Revisiting Signs

I re-watched M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs several nights ago. It’s probably my third favorite Shyamalan film after Split and The Sixth Sense. Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix are good as the Reverend Graham Hess and his brother, Merril, as is Rory Culkin (Morgan), and Abigail Breslin (Bo) is as good as she can be given she was probably only five years old when Signs was filmed.

I don’t have many thoughts on it beyond what is already said in this article here and Chris Stuckmann’s video about it here. The theory that the aliens are actually demons (another article here) and that Bo is making holy water makes sense to me given the religious overtones of the movie and the arc of the character played by Mel Gibson.

I’m doubtful of the idea here that the aliens were trying to help or could either be good or bad depending on the viewpoint. The film seems to make it pretty clear we’re supposed to think they are malevolent and while the viewer never actually receives confirmation that they’re malevolent, Graham Hess’s (Gibson) wife’s last words were to tell Merrill to “swing away” at the alien/demon. I can’t see a wife’s dying words to her Reverend husband being a request to kill an angel or something otherwise good.

One thing I do want to say is that since the setting of the movie takes place in the country farmlands outside of Philadelphia, PA, I think it would be pretty cool if Shyamalan works Reverend Hess, Bo, or the entire Hess family into the upcoming Glass film. Maybe that will be a twist?

Grade: B+

I’ll have to revisit Unbreakable before I see Glass when it comes out in January. I thought it was just OK at the time I saw it in the theater, but that may have been because of the marketing of it, which was as a supernatural thriller like The Sixth Sense and not as a superhero origin story.

On a related note, I’ve dropped support of Chris Stuckmann on Patreon, the only person I’m supporting on Patreon, and it’s not Stuckmann’s fault. Patreon has dropped people from its platform in the past for political purposes and it has done it again with Robert Spencer. I didn’t know who he is or what he does, but it came across my twitter feed that Patreon states it’s because they were required by Mastercard to remove his account. This is disingenuous, at best, and even if Mastercard had a beef with Spencer, why should Patreon care? A quick look at his twitter bio shows that he says he is the director of Jihad Watch.

So, this is a banning based on politics, something that tech companies accelerated a couple weeks ago with Alex Jones, another one that I don’t listen to or watch, though I do like Paul Joseph Watson. This is ironic on multiple levels, as I’m aware that Jones and those like him have been warning about big tech potentially banning anyone right of Stalin for over 15 years now. The Big Tech companies all colluding to ban him at the same time confirms he and those like him were correct and it also makes me want to watch him now to see what he has to say. Maybe he has been detailing how financial institutions may cut off access to your money if you have an opinion on something that is right of Stalin, something I’ve heard grumblings about from others, and the very thing that Mastercard may have done with Spencer?

So, my dropping of support of Stuckmann is a dropping of Patreon as I continue to drop support of companies that are overtly political. From a social media standpoint, the cesspool known as Twitter has been the only one I’m still a part of and that’s mainly to track this type of stuff despite Twitter being just as bad as all the rest.

Stuckmann has sold out slightly this past year, though, and his review of Ocean’s 8 earlier in the year shows it. It was obvious he wanted to say the movie wasn’t good, but couldn’t because of Hollywood’s gender politics. I understand why Stuckmann was this way in the review – he’s going to film school, has bills to pay, and is advancing in his career and really can’t afford to be cut out by Hollywood at this time. I just hope he doesn’t sell out even more.