Slog - Comments on OMG, Why Didn't I Know About This Tuesday?!

Comment by Just Sayin'

Just Sayin' — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:06:50 -0800

I retract my delight over your omission of this "film" from your film roundup, earlier on SLOG. Please do not buy a ticket to see The Happening, buy a ticket to something else and sneak in. I fervently want M. Knight's career to end; retroactively if possible.

Comment by monkey

monkey — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:08:27 -0800

I'm really surprised someone was willing to put up money so M. Night Shyamalamadingdong could prove once and for all just how much he sucks.

Please do go see it so I don't have to, unless it's really so bad that it's fun to watch.

Comment by Mike of Renton

Mike of Renton — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:08:48 -0800

As if I needed another reason to not see any movies by this guy.

Comment by flamingbanjo

flamingbanjo — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:15:58 -0800

See also: The X-Men, Heroes, and numerous other stories about "mutants" that proceed from the premise that every so often nature spontaneously decides to advance the process of evolution by causing individuals to be born who can turn invisible or shoot laser beams out of their eyes. If not Intelligent Design, at the very a least it bespeaks a highly Lamarckian take on the mechanisms of evolution.

Comment by lark

lark — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:21:24 -0800

@le gawker

Umm? "The Happening" has not been critically panned. I just read Manohla Dargis' & William Arnold's reviews in the NYT and P-I respectively. Both, gave positive reviews. I'm going to see the film.

Comment by um

um — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:28:21 -0800

@5, 20% on Rottentomatoes and dropping: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10007985-happening/

What's funny is that two of the reviews I'm read mention the premise as being "Al Gore - like mushy-headed ecoterror"

Comment by umvue

umvue — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:32:55 -0800

Ach. Heard the director interviewed on NPR's Science Friday last week. Wanted to tear out my eyes. Further lost respect for Ira Flatow for letting M. Night S... spout off on all manner of bullshit without challenge. Ach.

Comment by F

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:40:34 -0800

Frankly, it's worse than intelligent design. It's antiscientific nonsense. At least intelligent design attempts to use logic to explain things. This movie seems to be telling us that everything is too complicated to understand so don't worry your little head about it.

Comment by Dougsf

Dougsf — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:53:01 -0800

I probably won't watch this unless it comes on my television while I happen to be sitting in front of it, but I wouldn't trust the damn Tomatometer as any greater barometer of a film's worth than I would the WalMart Top DVD sales chart.

Comment by kebabs

kebabs — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:04:52 -0800

M. Night is massively overrated. Dude made one great movie, then spends the next 10 years making turds. It's disappointing to hear that he's a Discovery Institute guy, though. Hopefully Zooey Dewhatever just did this for the paycheck, because I don't want to hate her too.

Comment by elswinger

elswinger — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:43:35 -0800

I'm waiting for the synopsis to show up on moviespoiler.com.

Over at the IMdb Mark Walberg says that making the movie has ruined his life.

Comment by Jay

Jay — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:00:11 -0800

10: How can he be overrated when 90 percent of people hate his films? I mean, the only people overrating him are the studios, the advertisers and the man himself. Everyone I knows thinks he's a piece of shit director and has been since at least "Unbreakable."

Comment by Big Sven

Big Sven — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:27:38 -0800

No one should be surprised. "Signs" was also inarticulate pseudo-religious nonsense.

"Unbreakable" fucking rocked, though.

Comment by Ahmet Vomit

Ahmet Vomit — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:54:01 -0800

That's interesting, whateveryournameis Amy Warner or something vanilla like that, but why did Josh Feit get fired?

Comment by Jethro

Jethro — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:59:45 -0800

Josh was fired????????????

Comment by Micah

Micah — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:22:53 -0800

WHy do you hate Chelsea so much????

Comment by wench

wench — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:17:47 -0800

God, Wahlberg, Deschanel and Leguizamo? I really don't want to hate them. I hope they got paid well.

Comment by pox

pox — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 01:57:46 -0800

I thought MNS was Hindu. I can't find anywhere he's avowed that he's a Christian.

Still, Hindu ID would be just as useless as Christian ID.

Comment by Jay

Jay — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:26:10 -0800

I just read an interview with him at Scientific American. He didn't strike me as particularly pro-intelligent design. Is your source really credible?

Comment by Bont

Bont — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 05:03:49 -0800

Silly Mark Wahlberg character! Doesn't he know that honeybees are disappearing because of God-fearing giant hornets?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_DQYVppJG4

Comment by Vince

Vince — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:17:48 -0800

Movies are just that, movies. Entertainment.
I don't take most movies as truth even if they claim to be facts. When I was a kid a friend of mine saw "The Exorcist" and claimed he now believed in Jesus. I laughed like crazy and he changed his mind. Maybe it was just a movie after all.

Comment by Greg

Greg — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:24:23 -0800

Better to say, it's an act of nature we don't understand... yet.

Comment by KeeKee

KeeKee — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:28:43 -0800

Soooooooooo, are you trying to say that anything deemed paranormal is evidence of intelligent design?

Or that the paranormal doesn't exist?????

P.S. The source of the X-Men's mutations were originally in-vitro exposures to nuclear radiation. They were billed as "The Children of the Atom."

Slog is a-getting to be just like a Comic Book blog. Thanx Mr. Constant!

Comment by KeeKee

KeeKee — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:38:22 -0800

Err... I meant in utero... Instant karma for trying to use big words.

Comment by Big Sven

Big Sven — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:54:18 -0800

The paranormal doesn't exist.

Comment by Marky Mark

Marky Mark — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:26:06 -0800

Mark Wahlberg was much interesting when he was young and cute and barely clad, and no one cared what, or if, he thought about anything - including his thoughts on Jesus.

Maybe James Dean was smart to die when he did.....

Comment by idaho

idaho — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:05:23 -0800

@ 11. Link to IMDB comment please? Just trying to independently verify ...

Comment by drewvsea

drewvsea — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:54:55 -0800

@27: I searched for a good while before I finally found what @11 was referring to here:

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0247040/

Says the director made him a nervous wreck.

Comment by idaho

idaho — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:43:49 -0800

Oh, @ 28. That's not nearly as relevant as I'd hoped.

Comment by Colin

Colin — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:11:27 -0800

You'd think that if they wanted to get the ID propaganda to the masses they wouldn't pick a director that sucked so bad. Didn't they see Lady in the Water?