The Happening

 "The Happening" -- a film by M. Night Shyamalan.

We went to see it today.

Why, you might ask?  Isn't that the same M. Night Shyamalan that directed recent cinematic turd "Lady in the Water"?  Didn't he also write and direct that shaggiest of shaggy dog stories "The Village"?  Didn't "Signs" really suck?

And doesn't this movie garner a Bush-type-approval-level of 20% on rottentomatoes.com?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

But we went anyway.

We went partly because we liked the trailer, partly because I had read online what the secret of the movie was, and partly because of "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" -- two actually good movies, if you ask me.

Guess what.  We liked it.

Probably our expectations were low.  And, admittedly, some of the movie is ludicrous.  (I almost feel like I am spelling that word wrong, having read the spelling "Ludacris" so often in People magazine.)  And the acting is bad.  I think unless M. Night lucks into good actors, like Bruce Willis, he is at sea.

But the idea of the movie is really good and fun and scary, and there are lots of really suspenseful scenes built on very little.  I call that filmmaking skill.  I don't want to give away the idea, even though it is discussed not too far into the movie, in case anyone reads this and wants to watch it.

Anyway, it is far from the disaster that everyone says it is.  Like all Shyamalan movies, it is slow-ish.  But I found it interesting and at times gripping.  Loved the way it ended.  And I think it is a really good idea for a movie.

So there.

Now, that said, I can't help but include a link to a particularly clever and resourceful vandalization of the teaser poster:

http://filmonic.com/the-penis-or-the-happening