Did ancient astronauts toss salad?

rough notes

When a person in a movie loses their faith it doesn’t usually mean they have come to their senses to realize that only they and their environment are wholly responsible for their fates  - it usually means than they are simply waiting for some supernatural event to turn them back  to THAT FAITH – or in the case of biblically- allusive movie (Constantine, The Omen), it means that they’re going to be killed in a supernatural manner which would have been more than enough proof that his faith in the supernatural world be justified.
Which would be more than enough evidence for him to never have lost that faith in the first place.

Signs is about the nature of fear, the nature of faith -– and all those other things I say below – what it is NOT about is an alien invasion. – that is the skeleton upon which all the other themes are fleshed out.

Movies are bound to the cultures which spawn them. In the case of Signs, M. Night is exploiting the contradictory Christian tenets without even realizing they are contradictory if you want to endorse predestination , then you negate free will – which is the bedrock upon which the Christian faith abides – without free will there would be no need for the talking snake in Genesis; no need to “disobey” and hence no original sin. But this is not the first story to unwittingly use that contradiction

Christians would like to believe that they have their faith nicely wrapped u in neat little bundles, then they advocate astrology, Nostradamus, mysticism and John Edwards.
 
Gladiator (envisioning a dead wife and child in a paradisiacal place)
Star Wars (you are the chosen one)
The Omen (the prophecies of the anti-Christ)

1. any tale which embraces epic subject matter.

He finds his faith again at the end –
I believe that M Night placed such a heavy emphasis on the predestination because he wanted to tie it in with the movie’s title – giving “signs” yet another meaning, over and

he key to signs and simultaneously where it falls down conceptually. Is that speech –there are two kinds of people
Even this little speech to lessen the gravity – Joaquin tell the anecdote about the party where girl throws up just missing him

When Gibson says, there is no one watching out for us – we are all on our own. It is meant to be a scary proposition, as if humans are bereft of support from any other agent.
But what Shyamalan (in the context of this story) and fundamentalist/ Christians etc fail to realize is that this means that we are in fact if no one is watching out for us it means we are in fact the rulers of our own destiny it  means we alone have the power to forge whatever future we want – whatever future we collectively dream up, we ARE, in fact, all-powerful and it is only the whiners and the obsequious who try to displace blame onto other entities – unseen, no less. Invisible, no less.
We take the blame and we take the credit.

Because of blaming the evil entity – something has to balance it – yin and yang – as above, so below, these are concepts since BEFORE history –

Which is why the good force must exist.
When he mentions hope – that’s a damning emotion because there is no such thing as fulfilled hope – hope exists as an unfulfilled state. Only an empty-souled religionist would need to create the concept of hope.

Many forget that in the story of Pandora’s jar, the worst evil was the one sitting at the bottom of the box, the last evil to be loosed upon the world – that evil was “hope.

Another great aspect is drunk-driving has been attributed so many accidental deaths that it has become a cliché – even in Gibson’s primo cliché-creating role in the *Lethal Weapon* series, his wife was killed by a drunk driver. In this movie, Mel’s wife is killed by a sober driver who falls asleep at the wheel – remember that? People can just hit other people by accident – no drinking involved. That never seems to happen – there’s always a “reason” behind people being hit with cars.

The kid’s birthday party -= a one-second glance of an alien – the buildup raises the hairs on you  legs more than any slasher movie or practically anything you will find in the “Horror section – of your local Blockbuster.
gives us a one-second shot of the alien – then cut back to Mel wondering what is behind the pantry door. The storytelling again – we were wondering , then we see it – but Mel is still wondering  - but now OUR fear factor has risen because we know what is back there. And we’re willing him not to open the door

Another great thing – no animals leaping to safety – both dogs die.

The major plot flaw – the water-allergic aliens, in reconnoitering this planet and creating crop circles, never thought to ask, “What is this blue substance that is covering over 80% of this planet?” The argument can be made that if they had never encountered water before, they would not know of its danger – yet wouldn’t it be advisable for any terraforming aliens to examine large aspects of the target planet, such as, let’s say – OCEANS?

Basement – believe the air will come , believe – while Gibson is cursing the god that he thinks he doesn't believe in and bringing it all to a metaphysical level – we see Merrill having his own spiritual revelation – with every one of Gibson’s believes – his eyes show this recognition that it is something a lot deeper than the boy's asthma attack – “believe that this will past” – you can see that he is having a revelation that it WILL pass.

With a director like Shy, who sets up each of his shots so meticulously – some of them do come off as set ups – but we forgive him these shoos because he has crafted such an entertaining piece of work and even these shots show his mind working his thinking that he is not just being half-hearted passé.

The storytelling – everything comes together in the end – the asthma – the glasses of water,  - to the fact he’s got a super powerful swing -the gas, allergic to water – all that is tempered by the concept of predestination which irks, opposed as I am to that pseudo scientific  but within the complex nature of the story overrides the silliness. We must take this as the story that Shy has told

Right up to the final shot giving us a brilliant indication of the seasons changing  just by a camera turning a 360 degree circle in one room looking out the windows.

Shyamalan just knows how o tell a story Within the first two minutes there is tension – guides us right into the heart of the action – when Mel finds the crop circles.
In the first ten minutes we know that he is a caring loving father – the first question he asks” Are you hurt, ?>
The setups like  the boy turning the barbecue with the fork so that two mins later when he dog is killed by the fork to the neck , we don’t have to question where he got that fork. All these storytelling minutiae, foreshadowings, storytelling is magnificent.

Then there are the grander strokes of the storytelling – where Beau thinks the water is contaminated, sets it up as a Small Town with the premise of the female sheriff’s tardiness being that she had to sort out a fracas involving an old lady spitting on some skateboarders as revenge.

A modern, old-fashioned horror movie, dealing with fear, not gore.

More hair-raising to have a sheaf of corn rustling than to have a knife go through a neck.

When the dog is killed, we see his son is asthmatic.

Shy also knows how to play humor, as when young pharmacist,  Tracy Abernathy, starts telling Mel her sins, against his protests that he is no longer a priest. There is even a punchline, when, deep into her confession, a customer warily peers around from behind Mel. Then there is an added punchline, when Mel meets up with his family in the diner and states emphatically, “I don’t want any one of you spending time with Tracy Abernathy alone.”

Rory Culkin, unlike his brother, has a great future ahead of him. He seems so trained, so intense, so informed as an actor. All his performances are sober, from Father of the Bride to - - - OTHER MOVIES.

The tension in a scene with a baby monitor that is supposedly picking up alien signals is astounding the way the tension is set up – basically nothing is happening , except a few stray noises that sound like static, whines and clicks.

The little girl is so cute and as sober as Rory \.

The two brilliant actors Mel Gibson and Phoenix.

But this movie is not about crop circles, nor is it about alien invasion. It is about fear.

The movie is ostensibly about a widow ex-priest. , living on a non-=descript farm with his two children and his brother, waking up one morning to crop circles in his field.

Let’s admit it: Mel Gibson has done some pretty uninspiring and unseemly work over the last eight years: the jarhead propaganda We Were Soldiers, the embarrassingly-trite What Women Want, the flag-wavingly-overwrought The Patriot, the amusing yet vacuous Chicken Run, the gritty, yet unseen Million Dollar Hotel, the laughably amoral Payback, the superfluous Lethal Weapon 4, the diabolically juvenile Conspiracy Theory, the mildly-watchable Ransom, and the historically-inaccurate Pocahontas.

It would seem that, like many rock bands before him, “his early stuff was better”, as his iconic performances as Max and Riggs demonstrate, with his stride being found as a director in the courageous The Man Without A Face, and finally attaining a career pinnacle with his astounding (albeit historically-flawed) Braveheart.

“Signs” is a movie which Gibson may once again boast a proud participation in. Not only does it cast no pressure on him as its money-raking “star”, this superbly crafted vehicle would stand up on its own no matter *which* Hollywood man-toy was cast as lead. Gifted Joaquin Phoenix sharing the screen alongside Gibson is only gravy.

And to top it all, it was “An M. Night Shyamalan Film”. At the conclusion of “The Sixth Sense”, when that credit appeared, thusly worded, I somehow knew that from that point on, I would unflinchingly slap down hard-earned cash to watch whatever product this maverick all thisfilms that boasted that tagline. It was the establishment of an institution.

The flip-side of that coin was, of course, that with self-aggrandizement comes Shyamalan’s responsibility/curse to deliver something grandiose *each time outa the gate*. As with “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable”, “Signs” delivers.

Like Salieri describing Mozart’s *oeuvre* - one note out of place and there would be diminishment FIND.

Egomania notwithstanding, this was a simultaneous challenge and curse. Nevermore would there be time for laurel-resting at the Night camp.

His outings are lessons in movie-making. In making movies. In how each piece must necessarily fit like so into the mosaic. Not a scene wasted, not a frame superfluous. Watching an M. Night Shyamalan film is like - - - - marveling at the beauty and efficiency of Nature.

Gibson plays Father Hess, a priest who has lost his faith, tending a farm and two kids with his brother Merrill.

The passive ominousness of crops laid flat shows us that one doesn’t need screaming chase scenes, blood, gore, special effects, teens walking into dark basements to create “horror” – all it takes it’s a shift in normalcy.
A 20-second chase of an unseen intruder, a shin disappearing into crop foliage.

CAUTION: Master storyteller at work

END