erected in Ellie's memory. Enter Russell (Jordan Nagai), a Wilderness Explorer (Pixar's version of a Boy Scout). The last badge he has left to earn is the one for assisting the elderly. Russell's timing brings him into Carl's life at the moment he embarks on an harebrained exploit to South America, flying in his house, which is held aloft by hundreds of helium balloons. It's an evocative image, dredging up childhood dreams of magical journeys for any adult. And the movie pays it off unpredictably, as Carl and Russell end up forming a nuclear family of sorts with an exotic bird named Kevin as the mother, and a talking dog named Dug filling the role of family pet quite hilariously. But most impressive is the natural way the filmmakers forge the bond between Carl and Russell through each character's personal loss, Russell's being the distancing from his own father after his parents' divorce. These may seem like common points of identification nowadays. But any longtime Disney film fan can tell you that divorce is usually a taboo subject in their animated films. Adult or child, Up has a lot to offer anyone seeking a gentle reminder that life's adventures begin when and where one isn't looking.

The Year 2000: Counting Down The Zeroes - Unbreakable (M. Night Shyamalan)

The passage of time can destroy or crystallize your opinion of just about anything. In the world of cinema, films can become dated or with hindsight, look quite prescient. M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable falls into the category of the latter. The visually arresting movie is the earliest example of American cinema examining the mythos of comic book superheroes with reverence. Misunderstood at the time of its release because of an ill-conceived marketing campaign designed to sell it as another Sixth Sense, it calls for a reexamination in light of last year's release of The Dark Knight. Like that film, this one takes the mythology of superhero graphic novels quite seriously, grounding the players in a real world, and burdening them with the same kinds of problems people deal with on a daily basis. Unbreakable is about two men who seem to be mirror images of each other-reflections and refractions will be a running motif. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is a melancholy security guard who is in the early stages of separating from his wife, Audrey (Robin Wright Penn), and keeps his son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), at a distance. Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) is a wealthy dealer in comic book art who has insulated himself from the rest of the world because of a condition that causes his bones to break at the slightest impact. David is the sole survivor of a train wreck which brings him to the attention of Elijah. Elijah believes that if he is a man on one side of the spectrum of fragility, his opposite number, a man of superhuman strength, must reside at the other side of the spectrum. It all makes sense to David's son Joseph, a comic book fan who is looking for anything special to elevate his rather ordinary, estranged father. Elijah's relentless harassment of David and his family concerns him. David only sees an overgrown, bitter, isolated individual who has started believing in the comforting graphic novels he grew up with while real relationships eluded him. But Elijah is correct in asking David if he's ever been sick. He hasn't. And Elijah astutely suggests that the car accident that once sidelined David's promising football career may have simply been an opportunity for him to leave a sport which his then-girlfriend Audrey found repulsively violent. Shyamalan takes some of the conventions of superhero mythology and builds his own iconography around it. David's alliterative first and last name, for example, is common to superhero's secret identities, i.e. Peter Parker/Spider-Man or Bruce Banner/Hulk. Yet his depiction of David's environment in drab and industrial green tones is a cinematic expression. In the picture above, one can see how Shyamalan subtly frames the film's subjects frequently using columns, windows and the like as a subconscious reminder of the comic book panel, as first discussed by Jim Emerson at his movie blog, Scanners. That screen capture also implies the reflection motif discussed earlier with its inclusion of the chandelier in the frame. One man, unbreakable in body; the other, unbreakable in spirit, doggedly hoping to measure his own importance by confronting his opposite doppelganger; both are framed in the scene above. Here is an explicit framing of the two diametrically opposed men by the stadium bleachers, with David's past playing out behind them in the form of a football game at the stadium he guards. Once an active participant in the game, he is now an outsider relegated to overseeing its fans on the fringes. More of Shyamalan's use of color coding can be found in the cool blues and purples that dominate the screen whenever the crippled Elijah is onscreen. And his name is an evocation of prophecy, destiny, indiscriminate fate. Here, David is framed in the candy-colored hues of Joseph's world, a world of unfulfilled dreams and limitless potential sprung to life from Joseph's comic book sensibilities. Audrey and David on a first date since becoming estranged. With each experiencing a new lease on life since David's miraculous survival, their dreams become a possibility once more. The interior of the bar is lit like an exterior - lush, green, and with a hint of sunlight lining each silhouette. They are still in shadow, still haven't let go of the resentments; his over sacrificing his destiny for her, and hers over the wall he's built around himself. Here David is framed by the doorway in the dark, the long night of his rite of passage beginning with Elijah's message on the answering machine in the foreground. Framed again, this time by the train wreckage he survived, David wears his security uniform rain poncho as he remembers another wreck he lived through. The poncho evokes the capes so often found in superhero mythology. The weight of the past on his ultimate destiny, the superhero origin told in flashback is a comic book convention. In my mind (and perhaps only in my mind), this one recalls the staging of the origin on TV's Incredible Hulk (Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno), a TV show that was the first to show the same level of reverence towards a comic-book superhero. The train station sequence fuses all of the errant elements together, as David's destiny becomes clear to him. He has returned full circle to a train station, home to the same mode of transport that forced him to reexamine his life. James Newton Howard's score reaches an ominous crescendo during his sequence. Eduardo Serra's cinematography highlights evildoers - like the woman in the red jacket - with splashes of color whenever they brush up against David, as he instinctively reads their particular crimes committed. David, seen from behind with his palms pointing out, recalling similarly staged depictions of Jesus in biblical epics of the fifties like Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959), where Jesus' face is given power by its absence from the frame. The crane shot depicts the emergence of the Messianically-lit David from the crowd of travellers, an abrupt shift in point-of-view reserved throughout the film for moments in which David's destiny comes to the fore. From the depths of hell - or at least the street below - a harbinger of evil rises toward the light: the evildoer that will prove to be David's first challenge. Out of the darkness and rain emerges the hero. The God's-eye point-of-view again, as the camera surveys the completion of David's journey - and its casualties - from above. Now a little more brightly lit, as David achieved a form of self-actualization last night. The dawn is taking hold for David and Audrey as their resentments recede with the shadows. David's gift to his son, a newspaper drawing of himself as a superhero. The family unit in the heart of the home - the kitchen - together at last. The once gloomy household now lit like an exterior also. The brightness of a new day for Audrey and David, and Joseph - now closer to his dad than ever - sharing his secret identity. The revelation that Elijah caused the train accident that set David on his path comes to him when he shakes Elijah's hand. A gloved hand, from the bitter man incapable of joining society, meets an outstretched hand, from a man who now knows who he is. David and Elijah are surrounded by the comic books that have, in their own unique way, defined who each is. David's joy is drained by Elijah's reveal, and the frame is overwhelmed by Elijah's cool-colored blues and purples. Elijah, eccentrically dressed as a criminal mastermind, realizes his own destiny as the villainous "Mr. Glass," or so he thinks. A virtual cipher all of his life, he still can't define himself without doing it through others: the teasing kids who invented the nickname, and David his superheroic opposite. This post was first published at Film for the Soul for its continuing series on the best movies of the 2000s, Counting Down the Zeroes, on 4/20/09.