Ok yesterday I kicked off the best and worst of 2008 with a best moment so now its time to look to one of the worst. This moment was made worse because it was regrettably an expected one.
M. Night Shyamalan is a hero of mine. The guy frames a shot like a master painter and creates stories that are both mystery-filled and character driven, which is something hard to find in Hollywood these days. Yet there is a great deal of venom and hate out there towards Shyamalan. I never did understand it.
However when I saw a trailer for The Happening I winced just a bit. It just looked bad. Really really bad. Like Scarlett Johansson singing bad. Like…well you get the point. But I had faith, not a lot but still faith nonetheless.
But the trailer did make enough of an impact on me not to see The Happening at the theater. Looking back I think I was either prolonging the inevitable or I just didn’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of people groaning and bitching after the movie. Of course based on its box office performance, the term “a bunch” is being very generous.
I ended up watching it as a rental at a friend’s house. About 15 minutes in I had a really bad feeling and my faith in Shyamalan began to wane. I believe it was at the 17 minute mark I knew this was going to be bad. Really really bad. Like Ben Affleck bad.
I kept wondering how much worse it could get? I mean really how much worse? The acting was shit. The story was shit. The cinematography was shit. Everything was shit. If I would have had a bag of shit (which oddly I have been known to have in past) and smeared it all over the screen; you would not have been able to tell. It was as if shit was actually oozing from the television.
The Happening broke my heart. The last time I was this disappointed was when I found out Phil Hartman had been murdered.
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