Signs Harvests 60.3 million at Box Office

Foxnews.com ^ | August 4, 2002 | AP

[baseballfanjm]

Signs Harvests $60.3 Million at Box Office

Sunday, August 04, 2002

LOS ANGELES — Signs ran crop circles around the competition to top an unusually strong weekend box office for August.

The film, starring Mel Gibson as a farmer who realizes the mysterious patterns marking his fields portend the arrival of visitors from above, raked in $60.3 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Rest of article here

[baseballfanjm]

Thought some Mel Gibson fans would be happy to see this. I saw Signs TWICE this weekend, it was that good, and I usually only see movies once. The trailers are decieving. It isn't a stupid thriller. It's very smart and very good.

[Bommer]

M. Night Shyamalan is like the Rod Serling of the 21st Century!

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Well, I think that the "crop circle" true believers are morons- and the "trailers" that I have seen for this movie have been uniformly awful.

BUT, I have seen so many positive comments on this movie here on FR that I plan to see it next week.

The power of Free Republic!

[baseballfanjm]

Alfred Hitchcock also. Hitchcock never strayed past thrillers and horror movies, a route Shyamalan seems to be taking. Plus Shyamalan cameos in all his movies. Anyway, I haven't seen Unbreakable, but I love the Sixth Sense and this one.

[Polonius]

Did you see "The Sixth Sense" or "Unbreakable?" If so, what did you think?

[baseballfanjm]

I don't believe in crop circles either, but the trailers completely mask what this movie is really about. Anyway, one thing about the trailers is that they couldn't give too much away. There is very little you can give away without spoiling the whole thing.

[denydenydeny]

I thought Sixth Sense was OK, and Unbreakable an interesting failure, but I loved Signs.

It has a true dreamlike quality that somehow makes the slow pace make perfect sense. The dreamy quality also makes the viewer ignore the inconsistencies in this story (I thought of the special-effects-laden Minority Report whose inconsistencies destroyed the film). This movie has no special effects at all. Zero. And it is tremendously scary.

I also loved the spiritual, covertly Christian theme of this movie.

[Texas Eagle]

Uhhhhh.....just wondering.....how do you suppose they made the crop circles that appeared in the film?

[3catsanadog]

While channel surfing last night, I came across a program narrated by Judd Nelson. I caught it just in time to see how the crop circles are made. Three men, a wooden plank (about 8 in. wide and 2 1/2 ft. long), a rope and a surveyor's tape. A camera was hoisted up on a crane above a field to film them and in 6 hours very fancy crop circle designs were created.

[3catsanadog]

Nevertheless, I still want to see "Signs"!

[sourcery]

"Signs" isn't about aliens or crop circles--those are just the context in which the movie considers some deep philosophical questions. Hint: the title is a philosophical pun, whose obvious meaning (the crop circles) and non-obvious meaning (see the movie) are different. The movie considers the question of the proper interpretation of "signs" in the second sense.

As the movie starts, Mel Gibson's character is a former reverend who recently resigned his position. The true point of the movie pursues that issue futher.

[baseballfanjm]

Probably hired the hoaxters mentioned in post #9. :) Honestly though, if three guys can make a crop circle overnight with planks and rope and no overhead view, it should be easy with a copter to guide and more, well, professional methods.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

OK- but I don't want to see any flying saucers or LGM's making crop circles!

In answer to another question, no, I haven't seen "Sixth Sense"- I see very few movies, although my wife has probably seen 90% of the movies at Blockbuster!

I could probably list all the movies I have ever really wanted to see twice on the front of an envelope with a crayon- and have space left over for the address, return address, and stamp!

Almost all of what Hollwood puts out is crap (see "Sturgeon's Law")

[baseballfanjm]

What does BTTT mean? Sorry, I'm not that good at internet lingo.

[aruanan]

I saw Signs this afternoon. When I was walking to the exit from my seat, I heard some old lady tell her husband what a waste of time and money it was to have seen this movie. The poor old lady.

There are three problems with the movie that aren't really the movie's fault:

1. Anything having to do with aliens automatically makes people expect stuff like MIB, Independence Day, Mars Attacks!, etc.. They have been trained to have a certain set of expectations by a cinematic genre. When the expectations aren't fulfilled, they blame the movie. In this case, they shouldn't. However, since most people are too unreflective to see how their outlooks have been conditioned, they are too unperceptive to see this movie on its own terms.

2. The movie is entirely from a single point of view: that of a man who has lost his wife and, as a result of that, his faith. The goings-on all over the world are seen only to the extent that this man (and his brother and two kids) see things on TV or hear them on the radio. There is no omniscient third person bopping all over the place hinting at things or setting them up. There is just the story. And it's simple. The earth, for whatever reason, is being visited. You realize that if something like this ever happened, the experience for a lot of families would be like that of this family: they know something is going on; they're not sure what but suspect it's nothing good; there's nothing any government can do to make everything better because it's obvious that no one in the government knows any more about what they see going on than they do. They just have to hope they can survive.

3. It deals with faith and providence and how the latter can still exist even though we may have (temporarily) lost the former. This concept seems to be way out of a lot of people's grasp.

[aruanan]

In answer to another question, no, I haven't seen "Sixth Sense"- I see very few movies, although my wife has probably seen 90% of the movies at Blockbuster!

If you haven't seen Sixth Sense, watch it twice. The second time, it'll seem like a completely different movie. I have rarely so enjoyed the second viewing of a movie as I have that of Sixth Sense.

[jlogajan]

Here's an FR thread developing on the religious significance of the movie theme The Meaning of Faith as portrayed in M. Night Shyamalan's Films

[MissAmericanPie]

I saw it Friday, it's awsome. Mel did it again.

[RightWhale]

Evidently I have seen the 5% already and could also list them on an envelope with a carpenter's crayon. Haven't seen a movie since Sixth Sense. If that's the best they have, forget it.