M. Night Shyamalan sure has painted himself into a corner, when you think about it. When we first heard about Lady in the Water we imagine we reacted the same way everyone else did, buy sighing “I wonder what the twist is.” Eye Weekly’s Adam Nayman has actually given the film some hefty (spoiler free) coverage, with a lovely little article about Shyamalan’s possible credibility implosion with the release of Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger’s The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale, which, by the sounds of things, is even more damaging than how awful Lady in the Water is.

Torontoist would like to state for the record, though, that we thought Unbreakable was really quite good. It set itself up perfectly for a dark, Watchmen-esque sequel, don’t you think? Samuel L’s final lines… Fantastic.

Anyway, though we won’t spoil what his final lines are, let’s spoil the twist of Lady in the Water. The twist is…It’s actually an incredibly poor sequel to Clerks!

Oh, no, wait, couple of pages of notes were stuck together there. Yes, Clerks II. Did anyone actually ask for this? I mean, Yeah, everything Kevin Smith has made since Chasing Amy has sucked a fat one but come on, to just return to the same old stuff? I would originally have been quite understanding of Smith, throwing thoughts out like “Isn’t he more creative than this? Couldn’t he write new characters, a new setting?” But having seen the titanically bad Jersey Girl he gets no mercy. And, indeed, Eye Weekly are on fire this week, with Jason Anderson kicking Silent Bob around the parking lot with lines like “It's hard to name another director under 40 who enjoys the same level of brand recognition, commands decent-sized budgets, attracts familiar actors, somehow stays on the good side of the Weinstein brothers -- yet not only misses the bar time and time again but actually finds new ways to suck bag.” And “Did Clerks really leave anyone desperate to know what happened to Dante and Randal? Maybe Smith -- the most sentimental kind of vulgarian -- just wanted to have some old friends around. After all, it's not like he's been making any new ones.”

NOW’s Glenn Sumi actually takes a far more forgiving tact with a (kind) interview and a 3 N review. So! It might not be as bad as we might have thought. Having said that, though, I’m sure a far better way to spend your money is on the Clerks comics, or the Clerks TV show. They really were excellent, justified follow ups to the original film.

Oh yeah, and the Ivan Reitman flick My Super Ex-Girlfriend is out, too. Nayman didn’t think much of it either, but for some reason Torontoist finds the trailer really funny. Just this idea that you’d break up with someone and their reaction would be to fly through the ceiling, literally. Considering the plot doesn’t look like it stretches much further than that, though…

Cinematheque Ontario continues with the Summer Samurai with a showing of Zatoichi on the Road (Tuesday, 6:30pm), which is almost certain to be better than the somewhat duff recent re-imagining by Takeshi Kitano. On Wednesday (6:30pm) the lecture series covers Heinosuke Gosho with a showing of An Inn at Osaka, a shomin-geki (a genre which deals with the everyday lives of common people). All showings at Jackman Hall, AGO, 317 Dundas W.

Speaking of TIFFG happenings, they announced the Indian titles at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, including the premiere of Karan Johar’s Never Say Goodbye.