Jessica Simpson reveals she was unwittingly the other woman with ‘massive movie star;’ Sally Fields turned down beloved movie role (Getty Images ) Welcome to the Fox News Entertainment Newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your email, subscribe here. THE OTHER WOMAN - Jessica Simpson says she was unwittingly the other woman with 'massive movie star' during her single days. Continue reading here… WOULDN'T BE THE SAME - Sally Field reveals beloved movie role she turned down. Continue reading here… MEGHAN'S MAKEOVER - Meghan Markle could be relaunching personal website; expert claims: She's 'trying to reclaim her identity.' Continue reading here… EXCLUSIVE - Jerry Lee Lewis estate battle: Feud over late rock legend's Mississippi ranch leaves family in legal limbo. Continue reading here… ‘THANK YOU GOD’ - Dwayne Johnson's mother involved in traumatic car accident, credits 'angels of mercy' for watching over … [Read more...] about Jessica Simpson reveals she was other woman with ‘massive movie star;’ Sally Field rejected this movie role
Movies
What Will It Take to Trust M. Night Shyamalan?
A man enters a dark room and faces a suspicious audience. Within these four walls, he explains, he’s going to tell captive strangers a tale with life-or-death stakes. But first, he needs something crucial from them: their trust. Gaining trust isn’t easy for Leonard (Dave Bautista), a heavily tattooed muscleman wielding a pitchfork fused to a scythe in “Knock at the Cabin.” It’s even harder for the film’s director, M. Night Shyamalan, a yarn-spinner who’s become more associated with the twist than Chubby Checker. “I don’t look at it as a kind of fancy dance move,” Shyamalan said of his trickster reputation in a 2021 NPR interview . “Now I’m going to do the moonwalk, everybody! Here we go!” Shyamalan insists he’s not after gotchas. He’s a spiritualist chasing moments of epiphany, that exhalation when the reveal of one piece of information makes the world make sense. Early on in “Knock at the Cabin,” Leonard and his three fellow kidnappers tie up a family — the parents … [Read more...] about What Will It Take to Trust M. Night Shyamalan?
Review: ‘The Visit’ Is ‘Hansel and Gretel’ With Less Candy and More Camcorders
In “The Visit,” an amusingly grim fairy tale, floorboards creak, doors squeak and lights lower and sometimes shriek to black. The story, a “Hansel and Gretel” redo for Generation Selfie, has the virtue of simplicity and familiarity: A young brother and sister travel into the deep, dark woods, but where they once innocently held hands, they’re now holding camcorders to record an adventure quickened by anxious laughs, yelps and screams and one shivery long knife. These children don’t need someone else to immortalize their once-upon-a-time; they just point and shoot. The director M. Night Shyamalan has a fine eye and a nice, natural way with actors, and he has a talent for gently rap-rap-rapping on your nerves. At his best, he skillfully taps the kinds of primitive fears that fuel scary campfire stories and horror flicks; at his worst, he tries too hard to be an auteur instead of just good, letting his overwrought stories and self-consciousness get in the way of his technique. After … [Read more...] about Review: ‘The Visit’ Is ‘Hansel and Gretel’ With Less Candy and More Camcorders
With ‘The Visit,’ M. Night Shyamalan Returns to His Filmmaking Roots
LOS ANGELES — “I don’t know, bro. I was screwed up in the head.” M. Night Shyamalan, ruminating last month about career choices gone wrong, spoke those words and then burst into a giddy giggle. Just kidding! But the tenderness in his eyes betrayed him: There was some truth in that tease. In contrast to his first four studio movies, which were all substantial hits, starting with “The Sixth Sense” in 1999, Mr. Shyamalan’s last four films have been a series of misfires. “Lady in the Water,” “The Happening,” “The Last Airbender” and “ After Earth ” severely tarnished his reputation among moviegoers. The guy who brought us those clunkers — and, yes, we know, “The Sixth Sense” — wants us to buy tickets again? Pass. But here comes a hairpin twist nobody anticipated: Mr. Shyamalan, 45, seemingly humbled and more mature, took a hard look at his professional life, made a course correction, and the result, a quirky comedic thriller called “ The Visit ,” may well deliver a surprise … [Read more...] about With ‘The Visit,’ M. Night Shyamalan Returns to His Filmmaking Roots
Finding Magic Somewhere Under the Pool in ‘Lady in the Water’
IT was just around the time when the giant eagle swooped out of the greater Philadelphia night to rescue a creature called a narf, shivering and nearly naked next to a swimming pool shaped like a collapsed heart, that I realized M. Night Shyamalan had lost his creative marbles. Since Mr. Shyamalan’s marbles are bigger than those of most people, or so it would seem from the evidence of a new book titled “The Man Who Heard Voices” (and how!), this loss might have been a calamity, save for the fact that “Lady in the Water” is one of the more watchable films of the summer. A folly, true, but watchable. A bedtime story that plays like a stab at a modern myth, “Lady in the Water” follows Mr. Shyamalan’s sensationally entertaining breakout (“The Sixth Sense”), a pair of misfires (“Unbreakable” and “Signs”) and a raging bore (“The Village”). As before, this film involves characters who, when faced with the inexplicable, behave less like real people than idealized movie audiences: they … [Read more...] about Finding Magic Somewhere Under the Pool in ‘Lady in the Water’
FILM REVIEW; The Fear Is Color-Coded And the Forest Is Scary
The ubiquitous advertisements for ''The Village,'' which opens today nationwide, promise that ''nothing can prepare you.'' Nothing, that is, except M. Night Shyamalan's last three movies and a passing acquaintance with ''The Twilight Zone.'' It is hard to think of another filmmaker so utterly committed to the predictable manufacture of narrative surprise. His supernatural conceits may vary from picture to picture -- ghosts in ''The Sixth Sense,'' comic-book superheroics in ''Unbreakable,'' space aliens and crop circles in ''Signs'' -- but his stories are always built around a carefully disguised, meticulously prepared twist. You can pass a pleasant few minutes outside the theater talking it over with your friends, but the conversations, like the movies that inspire them, tend to sound the same. For every innocent who professes amazement, there will be a wiseguy who says he saw it coming all along and an earnest analyst who picks the whole thing apart, looking for clues, … [Read more...] about FILM REVIEW; The Fear Is Color-Coded And the Forest Is Scary
