Not since seeing Juno about a year ago have I seen a movie quite like The Happening, and that is in no way a good thing.  But I’m being unnessecarily negative toward Juno, it wasn’t terrible, but given the hype it received both pre and post release, and its subsequent Oscar award surprised me greatly.  It just really wasn’t that good.  So I’m going to reword the first line of this post again, much more accurately this time.

Not since seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a week ago have I seen a movie quite as bad as The Happening.  In fact, I didn’t see another movie in between the time I saw these two, and thats not giving me any confidence in the quality of new releases in 2008.  Usually, I can appreciate a low budget movie, when executed well these movies are just as good as any other, Clerks, Napolean Dynamite and even The Blair Witch Project come to mind here.

The happening just felt, looked, smelt, no stank of an extremely low budget film, but at $57 million, it must have either been made in Zimbabwe, or someone knows how to do a very tacky (relatively) high budget film in a completely low budget way.

The Story

The movie starts off with a suspected terrorist attack in Central Park in New York which mysteriously causes people to speak in tongues, walk backwards, and then find the quickest way of killing themselves, all whilst under a trance.  Within a few hours, the citizens of the North Eastern states are hurredly evacuating all the major cities, only to get knocked down like flies to this killer toxin.  Naturally, as the movie goes on, the main character discovers it’s plants who are emitting the toxin, and large packs of human beings were somehow setting off the plants.

People die, in fact pretty much everyone dies within about 5 states of New York (I’m going to estimate a quarter of the population of the U.S), but the main character, his disfunctional girlfriend, and their newly acquired daughter (due to loss of her parents) survive by talking nicely to plants, eating hotdogs, lieing low in a house with a crazy woman and making a final daring dash into the wilderness that had already taken so many.

I highlighted the silent killer in the paragraph above, just in case you missed it, that’s right, the killer was plants, and apart from some rather gruesome death scenes the film involved some rather B-grade actors walking through North American bushland.

The Actor

There was something I didn’t mention before, and it could explain the rather high budget for this bottom of the barrel film.  That is the main actor in The Happening is Mark Wahlberg, whom apart from his 14-inch penis in Boogie Nights and some solid performances in The Departed and The Big Hit, is a horrible excuse for a “holywood” actor.  I’m sure someone else could have played the part far more convincingly at about half the cost as well.

Worst of all, the film is written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, whom I know nothing about, and don’t know any of his/her past work either, but from what others have said this film was definitely not Shyamalan’s best.

I don’t know what else to say, and I don’t usually bother commenting on movies, what could I possibly say that someone else hasn’t said before?  But when its this bad, it has to be spoken of.  The Happening, really was this bad!

Update:

I’ve just received a reply from another poster who has a blog, The Not Happening at http://thenothappening.blogspot.com/. I can’t believe just how much of a negatively following this movie has, staged walkouts.  Who knows, it may even go down as a cult classic.  Kudos!

So amidst all the stress about money, and pressure to get stuff ready for the trip to Russia, I’d almost completely forgotten about our four day trip back down to Cornwall again.  Although I’ve now seen it several times before, its sure to be a fun relaxing weekend with some sunshine, good company and of course good liquor.

Going down there as a foursome should be interested, just like old times again.  It has its advantages too, I wasn’t there to pick up the hire car, which means I don’t have to drive.  This is a good and a bad thing, bad because I desperately want to drive an automobile again (even if it is a four door Focus), but good because I’ll compensate by drinking, and catching up on some further reading of a new book or Arrested Development episodes.  I swear, this show gets better every time I watch it.

I’ve taken it upon myself to come up with a challenge for this extended weekend, but this challenge won’t involve the best sub £1,000 replacement vehicle for a UK Police Astra Diesel (ala the latest episode of Top Gear). I’m going to attempt to try every Cornish beer I can find, and write a small set of notes on each, The Great Cornish Beer Review.  This will involve going over my favourites from previous trips down to the foot, such as:

• Tribute Ale - A deliciously smooth brown ale, continuously drinkable all night, available in both Oxford, and the Twickenham Tup (20m from our front door), plus probably many other locations around London.  (Warning: ghastly when warm).
• Sharps Doom Bar - If I remember correctly, this bitter had a deceivingly strong taste to it, not that it’s in anyway a low alcohol beer.

The hardest thing about this of course is, despite my vast vocabulary (riiight), I have a pallete about as sensitive as the calloused palms of a full time grave digger.  Indeed, I think the words are in there, but picking the taste of raspberries from a 20 year old bottle of Shiraz doesn’t come to me naturally, at least not without reading the label.  I know what i like, but why I like Guinness, Tribute, Victoria Bitter and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale even though they’re vastly different types of beer, I don’t really understand.

We’ll see how that goes, anyway.