The Happening

[viddy]

Avoid this film like an airborne virus. It had me for a little while, then it went all downhill. It didn't seem like one person in the theater enjoyed it. I laughed especially when the boom mic with the red tape on the tip fell into a shot during some dialogue. LOLOLOL:D

[grady]

Avoid this film like an airborne virus. It had me for a little while, then it went all downhill. It didn't seem like one person in the theater enjoyed it. I laughed especially when the boom mic with the red tape on the tip fell into a shot during some dialogue. LOLOLOL:D

I didn't see the mic falling into frame, but felt like it would've made the film a bit more palatable.

I tried to resist the urge to laugh, but it was infectious throughout the auditorium during the showing I saw this evening.

[viddy]

I didn't see the mic falling into frame, but felt like it would've made the film a bit more palatable.

I tried to resist the urge to laugh, but it was infectious throughout the auditorium during the showing I saw this evening.

I think the big twist at the end, was when the lights came up and you realized you just spent $12 to see this movie.

[grady]

I think the big twist at the end, was when the lights came up and you realized you just spent $12 to see this movie.
I dodged that bullet. My friend was the one paying for the film last night. Normally I'd be comped into the theater I frequent, but my contact had the night off. Out of boredom and curiosity, and a minimal interest in The Incredible Hulk, The Happening was settled upon.

I did incur the cost of pre-film drinks, which was quite necessary and I wish I would have had a double before leaving the bar.

[den]

Yes, this movie is terrible. Most of the movie is listening to clunky dialogue as the characters figure out what's going on in a painfully slow manner. There were some interesting ideas here for a suspense film, but none of those angles were taken. The likely in-film reaction completely undermines the message and theme of the movie. If this happened in real life tomorrow, what would your first response be?

[Deckard]

Apparently "the best B movie ever" according to Shyamalan.

And B stands for............

[cured]

The movie is listed as a comedy on a couple of sites I saw. I read the spoiler of the movie and it looked hilarious! Like a modern "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" except without the slapstick humor.

[grady]

Apparently "the best B movie ever" according to Shyamalan.

And B stands for............

Bullshit?

[cured]

Braindead.

[grady]

Banal.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Word from others' whose film opinions I trust have said Hitchcock would be proud.

Haven't seen this one yet.

[grady]

Word from others' whose film opinions I trust have said Hitchcock would be proud.

Haven't seen this one yet.
The mention of Hitchcock in the same breathe as Shamalamadingdong, while I can understand some making the complimentary comparison, seems a bit too overreaching and lazy. Steven Spielberg seems like a more apt unit of comparison when looking at filmmakers, whether contemporary or past eras.

Proceed with caution into this new film, this is coming from a viewer who isn't fond of Shalamadingdong's previous work, the one exception being Unbreakable.

[Stephen]

It's pretty bad. The start is pretty spooky (the builders scene was actually scary I thought) but the final 30 minutes are categorically dogshit.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

... but the final 30 minutes are categorically dogshit.

Is that not a rule with most horror films? I think it's some kind of movie making rule for certain people in the audience who have a hard time understanding it's not real. :) (BB what are you doing with my smiley??!!???)

[BrotherLovesDub]

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=75893f9a-3391-4ab5-88c8-cf7e74bcd835

[grady]

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=75893f9a-3391-4ab5-88c8-cf7e74bcd835
That was one of the harsher, blow by blow reviews out there vivisecting the film.

I've been waiting for Anthony Lane from the New Yorker to chime in. His negative reviews can be really entertaining to read when he really doesn't like a film.

[potatobroth]

I just got a laugh from Ron Bennington of the Ron and Fez show on XM as he described how poor this movie was.

[Stephen]

Is that not a rule with most horror films? I think it's some kind of movie making rule for certain people in the audience who have a hard time understanding it's not real. :) (BB what are you doing with my smiley??!!???)
Granted, perhaps. But this goes way beyond. It's pretty bad.

[IsiliRunite]

Pearl-Harbor-Bad.

and I miss you.

[grady]

Pearl-Harbor-Bad.

and I miss you.
Ooh...Pearl Harbor. Please allow me to digress for a couple moments.

The first time I tried to watch that I left half way through the film due to a nauseating headache when I was still working full time as a projectionist. On the drive home with my girlfriend at the time I pulled the car over and vomited in the middle of traffic.

I'm not really sure what came over me but I always attributed my illness to the film, both for comic effect but also Michael Bay's schizophrenic editing technique, that while working for an action film, didn't work for this type of historical dramatization. When watching both Bad Boys 2 and Transformers, despite sitting in the back two rows of the auditorium, I still felt waves of disorientation and the eventual Michael Bay headache. I've always attributed this to his ultra fast and unnecessarily quick cutting.

I finished screening the film a couple days later after there was projector mishap and I had to oversee the projectionist splicing job.

That was truly one of the more god awful films I've ever seen. Not Transformers bad, but bad in the Michael Bay-action-director-trying-to-be-serious bad.

[ndrwrld]

Shyamalan calls 'The Happening' the best B movie ever...

aka this movie sucked, so let's downgrade it's awesomeness.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/06/17/mnight.shyamalan/index.html

ps - it's all about trees.

[Sean]

Shyamalan has gone from being a director who's movies I felt compelled to go see, to a director who's films I might go see, to a director who's films I have absolutely no desire to see. He has such potential...I kept hoping he'd deliver and he really hasn't since Sixth Sense...and kind of on Unbreakable. I never even saw his last one about that moist lady or whatever, even though it's been on HBO for a while. Don't think I'll be likely see this one either.

[bryantm3]

the lady in the water was pretty stupid, basically it takes place at this random apartment complex and this lady shows up in the pool at night and doesn't really know where she is. she's from some kind of other world or something and she says that somewhere on earth there are 3 or 4 people with titles like 'the protector' 'the doer' 'the master debator' etc. and apparently they all live in the apartment complex. the movie comes to its climax when all the sod around the complex turns out to be these monsters with grass on their back and then this guy that wrote this book about how the world was going to hell has some kind of revolution and then everybody gets saved. or maybe they die. i don't know. i had to drink so much to keep watching it that by the end i was disoriented to say the least.

[sanblaster]

"Signs" is the best alien flick I've ever seen..... :o:o It was unique in its mundane environment, I just loved it!

[Sean]

"Signs" is the best alien flick I've ever seen..... :o:o It was unique in its mundane environment, I just loved it!You know, I forgot about that one. It was nothing special overall, but it did have enough great moments that I did enjoy it. The home video footage from the Brazilian kid's birthday party was one of my personal favorite scary movie moments ever....but why in the world would aliens who can be killed by water try to take over a planet that's covered in the freakin' stuff, and even has it falling from the sky all the time?

[ndrwrld]

"Signs" is the best alien flick I've ever seen.....
pardon ?:rolleyes:

[potatobroth]

what about a little film called, 'alien'?

[sanblaster]

I should explain myself here...."Alien" is a far better movie, but what makes a perfect alien flick for me is the approach. When it makes you feel it close to you and puts the aliens in our environment instead of putting us in a hostile, unknown alien environment. "Signs" had no huge spaceships, no laser beam fights, no CGI all around.... instead it had tinfoil paper helmets and vhs footage in a remote children's birthday party. And the suspense was very well built and developed. I have yet to know somebody who wasn't scared shitless with the 'they're inside the house' scene.


That said, I'm a bit ambivalent about the aliens showing in the end. Still not sure whether I liked that or not.

[potatobroth]

The way I feel about Shyamalan is that he has some genuinely great popcorn flick ideas - and even some a little deeper than popcorn. His inability to work with other screenwriters/storytellers stunts his ideas and they all end up the exact same way... unfinished. What was Signs about? Aliens? Coincedence? Inevitability? How do you arrive at a conclusion that aliens are killed by water with the whole argument of atmosphere, rain? Another cook in the kitchen could really elevate a few of his stories from meh to entertaining and good.

[negative1]

none of his movies make any sense, have any depth,
or point (yes, even 'unbreakable' was horribly bad)..

this is no different..

each movie he makes (including the entirely predictable
'sixth sense') crashes, burns, and deflates into a
non-experience...like it never existed...

m night who?

maybe 'stuart little' was the high point for him..

ughhh..

i'll take michael bay, yes even transformers (all of it), anyday..


later
-1

[potatobroth]

I'll defend Sixth Sense. I never saw it coming and I saw that movie late into its theater season. I was genuinely shocked, scared, grossed out and surprised just when he wanted me to be with Sixth and it was pretty great. Unbreakable however, I could see a mile away and it was so poorly plotted and paced that I wanted to cut my feet off and throw them at the screen. Instead I used them to walk out of the room.

[negative1]

potatobroth,

i'm glad you found some enjoyment in the 'sixth sense',
but for anyone thats ever watched a twilight zone
episode, i think the first few minutes gave it away,
after that it was all downhill..

later
-1

[Stephen]

(yes, even 'unbreakable' was horribly bad)..
You am wrong. Say sorry.

[IsiliRunite]

I've never actually walked out of a movie.... I just laugh really loudly and pompously when they are really bad.

[potatobroth]

potatobroth,

i'm glad you found some enjoyment in the 'sixth sense',
but for anyone thats every watched a twilight zone
episode, i think the first few minutes gave it away,
after that it was all downhill..


Yeah, you are totally right, but that doesn't make it bad. I actually watched a ton of Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, etc. in my youth (I'm 33) and am quite embarassed to say that I still never saw it coming. There was JUST enough of a reason to believe that what we saw was actually happening and that he just wanted to help the dead-people-seeing kid.

[negative1]

You am wrong. Say sorry.

with such an eloquent argument, i find it hard to put
up a defense:

rather than just quote all the issues, just look here for
starters....no, they aren't all my ideas, but i agree with
them..[ie.google plot holes, unbreakable]..
----------------------------------------------------
plot holes in unbreakable:

But the biggest question the film asks (Why does God allow some to be strong & some weak?) is completely ignored. The film doesn't attempt to answer it at all! Sam Jackson's madness simply wants to know that some people are strong since he is weak to feel that there's some cosmic yin-yang balance. Bruce Willis's character questions whether he's unbreakable, but never why. There's potential for depth here, but the film never attempts anything other than surface-level examinations of its plot.


More complaints:
A.) The director's cameo as a possible drug dealer does nothing to further the plot. It makes Willis doubt his ability, but doesn't pan out in any noticeable way.

B.) The fact that Willis never noticed that he had never been injured or sick, and even has to stop to ask his wife about this.

C.) Sam Jackson's random bombing of things in order to find someone who's unbreakable. Surely this is some of the worst criminal motivation ever featured in a film.

D.) The janitor who Willis fights... He randomly attacks a family and holds them hostage Then he continues to go to work as usual!

E.) Willis' character's overnight development of his psychic abilities... how did he not notice this before?!?!

F.) Why does Willis ignore all of the other crimes he noticed in the train station before he goes after the janitor?

G.) Why does Willis have to ask if he'd taken sick days? I can't believe he'd not know this off the top of his head... It's only a lame attempt to create tension that the script makes him not know something so rudimentary... it's not believable.

H.) Why is Willis a security guard? He's around 40. He's got a college degree. He could have plenty of careers that involve protecting people where he isn't fighting for $1/hr raise.

I.) What are the problems in his marriage? The movie never says...
etc... etc... etc...

i could keep on going, but the movie would have
ended ages ago..

later
-1

[chuck]

crikey. 4 pages about a shamhammer movie?

to be fair - only the first page was about the happass film. I did like grady's story of throwing up in the middle of traffic - in fact that small event would have probably made a better film than anything the shamalamadingdong man has made lately.