Saturday, June 15, 2013
And A Bag of Chips
So M. Night Shyamalan announced in an interview this week that he "ghost wrote" She's All That before he made it big with The Sixth Sense.
As an initial matter, I'm inclined to doubt him, as I had always believed She's All That to have been the work of the angels. Plus, where is his signature twist ending? Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out that Freddie Prinze, Jr. was dead the whole time.
But it is sort of wonderful to imagine M. (for that is what I call him, as we are best friends) sitting down at a giant 1998 desktop computer and carefully crafting gems like "What is this, some sort of dork outreach program?" and "There was major wiggage." Did M. work from improvisation, first putting himself into the mindset of glasses-wearing, art-show-having Laney Boggs and then letting the diatribes about child labor and the rain forests just flow from within? Did he write the classic role of Dean Sampson with Paul Walker's unique comedic voice in mind? Did he have the TV on in the background at the time and was he maybe kind of caught up in an episode of Moesha? Had there been any recent changes in his prescriptions that could account for the third act choreographed dance sequence to the music of uncredited prom DJ Usher? This really does raise more questions than answers.
The best news, of course, is that it has given me an excuse to re-watch this modern classic, which was coincidentally airing on cable this morning. Did you know that Lil' Kim is in it? She plays a girl who has absolutely no function and needs her eyebrows tweezed. And Academy Award winning actress Anna Paquin? She plays a horrible misshapen girl who is somehow going to defy all common sense and continue to work in the industry for another decade and a half. God, I bet Rachel Leigh Cook is crying into the frying pan she once so memorably used to illustrate the effects of heroin right now.
So M. Night Shyamalan announced in an interview this week that he "ghost wrote" She's All That before he made it big with The Sixth Sense.
As an initial matter, I'm inclined to doubt him, as I had always believed She's All That to have been the work of the angels. Plus, where is his signature twist ending? Actually, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out that Freddie Prinze, Jr. was dead the whole time.
But it is sort of wonderful to imagine M. (for that is what I call him, as we are best friends) sitting down at a giant 1998 desktop computer and carefully crafting gems like "What is this, some sort of dork outreach program?" and "There was major wiggage." Did M. work from improvisation, first putting himself into the mindset of glasses-wearing, art-show-having Laney Boggs and then letting the diatribes about child labor and the rain forests just flow from within? Did he write the classic role of Dean Sampson with Paul Walker's unique comedic voice in mind? Did he have the TV on in the background at the time and was he maybe kind of caught up in an episode of Moesha? Had there been any recent changes in his prescriptions that could account for the third act choreographed dance sequence to the music of uncredited prom DJ Usher? This really does raise more questions than answers.
The best news, of course, is that it has given me an excuse to re-watch this modern classic, which was coincidentally airing on cable this morning. Did you know that Lil' Kim is in it? She plays a girl who has absolutely no function and needs her eyebrows tweezed. And Academy Award winning actress Anna Paquin? She plays a horrible misshapen girl who is somehow going to defy all common sense and continue to work in the industry for another decade and a half. God, I bet Rachel Leigh Cook is crying into the frying pan she once so memorably used to illustrate the effects of heroin right now.
