It seems to me that each subsequent M. Night Shyamalan film has gotten progressively worse. The guy is probably just a victim of his own success… after all while we all like the idea of starting out on top of the world, the problem is that there’s nowhere to go but down from there.
Hey started out amazingly with The Sixth Sense and followed up with Unbreakable, which really split people down the middle (personally I loved the concept but wanted more at the end). But after that came Signs (a movie about aliens that are deathly afraid of water trying to invade Earth, which is 2/3 covered in the stuff), and then The Village, another split opinion movie.
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But to me Lady in the Water was the worst of the bunch. Not only did I not like the movie with it’s weird cast of characters, but (and you may call this minor but to me it’s inexcusable) there must have been more than half a dozen scenes where the boom microphone dropped into the frame, bobbing around as if it was an intentional joke. The audience actually laughed as it became a regular occurrence throughout the film.
So now we have a new movie with an apocalyptic them: The Happening. He seems to crank out a new film every two years so I suppose we’re due. Here’s the poster:
I’ve gotta tell ya, the inclusion of eye-roll inducing taglines referring to his previous films does not start this off on the right foot for me:
We’ve Sensed It.
We’ve Seen The Signs.
Now… It’s Happening.
Are they kidding? Yeesh. Why not just go all out?
We’ve Sensed It.
Can It Be Broken?
We’ve Seen The Signs.
Now… It’s Happening.
Not In Just A Village, But Everywhere.
And Only One Lady Can Stop It.
If you’re going to do it, go big.
The Happening open on June 13, 2008
Source: Coming Soon via First Showing
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32 Comments
Kinda looks like a biblical thing. Like, people get raptured to Heaven. Thats just what I get from the poster. Considering theres no one around and its like they step out of the car and Poof. Gone
No, I believe it’s some sort of virus. Nothing biblical.
Vic
Hey Vic, WOW, the boom mic was in that many scenes of lady in the water? I didn’t see the film but now I think I want to ..:o
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This film poster does look like its a rapture type film , but if you say its a virus I’m even more less interested…..(Been there don’t that).
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Bioweapons and bird flus dont bring back viewers. Especally me. The answer is allways a cure…. Weeee simple and boring.
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What’s happening to
this guy? Its allmost like he follows trends and then spins them in his style.
Hey Vic, WOW, the boom mic was in that many scenes of lady in the water? I didn’t see the film but now I think I want to ..:o
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This film poster does look like its a rapture type film , but if you say its a virus I’m even more less interested…..(Been there don’t that).
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Bioweapons and bird flus dont bring back viewers. Especally me. The answer is allways a cure…. Weeee simple and boring.
^
What’s happening to
this guy? Its allmost like he follows trends and then spins them in his style. Not with awesome results.
I think MKS needs to re-invent himself again…
Give us something new and fresh.
I quite like the tagline. I bet it’ll go over the heads of 90% of moviegoers.
Niall
I actually enjoyed “Signs” despite the obvious logical problems with the aliens and water. It had really good performances, a good theme, and some great dialog in addition to a take on alien invasions we don’t often see: the personal effect rather than the global.
I do also think Shayamalan slowly has become more and more impressed with his own talents than the rest of us have been. He seems to think that his work is beyond criticism.
That said, he’s still obviously a highly skilled director (writer is more iffy) and it would be refreshing to see him tackle someone else’s script for a change of pace.
Jersey,
Great assessment of his apparent opinion of himself. I agree completely.
Vic
Just to address this particular movie, yeah the tagline is utter cheese. Something you would expect to find in a parody of Shayamalan films ala “Scary Movie”.
From what I understand, it has to do with plant life generating a “virus” or chemical secretion of sorts that makes people go mad and self-destruct – supposedly in response to mankind’s industrialization, pollution, yadda yadda, “insert Captain Planet public service message here…”
Oh good Lord… please tell me that’s not really the plot. I’ll gouge my eyes out, I swear.
Vic
No don’t do it Vic! We need you……..
LOL, ok, ok. If I didn’t do it while enduring “Death Proof” I guess I can survive anything.
Vic
Why doesn’t he just make a follow-up to Unbreakable??
Oh- as sppof of unbreakable- check this out :
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2422785
Niall
I would LOVE a followup to Unbreakable!!!
At the end of it I thought “NOW this movie is getting started…” and then it just ends.
Vic
I found an article from January that I think was the initial source of the info:
http://www.filmbuffonline.com/ReadingRoom/TheHappening.htm
” As reports of strange deaths begin to come in from cities around the world, some believe that the mysterious deaths are part of a coordinated terrorist attack, while others argue that there is no one connection between the cities so far targeted. The school where Elliot teaches science is dismissed. Elliott races home to collect Alma and then meet his friend Julian and his child at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station in order to head out to the presumed safety of the New Jersey countryside. But it is only after they begin their trek do they begin to realize the scope of the death toll. People in big cities, small towns and cars parked on the New Jersey turnpike all succumb to the urge to kill themselves. Elliot begins to realize that the deaths aren’t the result of a terrorist attack, but are being caused by the release of a toxin by the surrounding plant life in an evolutionary last-ditch attempt to protect themselves from the predator that endangers them the most- man.”
The author of the article was fairly impressed with the first draft, but the concept just seems silly.
Of course, I suppose one could say the same for “Ratatouille”, and we both loved that movie, so who knows for sure (and as a result of that film, I hesitate to completely balk at any concept no matter how preposterous, without seeing the results). I suppose a lot depends on how well it’s executed. It might be really good, it could be crap or any ratio of the two extremes in between. Shayamalan has proven himself capable of both.
JerseyCajun could be wrong Vic, don’t doooo itttt!!
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Lol on death proof Vic….
The best part of that film was the last 4 seconds.
And that last chase……
Go speedracer go !
^
Shamelan reminds me of Spike Lee. In his own eastern way. I can’t believe McKnights going green on us.
=€
About the boom mic thing, that happened to me and my wife when we went to see the village. I was ok to ignore it, but the rest of the theater wasn’t and laughed throughout the entire movie. It ruined most of the dialogue, and in turn, ruined the whole movie for both me and my wife.
I looked around the internet to see if it happened to anyone else. I saw a lot of posts about it happening, but also replys that said their showing was fine. I pinned it down to the projectionist not changing the screen size to the proper format, as there were a lot of people who said that the boom mic in frame happened on other movies (ones which I saw in theaters and did not see the boom mic).
I’m a bit of a film maker myself, and I’ve watched dailys from large budget movies. Like tv, there s a “title safe” box, and as long as the boom mic doesn’t enter that region, the footage is usable. Unfortunately, when the theater projectionist doesn’t squeeze the movie screen to the matching format of the movie, those unsafe areas show up, and we can see the boom mic, as well as stage hands, camera and lighting equipment, etc.
So I guess the thing to do as soon as you see a boom mic dip into frame is to find a theater employee, and get them to fix the screen format.
If that’s true it’s certainly the first I’ve ever heard of it. And I would think that it would be a much more common occurrence. Although on the very rare occasion I’ve seen it happen maybe once throughout an entire film, this was the first time I saw it happen about half a dozen times.
If you found a lot of posts saying it happened in this film (as I have found as well) then I would argue that your explanation is not the reason for it.
Vic
Easy way to test is to watch the dvd and see if the boom mic is in it.
^
I’m pretty sure that Projectionists are few and far between these days.
It used to be a Iatse union gig but that same projectionist today has more modern equipment and the days of having to adjust frame ratio is all computer controlled.
Its possible that the theatre had technical issues who knows. I havnt seen ether the Village or Lady in the water so I’m just speculating.
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Geez… why the heck didn’t I think of that? LOL!
Vic
Yeah, I heard the plant’s let loose a neurotoxin that makes people commit violent suicide. I wonder what would happen if you were stuck, in like, a crazyhouse padded room at the time with a straightjacket. Would you be trying to hold your breath until you suffocate or something?
If I would have known this was evolutionary I would have changed my mind years ago about seeing this movie.
I see dead extras…(Homer Simpson voice)
Yeah Elliott, so were the disease, the audience, you and me, all of us the Problem!
Nice message MkMight Shamilanski.
Extreme anti-human behavior. Allmost like he’s telling us, “Hey I’ll kill you all, better start liking my movies, or this is you man!!”
That’s just how I see it.
LOL “Hey I’ll kill you all, better start liking my movies, or this is you man!!”
790… That’s top shelf! LMAO
Haha.
I’m totally calling his bluff………;-)
LOL … What a twist ….:-))
(Just saw a new trailer for The Happening) couple things.
One thing it has going for it, the story touches on bio-warfare against the population.
One thing it has going against it, the film is chock full of people killing themselves with whatever is nearby.
I can’t see this as a family feel good hit or a film you want to see again like Iron Man….
Ok so I know why the tagline is the way it is. In the Signs special features on the dvd he said he did not like putting down other films that he made cause he thought people thought that meant that it was another of that kind of movie. Also, if anyone has noticed, the happening name is taken straight from signs who’s quote at the bottom of the dvd is “it’s happening”. So the aliens have to take part in this somehow right? So for the release throw all of these actors out the window and get me some Mel Gibson!
Is the disease featured in “the happening” the same thing as the “Andromeda Strain?” Seems like it
What gives with all the alien invasion movies lately. Is Hollywood trying to tell us something? Like their fed up with all the invasions of their own privacy?? Tabloids, coworkers, all the cameras in public places, the government.
Look for the boom mic in The Happening in the model home scene.
Yea ,,, the happening was crap and there were MANY MIC BOOM Scenes manyyy!!!
iT MUST BE HIS IDEA OF A FUNNY m. nIGHT SHAMALAMADINGDONG THING. I THINK IT MAKES A MOCKERY OF FILM MAKERS WHO ACTUALLY CARE!!!!
The boom mic was as much a character in “the happening” as Marky Mark. It was all over the place and the audience was laughing like mad.
I mean, we go from a shot of a guy feeding himself to a lawn mower to a dancing boom mic scene, then two kids get offed by a shotgun with extreme closeups. kapow.
maybe it’s his (SHAMALAMADINGDONG’s) way of not taking the story too seriously. like, “hey everybody, this is kind of gross and really scary, but it’s just me making some money. er, a movie.”
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