Scribe & Green on the BIG screen

There are far too many people out there writing “reviews of movie-films & articles about them with absolutely no clue what the hell they’re talking about." Here are 2 more of them! (Well, one of us knows what the h___ we're talking about, but we'll leave it up to you to decide who that is...) Ultimately, can two people as opposite as Scribe and Green agree on anything?? That's where the fun begins. Won't you join us? (Every now and then we'll add a guest review, just for kicks.)

Friday, January 2, 2009

THE HAPPENING

SCRIBE'S THAT TREE'S LOOKIN' AT ME FUNNY REVIEW:

I have this theory based on historical observation that M. Knight Shaymalan will one day be hailed either as an unrecognized storytelling genius or the greatest one-trick pony of our age. Believe it or not, I tend to side with the former.

“The Happening” is another in a string of box office disappointments for this once A-list auteur. Despite it being quite overrated, “The Sixth Sense” was the equivalent of hitting a homerun on one’s first night of playing major league baseball. It’s difficult to follow up with that kind of rapid success, but he did it with “Unbreakable.” Now with six films under his belt, M. Knight has delivered something different from his previous efforts, an R-rated, much more esoteric film.

Audiences hated it in droves. In fact, the only film of his they seemed to hate more was “The Village,” which I consider to be an underrated masterpiece of deception. This time the story focuses on the entire nation as strange deaths and suicides are reported all over the East Coast. Many of these deaths are grisly and disturbing, a new approach for this filmmaker, and a welcome change to his normal implied horror.

Mark Wahlberg heads up a cast including John Leguizamo and a host of little-knowns as they run from place to place, desperately trying to figure out what’s causing people to basically go insane. The acting is fine although it’s drawn much harsh criticism. M. Knight, like George Lucas, is a popular whipping boy for people who like to sound superior to the masses. What no one seems to want to credit him for, however, is his steadfast devotion to his own peculiar storytelling approach.

Unconcerned with creating some cookie-cutter horror film, M. Knight places his characters in a type of danger that seems real. With just the sight of the wind rustling through the trees, he establishes a feeling of dread most directors can only create through buckets of blood and jump cuts.

Without revealing too much of the plot behind the plot, “The Happening” does have an environmental theme, something that also seems to have pissed people off, if the Yahoo! User reviews are any indication. What most don’t seem to get is there’s always been an element of social commentary to his work. This just happens to be the first time it’s made obvious.

I read some user reviews from people complaining that the actual “Happening” is relegated to the old “Well, it’s a mystery we’ll never solve” category. Untrue. Much like the best work of Stephen King, the answer isn’t some simple ghost or monster story, but something intrinsic to the human condition. People are shallow but M. Knight doesn’t seem to care. Good for him.

This film kept me riveted form start to finish.

***½ out of *****


GREEN’S HOW’D THEY KNOW IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK? REVIEW:

Pennsylvania High school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) knows a lot about many things. What he can’t explain is why everyone around him is mysteriously dying and/or killing themselves in the northeastern United States and nowhere else. So what’s the best course of action when a disaster strikes that nobody can understand or explain?

The tried and true horror movie solution is to get out, get away, just get. Doesn’t matter where or how, even if its by car or on foot.

Elliot gets his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and they, along with a colleague (John Leguziamo) and his young daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) do just that. Predictably, when the friend leaves to go back and find his wife, leaving the child behind with the Moores, shortly thereafter he dies. So they keep running, and running and running, figuring that as people are dying around them that their chances of survival are better in the smallest groups possible.

Is it me, or have M. Night Shamalyan’s films steadily gotten worse over time? I mean they must have to some degree when you make your splashy debut with such a cool, hit film like "The Sixth Sense," right? Or is this the worst of the lot? Every movie writer/producer/director comes up with a dud once in their careers, yes? Hopefully this is his.

As one review I read noted, it’s not the performances of the actors at fault here, but the material itself. ‘Uninspired’ is the word that the reviewer used to describe the script and I‘ve got to agree. I think Mark Wahlberg is a fantastic actor, as he’s impressed me with almost everything I’ve seen him in, up until this. Zooey Deschanel is a promising young talent with phenomenal eyes. (Where’d that come from?) But if the source material is bad, more often than not, even great actors can’t save the movie.

This reviewer also pointed out that when you’re the writer, producer and director, there’s no collaboration and there’s no accountability. Thus, what was a promising horror concept quickly flies by the wayside in a mass of... nothingness. Heck, this movie was so boring that I, even I, had no desire to watch whatever 'how they made it' special features that were included on the disc itself. Normally I love watching that extra stuff, too.

In my eyes, clearly, “The Happening” is not happening and there’s not a darn thing I care to do about it. I say skip this one all together, unless you or someone you’re related to worked on this movie, and wait for Shamalayan's next offering, which almost has to be better.

[Shakes head.] Or maybe I just don’t get it.


*½ out of *****

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16 Comments:

At 03 January, 2009 00:10 , Blogger Tim said...

Great idea for an alternate ending! Just as they're about to leave their shelter, just when they think it's safe to go back....BLAM!!! the 'wind' gets 'em and the movie ends with the three of them, dead in a field, staring vacantly at the sky.

 
At 03 January, 2009 02:45 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well shit Green, I wanted to go rent the cd! Alright, I'll rent it, I hate surprises anyway.

Wahlberg is the B movie king of the 90's and aut's. I did like a thriller where he was chasing little ventriloquist dummies around.

 
At 03 January, 2009 10:33 , Blogger c nadeau said...

Green and I are gonna have a little talk about ruining surprise endings...

 
At 03 January, 2009 11:38 , Blogger Tim said...

Rudy: well you'll have a hard time seeing anything if you rent the cd.

ca: my ending would have made the film worthwhile and resurrected it from the dung heap! Not all movies need to have happy endings....

 
At 03 January, 2009 12:24 , Blogger c nadeau & t johnson said...

Happy ending??? Did you watch the whole thing?

 
At 03 January, 2009 12:25 , Blogger c nadeau & t johnson said...

Oh. And actually the Sixth Sense was not his debut film.

 
At 03 January, 2009 12:36 , Blogger Tim said...

Yes, I did see the ending, where the wind starts blowing in China or some other country in a scene similar to how this movie started.

Maybe I was too dazed/bored to see it clearly.

Correction noted on M. Night and Sixth Sense being his third film, not his first. But that was the one that won him the most acclaim and put him on the map so to speak.

 
At 03 January, 2009 13:15 , Blogger c nadeau & t johnson said...

Awful lot of white people in China. Oh, wait. That was Eastern Europe LOL

I knew we would diagree strongly on this one.

 
At 03 January, 2009 13:41 , Blogger Tim said...

It's more fun when we disagree on a film than when we agree on them.

 
At 04 January, 2009 09:59 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

The creepiest part of this movie was Betty Buckley's performance. She scared the sheet out of me. Funniest part was Walburg talking to the fake plant. Best part of the film was the scene on the train when everyone started to panic. I think that scene was able to capture the sense of dread and panic. I liked this film until about half way when it ran out of gas. It could have been so much better.

 
At 04 January, 2009 18:39 , Blogger scribe said...

I guess I was so enraptured by the mood I didn't care about much else.

 
At 06 January, 2009 00:51 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wait...Chinese and happy endings?

Oh, I'm renting this flick.

 
At 06 January, 2009 15:14 , Blogger c nadeau said...

LOL If you don't stare at the screen, you'll miss both.

 
At 06 January, 2009 15:15 , Blogger c nadeau said...

Oh, and that was DONNIE Wahlberg in the movie about the dummies. Mark is an A-List actor...the movie ruled as the caucasions say!

 
At 09 January, 2009 16:37 , Blogger American Guy said...

seriously green - what gives with giving aways surprises here? (both your first comment and your third?)

I decided to watch this after reading your review, but thankfully stopped reading the comments as soon as you started with "Great idea for an alternate ending!"

Seriously, why not start your review of 6th sense with telling us the surpise ending. Or maybe you can do the crying game next. There's gotta be heaps of movies where you can give away the endings!

I liked it (like scribe). IG's reaction was more 'meh'.

 
At 09 January, 2009 21:18 , Blogger Tim said...

AG: I give away nothing. If you read my review, you'll note that I had no desire to watch any of the special features included on the disc. I just made up that alternate ending on the spur of the moment, which I thought would have made the movie much better.

If that alternate ending truly was included in the special features, then I'm truly brilliant or Shamalayan is very, very predictable.

IG is a very smart woman, AG. You're lucky to have her as the mother of your children.

 

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