M KNIGHT's The Happening

I don't even think he should get credit for a good first 30 minutes. As any writer knows, the first 30 minutes of a movie are the easiest to write. Especially a movie like this. You just make crazy stuff happen so everybody goes, "whoa, what's going on here?" It's actually creating an interesting story after that crazy stuff happens and then explaining, in a satisfyiing way, why it happened, that's the hard part. That's where writers earn their salary.
 
"The movie is really about ... this one moment. This moment of, if you realize that in 30 seconds you were gonna die, in a minute you were gonna die ... you're not fighting anymore ...it's over. You've given up that possibility. What will you say to your loved one in that last moment?" - Night

It's interesting Night says this is what the movie is about (I've heard him say this in a few interviews). I never for once saw this as the main point of his film. I wasn't even aware that it was something he was peripherally trying to say until I read that statement.

And even if it is, that's the dumbest idea to base a movie around ever. Assuming you have maybe 6 people in the movie who have that moment, what is that? 3 minutes of screentime? Tops? This may be the clue as to why nothing happens for 87 minutes.
 
c.g._eads said:
"The movie is really about ... this one moment. This moment of, if you realize that in 30 seconds you were gonna die, in a minute you were gonna die ... you're not fighting anymore ...it's over. You've given up that possibility. What will you say to your loved one in that last moment?" - Night

It's interesting Night says this is what the movie is about (I've heard him say this in a few interviews). I never for once saw this as the main point of his film. I wasn't even aware that it was something he was peripherally trying to say until I read that statement.

And even if it is, that's the dumbest idea to base a movie around ever. Assuming you have maybe 6 people in the movie who have that moment, what is that? 3 minutes of screentime? Tops? This may be the clue as to why nothing happens for 87 minutes.
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Well, C.G., I have to disagree with you there. There's nothing wrong on building up for that "one moment"- that's what happens in most M. Night films: Faith in Signs, for example. That one moment makes you think about the whole movie, and about your own "World". This, however, doesn't happen in "The happening".

In this movie, what fails is that you just don't feel attached to the characters enough for that "moment" to have any impact. You don't care about their relationship. The female character is uninteresting, and the male character is just lacking any emotional depth. The only character with depth was gone 30/40 minutes into the film. That was when the movie lost interest, character wise.
 
Best. Review. Ever.

M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie, The Happening, is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It's the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: "Do you remember the part when Mark Wahlberg ... ?" "God, yes. And what about that scene where the wind ... ?"

The problem, of course, is that to have such a conversation, you'd normally have to see the movie, which I believe is an unreasonably high price to pay just to make fun of it. So rather than write a conventional review explaining why you should or shouldn't see The Happening (trust me, you shouldn't), I'm offering an alternative: A dozen and a half of the most mind-bendingly ridiculous elements of the film, which will enable you to marvel at its anti-genius without sacrificing (and I don't use that term lightly) 90 minutes of your life.
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I was, like, "meh" before, but now I am SOOOO seeing this (as soon as it hits the 'mule.)
 
this movie isn't even "exciting" bad. which would be a nice consolation. i had the same expectations and was just bored. it sucks cause you're actually waiting for something really really stupid to happen so you can laugh your ass off. but it doesn't. It ends up being something so mind-bendingly average, that it's worse than stupid. He somehow creates a new kind of boredom. Uber-boredom.

Although, per your article, this part did make me laugh out loud.

10. Speaking of wind, there's a priceless meant-to-be-tragic scene in which a woman traveling with Elliot et al. is talking to her daughter on a cell phone and urging her to stay in her room. After we hear her kill herself, Elliot snatches the phone, listens, and reports somberly, "I hear wind from outside."

I was like, "is he serious? did he just put that line in the movie?"
 
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It really felt like a b-movie from the 50's. Just replace the shots of wind and trees with a slow moving monster and there you have it.

I REALLY wish MST3K was still on the air. They would have had A LOT of fun making jokes about this movie.

I cannot believe nobody on the set took M Night aside and said, "Maybe we should stop." And when Mark started talking to the plant in that one scene, maybe they should have took him aside again and said, "Seriously, maybe we should stop."
 
The Signal

The Signal

c.g._eads said:
I don't even think he should get credit for a good first 30 minutes. As any writer knows, the first 30 minutes of a movie are the easiest to write. Especially a movie like this. You just make crazy stuff happen so everybody goes, "whoa, what's going on here?" It's actually creating an interesting story after that crazy stuff happens and then explaining, in a satisfyiing way, why it happened, that's the hard part. That's where writers earn their salary.
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If it's really this bad, it's a shame The Happening even gets the publicity, when a film like The Signal is almost unheard of. I watched it on DVD last night, and I was blown away.

The Signal is a low-budget horror film made by three new filmmakers, I believe shot on an HVX or something (it looks like HVX to me). It's astonishingly good, in contrast to the Happening's astonishingly bad reviews. The Signal has no stars, but is executed with such a sure-handed style that I was sort of in awe. Okay, its first 30 minutes are better than its last (as you said, c.g., the first 30 minutes are easiest). But what a first 30 minutes!

Indie filmmakers should run not walk to the video store to get their copy of The Signal. Again, the conclusion drags out and doesn't live up to the first half of the film, but watching this film is still so worth it. I have to start a thread about this film.

Shyamalan may be lucky he's getting talked about to this degree when there are filmmakers like those behind The Signal lurking out there in relative obscurity.
 
IMDB says

Canon XL-H1

It does look bitchen if not a rip off of The Cell.

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Interestingly, I think the script for The Signal was done before the Cell novel came out. I think I read that, but I'm not sure.

Can't wait for The Cell. I loved that book.
 
International has taken in $30,000,000

Worldwide: $67,612,823

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BOMojo has an interesting stat on the votes for A's and F's with not so much parity in the middle.

It seems people either love this or hate it. I'm thinking I may like it.
 
Whatever the budget was I think the story line was really lame. I say his worst film out of all the films he has made.
 
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