Signs. I have never seen it before until this past week, but I felt like I have cause I watched Scary Movie 3 a dozen times on TV, which did a nice goof of the movie. I liked the movie, finally an alien invasion movie with a message or something to think deeper about than Independence Day, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders from Mars, ETC (not to say I don't like these movies, I do). Signs was a cool movie, I enjoyed it.
Mr. B said the climax of the film was the dinner scene, sort of the "last supper." I agree. It displays the message of the film that you can't enjoy life with death looming over head, and humans need comfort and something higher to believe in. But whatever. I'd like to say that I am cold enough where I would enjoy my last meal, but i really don't know. I guess it depends on what we're having. But if I was pushed out of the airplane with no shoot, I want to enjoy the ride down. Cause you're about to die, why not have a little fun, no?
And the movie made this strong point to say that there are "No Coincidences." It asked the question several times, and then just flat out answered it. I was pretty cool to see all those seemingly meaningless things all came together to help the family survive. I wish that it did not just say it though with that flashback. Like it took the thinking and remembering out of the film. Instead of you drawing conclusions, it told you what conclusions to draw.
What church would accept back such a fickle preacher as Mel Gibson? Like he just quit 6 months ago, and then now he wants his job back. He's probably going to lose his "faith" again when he stubs his toe! And I feel bad for his replacement preacher. He probably just learned everyone's names, started to settle in, and BAM! he's out a job. I can only hope he was killed by the aliens, because I wouldn't want to feel that pain.
AND. If the family felt that their belief in God helped them through the invasion, why did their God make them work so hard? Couldn't God just have made it rain. The whole movie everyone could have been like, "Goddamn rain, I wish it would stop." And then the aliens come, and then they are burnt. Thats the kinda god i want to believe in.
And one more thing. Why wouldn't they have any weapons on them? A knife, bat, gun, board w/rusty nail? They just stood there and got lucky that that baseball bat was on the wall in the oh so perfect spot. It takes Mel like a 5 minute flashback to realize that the best plan is the hit the alien with a bat. You see him thinking and wonder what genius plan he is concocting. He comes out of it all with "Swing away."
Okay, well those were all the bones I had to pick with this movie. I thought it was a pretty cool movie. And through the movie, it was bugging me that they didn't focus too much on the aliens and the rest of the earth, and all the specs of the invasion. I understand this move now. The aliens are more symbolic than just aliens, representing the fear and power, etc. To some extend, if the aliens were replaced with blood thirsty communists, the movie stiff could have worked.
Apology for the rambles.
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Very nice comments Mike. And I agree with you in large part, especially because the director and the film didn't let us think for ourselves but instead told us the facts directly instead of making us think.
ReplyDeleteRambling is quite alright as I do it all the time and all of your points are valid, and I can't deny any of them, but some of them I definitely didn't think of.
Very funny post -- I laughed a lot (ah, the poor replacement preacher....). Also, I couldn't quite take Mel Gibson seriously throughout the entire film and the "swing away" scene didn't really help.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-existentialist message was quite clear, which I think also detracted from the film a bit because it was so strong that it really did not leave much room for other interpretations. But I did think about how nice it would be to always have a feeling that someone is always there like when the glasses of water miraculously tip over and fry the alien.
I thought I commented on this post. I know I read it last night, and enjoyed it a lot. Frankly, I thought the film was good when I first saw it despite the fact that I disagree totally with the message. I liked the quirky stuff, like the hats etc.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about the replacement preacher is pretty funny. I like that kind of thinking, where you come out of left field with something nobody thought of. I try to do that also. On this one, though, you beat me to it.