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Post by rawshark on Apr 29, 2024 15:17:29 GMT
technoish Late Night with the Devil is on Shudder.
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Post by FlexibleFeline on Apr 29, 2024 17:32:13 GMT
The Happening
Okay, in my defence: a) it occurred to me I've only ever seen Shyamalan's first few movies (from The Sixth Sense to The Village) and there have been a couple in recent years that seemed quite intriguing, so I decided I was going to work my way through his filmography b) I'm an aficionado of bad movies, and not in an irritatingly ironic way - I'll always try to find something in there to defend. For instance, I think some of the dialogue in The Room is absolutely brilliant and every time I watch it I derive some pleasure from Wiseau's insanity.
Back to The Happening. Oh, hey Mark.
This was every inch the fucking piece of shit that you all - in fact everyone everywhere ever - has said; and then some. I'm almost angry that I wasted 90 minutes of my life but not so angry that I'm not going to waste another 30 ranting. I think I'm most annoyed about the fact that it's not comically bad - it's just bad. There's nothing amusing to take away, no dark secret joy to be derived from its shittiness: it is simply an utter piece of shit of a movie.
I've got to expiate the pure bullshit of experiencing it, so in no order, several very obvious reasons why it's a piece of shit (I'm hearing that phrase in my head like Bill Hicks talking about Basic Instinct btw):
1) a lot of folk seem to talk about the ridiculous story. It is indeed shit. But I grew up reading John Wyndham and there was something Wyndham-esque about the premise that could, maybe, have worked in the right hands. But, apart from anything else, it is simply the least visually interesting take on an apocalyptic threat imaginable. There are one or two arresting visuals early on - like the construction workers stepping off the roof of the building - but otherwise it's as dull as dishwater dramatically. Halfway through Shyamalan decides that using the wind blowing grass might be a good way to encapsulate the threat. It's not. It's shit. Like everything else. Everything.
2) It would be generous to describe the script as clunky. Almost every single line in the entire movie is terrible. There are countless examples of ambient dialogue feeling like it was written by a distracted child ("We're packing hot dogs for the road. You know hot dogs get a bad rap? They got a cool shape, they got protein. You like hot dogs right? By the way, I think I know what's causing this.").
3) The actual plotting / development - from the film's inability to decide if variable group size is the trigger for the (oooh, scary!) danger-pollen to the random and bizarrely inconsequential set piece encounters. What the hell was going on with that mad elderly lady they stayed with towards the end? How exactly did that add to the coherence or even texture of the film? I guess it doesn't matter, because wife and adopted daughter were playing with a frog in a cellar or barn or some shit or other, across a field from Marky Mark but it's okay he decides to fuck it and just walk out into the open and they meet in the middle and then oh my it seems the event finished just before they stepped out their respective complementary Pennsylvania rustic cottages (but watch out Paris!). There are so many bizarre elements stitched together - if it hadn't been released 15 years ago you'd think it had been cobbled together by ChatGPT.
4) Supporting actors - this must be a consequence of the script and / or poor direction but genuinely wonderful actors like John Leguizamo and Jeremy Strong ("cheese and crackers!") are atrocious. There isn't a single decent performance in the entire movie...
5)...which brings us to Mark Wahlberg. How. Has. That. Man. Sustained. His. Career. He is the worst actor in Hollywood by some margin and the full range of his talent is on show here. If only he had had a giant teddy bear to act against. That said, he's actually outdone by Zooey Deschanel who, stripped off her manic dreamgirl pixie dust, has all the charisma of a plank. She's terrible.
6) The beginning, the middle, and the end.
I promise only to watch potentially decent movies for the rest of 2024. So my Shyamalan project may have to remain on hold for now as I can't be doing with more of this shit. If there is anything of his that is worth a watch let me know.
I did genuinely go in hoping to be pleasantly surprised, to find some nuggets of ironic pleasure, but it seems I'm an idiot. It's actually far far worse than everyone says.
A generous 0/10
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Post by FlexibleFeline on Apr 29, 2024 17:35:32 GMT
It makes you kill yourself. Just when you thought there couldn't be any more evil that can be invented.
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Post by 😎 on Apr 29, 2024 17:41:19 GMT
Whether The Happening is a B-Movie parody/comedy or not* is going to become a new forum meme like Alien 3 isn’t it * It is, but it doesn’t work
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Post by FlexibleFeline on Apr 29, 2024 17:43:03 GMT
Parodies need to be clever to work.
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Post by 😎 on Apr 29, 2024 17:44:42 GMT
If you were going chronologically I'm amazed you didn’t stop after Lady in the Water.
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cubby
Full Member
doesn't get subtext
Posts: 5,296
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Post by cubby on Apr 29, 2024 17:49:48 GMT
I like to imagine that the real killer in the happening is the plot. Whenever a character gets infected by the plot they kill themselves because it's so terrible.
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Post by FlexibleFeline on Apr 29, 2024 17:50:16 GMT
Until tonight, I'd seen The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village. The Lady in the Water isn't available on any of my streaming channels. Part of me thinks that's merciful, but the whole of me just watched the piece of shit referenced above.
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Post by FlexibleFeline on Apr 29, 2024 17:51:53 GMT
I like to imagine that the real killer in the happening is the plot. Whenever a character gets infected by the plot they kill themselves because it's so terrible. I did for a second entertain a meta take by which the whole cast and crew were infected and committing career suicide. Some weird form of performance art.
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Post by simple on Apr 29, 2024 18:05:12 GMT
I remember liking The Happening. I enjoyed that it was such an open ended unexplained mystery. Would probably work better as a 45-60 minute Twilight Zone episode but I think I enjoyed it.
In general I think all of his films could be improved by not giving a reason for whats happened. Just have them be a snapshot of a weird event then end.
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Post by Reviewer on Apr 29, 2024 19:34:10 GMT
The Mist 6/10 (the Frank Darabond one)
The gist of the plot is good as is the grimness but it has the overwhelming feeling of being tv movie standard before streaming started throwing money at them.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Apr 29, 2024 19:42:50 GMT
I think M.Night had said Whalberg's lack of acting talent meant that he couldn't correctly convey the fact that it was a parody. I dunno if that's bullshit or whatnot but with or without Whalberg, bad direction is bad direction.
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Post by RumMonkey on Apr 29, 2024 19:46:58 GMT
Old is hilarious, one of the funniest shit films I've seen. The new one with Batista was decent though.
Speaking of funny shit films, the new Road House just about scratched that itch for me Mcgregor is so bad it's funny. The "I've got a message for you" delivery is so bad i had to rewind it to enjoy the shitness.
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Post by simple on Apr 29, 2024 19:54:14 GMT
Old is exactly the one I was thinking of most that could gain two or three points just by cutting the reveal.
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Post by rawshark on Apr 29, 2024 20:43:27 GMT
The new MKS film with Josh Hartnett looks ridiculous, but could be quite fun.
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Post by 😎 on Apr 29, 2024 20:48:52 GMT
Aging Teen Idols having a career resurgence is becoming quite the trend. He’s the new Josh Brolin.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Apr 29, 2024 20:49:50 GMT
The new MKS film with Josh Hartnett looks ridiculous, but could be quite fun. Yeah I thought that was quite a cool concept. I'm intrigued.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Apr 30, 2024 2:25:03 GMT
Hartnett wasquite good in Penny Dreadful. And wasn't he in Oppenheimer? Anyway... I'm now 2/3rds of the way through The Batman and I'm flagging slightly. It's probably not the ideal way to watch it, but my attention was drifting by the end. It looks great. The omionus dum dum dum score is good, if endless. Good car chase. I like the main cast. But.. the central mystery just isn't that interesting. They keep talking about why it's 'important', but it's about a bunch of corrupt people that we mostly don't know and haven't seen, and about stuff that happened years ago to other people we don't know and haven't seen. I really don't give a shit who the 'rat' is and I don't see why it remotely matters. It's good that they've gone back to a more detective-based batman, but the fact that they all keep repeating 'El ratta alada!' in dramatic tones just makes me think of the old Adam West show, and once that thought popped into my head I couldn't shake it and it made the whole thing kinda funny. Holy flying rats batman!
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Post by FlexibleFeline on Apr 30, 2024 3:49:23 GMT
I think M.Night had said Whalberg's lack of acting talent meant that he couldn't correctly convey the fact that it was a parody. I dunno if that's bullshit or whatnot but with or without Whalberg, bad direction is bad direction. The post hoc parody defence is such a terrible one for so many reasons (including the one you mention). It's appropriately terrible, I guess.
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Post by FlexibleFeline on Apr 30, 2024 4:01:27 GMT
Anyway, re: Hartnett, seeing the trailer for Trap is what kicked off my ill-fated Shyamalan catch-up.
Hartnett has spent the last decade or so in domestic bliss in Surrey of all places. I rate him quite highly, and as well as the obvious big movies he's been in some underrated genre classics, like Thirty Days of Night (to my mind the movie is better than the source material), and The Faculty.
The Faculty - now that's how you make a parody. Plenty of heart and targeted poking at tropes from the movies Rodriguez clearly loves.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Apr 30, 2024 4:54:05 GMT
Shit, I never realized The Faculty was by Robert Rodriguez. I guess that was before he became that well known. (Though I see it was after Dusk Til Dawn). Always liked that one. Great cast
Hartnett living in surrey might explain him appearing in stuff like Penny Dreadful.
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Post by FlexibleFeline on Apr 30, 2024 5:16:04 GMT
Yeah, it was definitely before he had his big hits with Spy Kids etc. It's a cheeky little movie, very much a love letter to The Thing, Body Snatchers etc, crossed with High School movies.
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Post by Dougs on Apr 30, 2024 5:36:03 GMT
Loved The Faculty. Funny as. Not seen that in years, definitely due a rewatch.
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Post by simple on Apr 30, 2024 6:55:43 GMT
I think 30 Days of Night is on Freevee at the moment. Will need to rewatch it someday. I loved it t the time.
Shaun of the Dead (dvd)
Inevitable after watching Spaced last week. Its funny to see how many jokes they reuse. The dvd is absolutely stuffed with extras too, multiple cast, crew and zombie commentaries and other features. Its a shame the move to streaming means we don’t get as much access to this sort of stuff anymore.
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Post by clemfandango on Apr 30, 2024 7:22:12 GMT
Out for justice - 6/10
Prime segal phoning it in, and even by his standards he plays it too serious and wooden. He’s also indestructible as Gino a hard nosed Italian cop who grew up with the Mafia. Some good fight scenes and William Forsythe as an absolutely mental gangster save it. I was expecting it to be more fun though.
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Post by clemfandango on Apr 30, 2024 7:37:31 GMT
Loved The Faculty. Funny as. Not seen that in years, definitely due a rewatch. Yeah me too, I need to give it a watch with my eldest 👍
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Post by Bill in the rain on Apr 30, 2024 7:38:35 GMT
Apparently Segal was kinda infamous for really punching stuntmen, which has taken some of the fun out of his invincible performances for me.
Tbh, pretty much everything he's been in has been awful, other than Exec Decision and Under Siege.
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Post by britesparc on Apr 30, 2024 8:08:21 GMT
If you want more stories about how much of a genuine cock Seagal is in real life, I heartily recommend the book The Last Action Heroes.
Re: The Batman, I agree that whilst it feels like it should tick all the boxes it rings a bit hollow. They go on about him being a good detective but it doesn't really work very well as a detective movie. I seem to remember (not seen it since the cinema) there's a bit where he's made out to be this badass at the crime scene, uncovering stuff no one else could think of, and he finds a huge knife stuck in the tyre of the victim's car. Which the police would definitely have found anyway.
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wunty
Full Member
Pastry Forward
Posts: 5,631
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Post by wunty on Apr 30, 2024 8:23:23 GMT
Loved The Faculty. Funny as. Not seen that in years, definitely due a rewatch. Yeah me too, I need to give it a watch with my eldest 👍 Have funnily enough been thinking the very same thing over the last few weeks. Haven't seen it since I went to see it in the cinema(!), but remember loving it. Great cast, great soundtrack and just a really enjoyable film. Think the boy would actually love it.
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Post by Honk If You're Horny? on Apr 30, 2024 8:28:48 GMT
Old is exactly the one I was thinking of most that could gain two or three points just by cutting the reveal. Old felt a little like a King short story. Agree it would have benefited from that cut, the reveal was awful. Though there is a part of me that must know the answers! A bit like scratching a mosquito bite, temporary satisfaction but usually makes things worse. #smokemonsterneverforget The Happening has some memorable scenes and there's subtext that make it a better film than something like Expendables 4,
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