Best tear Aang and his bunch right out of MNS hands. This guy is the Elmyra Duff of directors - the powers might think they're cool, but no one else can stand to see them or even hear their name.
THE HAPPENING - Holy mother of Christ, it's unwatchable.
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Best tear Aang and his bunch right out of MNS hands. This guy is the Elmyra Duff of directors - the powers might think they're cool, but no one else can stand to see them or even hear their name.
I liked Lady in the Water, maybe I was in a charitable mood because it was just on HBO and I didn't have to seek it out or whatever but I thought it was a neat urban fantasy that I hadn't really seen before in live action. It didn't hurt that I was rather captivated by Bryce Dallas Howard. Not too say that I couldn't see where it was self-indulgent and a bit of an F-U to the critics but I did like it.
I have found all of his films interesting (haven't seen The Village) and not a waste of time seeing. I liked The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable outright. I think Signs was a good movie, had he worked a little longer on the logic holes it would have been much better regarded.
I think as he's gone on that he's become more insular and the films seem to have suffered as a result but they have provided some interesting results. I've heard nothing but bad things about The Happening and I don't disbelieve them but I'm probably going to end up checking this out against better judgment.
The Happening was HILARIOUS! I laughed my ass off the entire way through. The pretentious seriousness of the bland lifeless characters... the hilarious way people died (the lion was the best, OMG I was in tears)... running from the wind...
SPOILERS FOR ENDING
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Not to mention the ending where Marky Mark decides to run out and die because he didn't want to be in the cabin alone, so what does Zooey do? She ALSO runs out to die, AND TAKES THE KID WITH HER! Nice little suicide pact there. And the insane old woman who sleeps with the little girl doll... and the ending suggestion that the plants were actually attacking George W Bush... LOL...
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SIGNS is my favorite Shyguy movie, the only one I thought completely worked. VILLAGE was terrifying until the twist, which is half dumb half clever, so I'm vaguely positive on it. SIXTH SENSE was just there for me. UNBREAKABLE was slow and boring but also a comic book so it gets a neutral. LADY WATER was god awfully pretentious but watchable (Shyguy's character will save the world in the future! wheee!).
SPOILERS FOR ENDING
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.
.
Not to mention the ending where Marky Mark decides to run out and die because he didn't want to be in the cabin alone, so what does Zooey do? She ALSO runs out to die, AND TAKES THE KID WITH HER! Nice little suicide pact there. And the insane old woman who sleeps with the little girl doll... and the ending suggestion that the plants were actually attacking George W Bush... LOL...
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SIGNS is my favorite Shyguy movie, the only one I thought completely worked. VILLAGE was terrifying until the twist, which is half dumb half clever, so I'm vaguely positive on it. SIXTH SENSE was just there for me. UNBREAKABLE was slow and boring but also a comic book so it gets a neutral. LADY WATER was god awfully pretentious but watchable (Shyguy's character will save the world in the future! wheee!).
I think the thing that bothered me most about the Happening is not so much how terrible it is, but how badly filmed it is. Whatever you think of his films (and I kinda go up and down) the man can direct tension very well, and his films always look good and are usually well acted. The Happening didn't even have these elements to make up for a ludicrous plot! It seemed to be filmed and acted like a bad TV movie.
I really think that (if he's ever let near a film again) then he should either direct someone else's script or else write a script that someone else directs.
I really think that (if he's ever let near a film again) then he should either direct someone else's script or else write a script that someone else directs.
Shyamalan is going slowly downhill in a Woody Allen-ish way. Starting with The Village (in my opinion), he is plummeting. I thought The Happening (read my review here) was a tad better than Lady in the Water, but that isn't saying much.
He may do better with his next Avatar movie, which at least is based on someone else's story. His last three story ideas have been good concepts but very weak in narrative.
He may do better with his next Avatar movie, which at least is based on someone else's story. His last three story ideas have been good concepts but very weak in narrative.
The one thing I think that was commendable about the movie was that it went against the Spielberg ethic of making the kids untouchable - the scene with the two kids getting shot could have been powerful if a) the unintentional comedic content had not already totally killed this movie and b) the scene's set up made it obvious that the kids were going to get killed so it was not even a surprise.
This whole movie would have done better to mislead and confuse the audience as to what was actually happening and play on fears and paranoia instead of having crazy gardner guy just declare that the plants were doing it and marky-mark just decide he was right.
This whole movie would have done better to mislead and confuse the audience as to what was actually happening and play on fears and paranoia instead of having crazy gardner guy just declare that the plants were doing it and marky-mark just decide he was right.
No, he's a History Professor focusing on Latin America.
I saw this film in the theater opening weekend to avoid the spoilers that would eventually spill out into media. It is easily one of the worst movies I've paid to see in recent times; and there is so much wrong with it I wouldn't even know where to begin ...
...maybe I do actually: Wahlberg being badly miscast as the mild mannered teacher. His acting choice was to recite lines as if he were doing a guest spot on Sesame Street. This amused the audience (as noted, in all the wrong places) to no end. It also jettisoned any chance of the back story of his rocky relationship with Daschanel working. It just came across as painfully funny as they went through the motions. And key suspense moments, such as his working through solutions to the problem using grade school logic (literally, the grade school logic he taught in class), just became sit-comish.
Desperate for something - anything - with menace, the story randomly throws in the very crazy old woman using quick cut camera work and jolting soundtrack cues instead of delivering something that was actually scary. Or made sense. Or moved the story along. Or was not plain crap.
And the plants. If the story would have worked, perhaps many of the "scary" visual cues would have worked. But since this was a farce of a film, we were given plants gently blowing in the breeze and that was supposed to increased the adrenaline. In fact it only increased the laughs.
In fairness, there were two set pieces at the start which worked quite well visually: the park and the construction site. But he went to that well too often too quickly in following scenes, and the entire affair descended quickly into a steaming pile.
...maybe I do actually: Wahlberg being badly miscast as the mild mannered teacher. His acting choice was to recite lines as if he were doing a guest spot on Sesame Street. This amused the audience (as noted, in all the wrong places) to no end. It also jettisoned any chance of the back story of his rocky relationship with Daschanel working. It just came across as painfully funny as they went through the motions. And key suspense moments, such as his working through solutions to the problem using grade school logic (literally, the grade school logic he taught in class), just became sit-comish.
Desperate for something - anything - with menace, the story randomly throws in the very crazy old woman using quick cut camera work and jolting soundtrack cues instead of delivering something that was actually scary. Or made sense. Or moved the story along. Or was not plain crap.
And the plants. If the story would have worked, perhaps many of the "scary" visual cues would have worked. But since this was a farce of a film, we were given plants gently blowing in the breeze and that was supposed to increased the adrenaline. In fact it only increased the laughs.
In fairness, there were two set pieces at the start which worked quite well visually: the park and the construction site. But he went to that well too often too quickly in following scenes, and the entire affair descended quickly into a steaming pile.
Well, me, my brother and my buddy that came along with us on opening night enjoyed the movie.
So I guess 3 people out there feel they didn't waste their money.
(Hated The Village, enjoyed Lady in the Water, really liked Unbreakable, and LOVED Signs, for a barometer of where my likes for his movies are)
So I guess 3 people out there feel they didn't waste their money.
(Hated The Village, enjoyed Lady in the Water, really liked Unbreakable, and LOVED Signs, for a barometer of where my likes for his movies are)
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
I think it's amusing they split the Day of the Triffids remake into two seperate movies, THE HAPPENING and BLINDNESS.
THE HAPPENING comments SPOILERS galore:
- The contrived way that someone has to be on a cell phone with someone in New Jersey so Zooey and Wahlberg can find out (or assume correctly) that some they know there has perished.
- The army guy who, unlike every other person who commits suicide, talks as he does it. WTF?
- The odd thing that one person seems unaffected at the beginning and the end, while everyone else freezes as their minds set into self-killbot mode.
- The guns popping out windows bit...some called it...it was a pure Looney Tunes moment.
-That millions are dead afterward is never shown with any impact beyond some scientist guy talking on t.v. that this was a warning.
-Some sort of Michael Bay homage that Paris is the next target.
THE HAPPENING comments SPOILERS galore:
- The contrived way that someone has to be on a cell phone with someone in New Jersey so Zooey and Wahlberg can find out (or assume correctly) that some they know there has perished.
- The army guy who, unlike every other person who commits suicide, talks as he does it. WTF?
- The odd thing that one person seems unaffected at the beginning and the end, while everyone else freezes as their minds set into self-killbot mode.
- The guns popping out windows bit...some called it...it was a pure Looney Tunes moment.
-That millions are dead afterward is never shown with any impact beyond some scientist guy talking on t.v. that this was a warning.
-Some sort of Michael Bay homage that Paris is the next target.
Unfortunately. 
I liked it. But I also loved The Village and Lady in the Water. What now? Will I get banned?
Ban him!
OMG You're right!
Well, this definitely decides me to skip it!
I pretty much hate Marky-Mark and everything about him, so that was strike one.
The very little I've seen Zoey in, I thought she was a wooden and blank-staring mannequin, so, two.
Oddly enough, I think Zoey's much prettier than her sister (and I'm a big Bones fan), but Emily seems to be able to act rings around Blinky. For one thing, Emily gets expressions!
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