The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan, 2008)
- Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
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- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
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- Magic Hate Ball
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- Location: Seattle, WA
- Cold Bishop
- Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
- Location: Portland, OR
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
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- HerrSchreck
- Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am
M. Night is one of those rare guys where it's just cats & dogs for me-- every time I see another stupid film of his advertised I get fucking irritable for five minutes. I keep thinking back to that idiotic Time cover with his annoying face and "The New Spielberg?" thunked across the cover.
I generally have tried, mostly with success, to avoid the pull of "this is proof that the world is going to shit very quickly" after noting the success of this or that worthless heap of shit.
But with Night it goes full blast for a bit. And it feels good.
And it's Right. This cat pacing around the room here makes better pop films in his litterbox.
I generally have tried, mostly with success, to avoid the pull of "this is proof that the world is going to shit very quickly" after noting the success of this or that worthless heap of shit.
But with Night it goes full blast for a bit. And it feels good.
And it's Right. This cat pacing around the room here makes better pop films in his litterbox.
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- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:35 pm
- Jeff
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:49 pm
- Location: Denver, CO
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
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- Antoine Doinel
- Joined: Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:22 pm
- Location: Montreal, Quebec
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I'm going to step in here and defend Shyamalan a little. I think he is both an overrated and underrated filmmaker. He's overrated in that assessments that he is the next Hitchcock are Spielberg are off base simply because I don't feel Shyamalan's cinematic output have been resonant enough to warrant such a claim. Moreover, he is an extremely hit or miss filmmaker - his films either work or don't and when they don't it's a struggle to get through them.
He's underrated because despite whatever pop culture gags have resulted from the popularity of his films (which is hardly an assessment on their quality), when his films work they are startingly effective. I think Signs and The Sixth Sense showcase a filmmaker with tremendous narrative and visual acumen.
That said The Village and Lady In The Water showed Shyamalan was treading water at best. I do hope he finds a different narrative for The Happening, and that the film amounts to a lot more than the tagline.
He's underrated because despite whatever pop culture gags have resulted from the popularity of his films (which is hardly an assessment on their quality), when his films work they are startingly effective. I think Signs and The Sixth Sense showcase a filmmaker with tremendous narrative and visual acumen.
That said The Village and Lady In The Water showed Shyamalan was treading water at best. I do hope he finds a different narrative for The Happening, and that the film amounts to a lot more than the tagline.
- Darth Lavender
- Joined: Sun Aug 13, 2006 2:24 pm
My quick thoughts on Shyamalan's films...
6th Sense - Already knew about the twist, but I still liked it for it's very deliberate pace and sense of dread. For entertainment, though, it doesn't stand up to many repeat viewings.
Unbreakable - Of all Shyamalan's films, this one holds the greatest longevity with me (and is the only one in my DVD collection,) the real strength of the film is in it's characters and themes, and in the thoughtful atmosphere it creates for exploring those. The end twist, even after it's known, is still a great moment just dramatically.
Signs - This one comes a somewhat distant second on the 'longevity' element; there's a twist (and, as a Christian in pre "The Passion of the Christ" days, I found it awfully refreshing to see such an unapologetically Christian message. You can certainly debate the artistic merits of the twist, and even the theological merits. But on a first viewing, that was something that really impressed me amidst all the utterly commercial "don't offend atheists, we want them to buy tickets; don't offend Christians, we want them to buy tickets, don't offend..." nonsense one sees in Hollywood (eg. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, What Dreams May Come...)
Artistically, though, what really impressed me was how immersive it was. This movie ranks on a level with "Night of the Living Dead" in creating an utterly believable feeling of 'being there'
The Village - Started off so well, then utterly fails once one figures out the plot-twist. And, of course, just as Unbreakable is so much more fascinating once one knows the twist; The Village is positively dull once one knows the twist.
Perhaps you can see a little for the straight-faced attempt at such quaint dialogue; I think it kind of worked, and was certainly something I hadn't seen much before. But, again, even that is a little undermined by the twist.
The Lady in the Water - Just plain terrible, really. The actual film-making (acting, camera-work, etc.) is really fine and even good throughout, but it's just a doomed cause because of the atrocious screenplay.
I didn't mind the casting of Shyamalan; I'm guessing he wrote the role first, and then decided to cast himself. And, in keeping with the film's "self-referential" quality, casting the writer as a writer is perfectly sensible and even almost clever.
The screenplay just had no real cohesion; it really feels like a story Shyamalan is making up as he goes along (which it basically is.) Interestingly, some of the plot developments I predicted made more sense than what we see (I thought the film-critic would be revealed as the 'Protector' or 'Guardian' or whatever it was, since he happened to appear when the earlier attack mysteriously stopped.)
The Happening - Sounds like it could, at best, be in 'Signs' territory, and as such will certainly merit a rental. What we really need is for Shyamalan to tackle something as thoughtful and original as "Unbreakable" again, but he seems to consider that film a failure
6th Sense - Already knew about the twist, but I still liked it for it's very deliberate pace and sense of dread. For entertainment, though, it doesn't stand up to many repeat viewings.
Unbreakable - Of all Shyamalan's films, this one holds the greatest longevity with me (and is the only one in my DVD collection,) the real strength of the film is in it's characters and themes, and in the thoughtful atmosphere it creates for exploring those. The end twist, even after it's known, is still a great moment just dramatically.
Signs - This one comes a somewhat distant second on the 'longevity' element; there's a twist (and, as a Christian in pre "The Passion of the Christ" days, I found it awfully refreshing to see such an unapologetically Christian message. You can certainly debate the artistic merits of the twist, and even the theological merits. But on a first viewing, that was something that really impressed me amidst all the utterly commercial "don't offend atheists, we want them to buy tickets; don't offend Christians, we want them to buy tickets, don't offend..." nonsense one sees in Hollywood (eg. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, What Dreams May Come...)
Artistically, though, what really impressed me was how immersive it was. This movie ranks on a level with "Night of the Living Dead" in creating an utterly believable feeling of 'being there'
The Village - Started off so well, then utterly fails once one figures out the plot-twist. And, of course, just as Unbreakable is so much more fascinating once one knows the twist; The Village is positively dull once one knows the twist.
Perhaps you can see a little for the straight-faced attempt at such quaint dialogue; I think it kind of worked, and was certainly something I hadn't seen much before. But, again, even that is a little undermined by the twist.
The Lady in the Water - Just plain terrible, really. The actual film-making (acting, camera-work, etc.) is really fine and even good throughout, but it's just a doomed cause because of the atrocious screenplay.
I didn't mind the casting of Shyamalan; I'm guessing he wrote the role first, and then decided to cast himself. And, in keeping with the film's "self-referential" quality, casting the writer as a writer is perfectly sensible and even almost clever.
The screenplay just had no real cohesion; it really feels like a story Shyamalan is making up as he goes along (which it basically is.) Interestingly, some of the plot developments I predicted made more sense than what we see (I thought the film-critic would be revealed as the 'Protector' or 'Guardian' or whatever it was, since he happened to appear when the earlier attack mysteriously stopped.)
The Happening - Sounds like it could, at best, be in 'Signs' territory, and as such will certainly merit a rental. What we really need is for Shyamalan to tackle something as thoughtful and original as "Unbreakable" again, but he seems to consider that film a failure
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- Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:35 am
- Location: Fresno, CA
Shyamalan started off well as a director til it became a big joke that every one of his films had a twist to it. It worked well for Sixth Sense since the whole film was build on the twist in the story. But by the time The Village came out it became old hat for Shyamalan. In fact I knew the twist just by seeing the trailer. And if you know the twist for The Village there really isn't any point in watching it since it turns into a big bore. And Lavender is right that Unbreakable, even if you know the twist, still holds up well after a couple of viewings. Sixth Sense hasn't held up over the years I think because it's been spoofed and burned into our minds what the twist was. I remember seeing Sixth in theaters when no one had talked really about what the twist was and I remember the packed theater being shocked by what it was. I think of all of Shyamalan films people will look back and say that his real masterpieces were Unbreakable and Signs.
As for his new film, it can't be half as bad as Lady in the Water. I'd watch the bore of The Village or some paint dry before I'd watch Lady again.
As for his new film, it can't be half as bad as Lady in the Water. I'd watch the bore of The Village or some paint dry before I'd watch Lady again.
- Faux Hulot
- Jack Of All Tirades
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- pemmican
- Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 8:19 pm
- Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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I think Shyamalan deserves a lot of credit for precisely the reason he receives so much abuse: he's trying to use popular cinema to explore deeper religious/philosophical themes, which he appears to take quite seriously; I think he's coming to us with his heart on his sleeve, a bit, and it's unsurprising it gets pecked at. SIXTH SENSE is about loss and acceptance, UNBREAKABLE about realizing ones potential (and on heroic archetypes), SIGNS about having faith that life has meaning (a message that I don't think is necessarily Christian, despite the film's trappings), and THE VILLAGE, the way vested interests use xenophobia to their advantage (there may be more going on in that film than has been acknowledged, btw). His twist endings seem instrumental to getting viewers to rethink their values - to surprise them out of complacency and get them to question what they've seen. None of his films is ENTIRELY successful - I guffawed a few too many times through SIGNS and UNBREAKABLE to want to call them his masterworks (and I haven't bothered with LADY IN THE WATER yet, which sounds horrible); but I'm glad he's out there, and think it's a bit sad that people are abusing him to the extent that they are. He may be the village idiot of popular cinema, but sometimes the village idiot has surprisingly valuable things to say, and his sincerity should not be taken lightly...
Bad advertising copy aside, this looks like a film I'll rush to see.
P.
Bad advertising copy aside, this looks like a film I'll rush to see.
P.
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- solaris72
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:03 pm
- Location: Baltimore, MD
Despite the fact that I lost interest in Shymalan after Signs (and Unbreakable becomes increasingly tarnished in my mind) I was excited about this when I heard the premise because I hoped against hope that it would be like Day of the Animals but with plants. I had a fantasy in my mind that I could watch it back to back with Fernando Meirelles' Blindness and that that would simulate the experience of watching an epic big budget remake of Day of the Triffids.
And then my foolish hopes were quashed when I found out that
And then my foolish hopes were quashed when I found out that
SpoilerShow
it's just about plants emitting some stupid poison gas.
- pemmican
- Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 8:19 pm
- Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Hm. Actually, I found much of LADY IN THE WATER delightful - just watched it tonight. Embarrassing, self-consciously silly, has the smell of a New Age bookstore to it, and I hope Shyamalan is poking fun at his own earnestness at certain moments, rather than just being, uhm, really earnest -- but there is so much creativity and craft, and it's heart (on its sleeve, as above) is so in the right place (and I laughed and cried and felt uplifted so many times in the course of the film, sentimental shlub that I am) that I think I will cautiously step further into this guy's corner. It baffles me that this film would get as low as 24% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, even given what happens to the Bob Balaban character... and interesting that the user rating is much higher.
P.
P.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
- Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm
When he's in a role that works around his limitations, Wahlberg can be a very good actor but HOLY SHITa.khan wrote:May be Shyamalan's big twist, this time, is that "The Happening" is...a comedy?