M. Night Christ

That M. Night Shyamalan is still being invited to speak as an expert or even respected film director at conventions and film festivals is a bit of a giggle-maker for me. But when he stands in front of crowds and waxes poetic about a medium that he consistently teabags, and to an audience that he mocks with his very presence, I can’t help but snort and chortle. Needless to say, Manny spoke at Variety’s 3D Entertainment Summit last night and he was every bit as self-serving and arrogant as you could expect.

For starters, the director – whose only 3D experience is with The Last Airbender, mind you – said that he considers 3D to be a tool for surprising audiences. To which 3D replied, “And likewise.” But he feels like there’s something about 3D that hurts the experience, perhaps with awful 3D films like The Last Airbender, and it’s that one simple factor that is to blame – the glasses.

Join me, won’t you, for an orgy of Mannytastic quotes after the jump.

“The problem with it as I see it is the glasses,” he said. “It’s not a tool like 5.1 sound, it’s not a tool like music. It is a definition of what you’re coming to see. As soon as those glasses go on, I have a huge expectation of the style of what I’m going to see, the experience I’m going to have. So it’s a tricky thing.” Via Variety

Yes, sound is the ultimate tool of film, because without sound you can’t hear the creepy kid whisper, “I see dead people.” Visuals are just a perverse attempt at tricking your audience into thinking your movie is good. It makes so much sense now.

Shyamalan also said he regretted not deciding to go 3D earlier in the making of his most recent film, “Last Airbender.”"The earlier you can make that decision, the absolute better for the process,” he said. “You can’t just go do the minimum for everything because it will look bad. There’s an artistry to how to use depth.”

So he just went ahead and did it after the fact as a lame gimmick to cover up an otherwise poorly executed movie. At least he sort of admitted his mistake on that one. Haha, no he didn’t.

“I could use 3D in amazing and surprising ways if I had the element of surprise on my side. But right now it’s not subservient to the story.”

Translated: I could use 3D in amazing and surprising ways, but I don’t know how to, so I won’t. Seeing as I haven’t surprised anyone in 10 years, I’ll stick to what’s been letting you down since The Sixth Sense.

“3D deserves a broader definition than ‘Oh, it’s going to come at me,’ in negative space. It’s really about depth, it’s about immersion. It can be very subtle and psychologically satisfying, but when you put on those glasses, you’re saying this is the type of movie you’re going to see, this is the type of experience you’re going to have, you can have these expectations.”

Nailed it. It’s like, I want to sit down and watch a visual epic that punches me in the face with its awesomeness, just like the previews said it would. Basically, the complete opposite of The Last Airbender.

“My main goal is to make an original tone of a movie that’s not been seen before, that’s always what’s interested me,” he said. “That means breaking genres. On the other side, movies are now completely prepackaged and presold, so they have to define (the movie) in a way that’s been previously defined. Like, come see ‘The Town’ because it’s like ‘The Departed.’

Dude, totally! I remember when I saw The Departed and I was all like, “That movie was good, but I don’t ever want to see another movie like it again.” So now The Town comes out and it’s about Boston and crime, and I’m like, “Whoa, bro, The Departed was about Boston and crime. What a ripoff!”

“There was a time you’d just go to the movies and know very little about it. The movies that I don’t know anything about have a huge impact on me because I had no expectations.”

“In closing, please don’t ever read anything about my movies before you go see them.”