My Review of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening”

In M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening” or “The Crappening” as I now like to call it, there’s something in the air that causes people to stop whatever they’re doing, slide into a trance and commit horrible suicides.   

I would have liked to breath some of that air too so that I would not have to endure this terrible movie!  Perhaps next time, M. Knight, the cinema’s P.T. Barnum can provide me with his home address so that I can just mail him the $20 that I inevitably pay each year to see his increasingly worsening pictures. Then I can spend a couple of hours doing something productive instead of staring at a movie screen in utter dismay.   It’s just that Shyamalan initially grabbed me with the unique story telling of “The Sixth Sense” and because of that, I am always hopeful that he will deliver again.  So each year I eagerly watch his next offering with expectancy but in this case…disappointment!

M. Night Shyamalan has had a rough streak with his past few movies “The Village” and “Lady in the Water”.   I suggest M. Night relinquish some of his roles as director, writer, actor and producer and bring in some different perspectives.

In “The Happening”, Mark Wahlberg plays a soft spoken high school science teacher who evacuates Philadelphia along with his wife (Zooey Deschanel), his fellow teacher (John Leguizamo) and his friend’s daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) due to an unexplained (actually, never explained) environmental occurrence.  The bad guy in this movie is the rustling wind so the major special effect required 3 house fans.

If you are expecting M. Night’s trademark twist, forget it.  In fact forget characterization, plot, motivation and resolution.  What you do get is flat deadpan acting, unrealistic dialogue, plodding pace and silly but violent onscreen deaths. 

“The Happening” was pitched as a suspenseful thriller but it lacked both of those key elements.  I urge you not to be fooled as I was, save your money and enjoy the June sunshine.

Remembering Tim Russert

Tim Russert’s shockingly early death from a heart attack at age 58 is one of those passings that makes you stop and take stock of the man, the work he did, and the world he inhabited. Since 1991, Russert had hosted Meet the Press, NBC’s venerable news-maker chat show that began broadcasting in 1947. Meet the Press hosts have included the grave Marvin Kalb and the lightweight Chris Wallace, but no one brought his personality to the program the way Russert did.

A Jesuit-educated Irish-Catholic Democrat who worked for New York governor Mario Cuomo and New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan before forsaking politics for TV reporting, Russert dove into election analysis with a boyish relish. It was always clear that Russert loved the back-room clubbiness of politics, loved figuring out all the angles in any given political race, and had a finely trained mind for history, facts, and figures.

 

He had dozens of honorary college degrees, and numerous professional awards. He won an Emmy for his role in the coverage of President Ronald Reagan’s funeral in 2004.

Russert was married to Maureen Orth, a writer for Vanity Fair magazine. The couple had one son, Luke.