M. Night Shyamalan has made a number of good films. One of which, I’m betting you’ve never seen.
This unknown film is called <i>Wide Awake</i>, and a quick google search for reviews will turn up a number of people waxing rhapsodic about how wonderful this film is, and how sad it is that no one has ever heard of it, let alone seen it. The film was made pre-<i>The Sixth Sense</i>, and when that movie exploded, video copies of <i>Wide Awake</i> were re-released with a big blurb about how this film is from the creator of <i>The Sixth Sense</i>, but that didn’t really help. And why didn’t it help? Because this is the cover of said film:
<center><img src=“http://nyquil.org/uploads/wideawakecover.jpg”></center>
Would you pick that film up off the shelf at your local video shop? Neither would I. The trouble is, this cover completely misleads the viewer about the content, tone, and POINT of the movie. Yes, Rosie O’Donnell is in the film, (And, I have to admit that she’s actually darn good in it as well) but she is not the focal character of the film. Yes, there was something in there about baseball, but once again: that has nothing to do with the film. What looks like a cheeseball Rosie O’Donnell comedy is, in actuality, a remarkably wonderful film about a young boy coming to terms with the things he believes. It is incredibly touching, and everyone in the film gives stellar performances. Dennis Leary is particularly good in it. Sure, there are some funny moments, but to call the film a comedy would be greatly under-selling it.
I think whoever designed that cover did us film viewers a great disservice — not to mention doing a disservice to M. Night himself; in my opinion this is the best of his films, and it’s a shame he hasn’t been paid its worth. In an effort to try to encourage other people to see this fine film, I decided to make a better cover for it. Now, I’m neither a marketer nor a designer, but seeing this cover on a shelf would make me pick it up. Hopefully it’ll do the same for you:
<center><img src=“http://nyquil.org/uploads/mywideawakecover.png”></center>
Bonus points to anyone who prints it out and tapes it onto the disc at their local rental shop.
(This poster contains Creative Commons-licensed material from kadj, frankloohuis, and danwk71 and is licensed under a Creative Commons “do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t make money” license, because that’s how some of its parts are licensed.)
