6/14: What's Happening
11 a.m.
• So for the past week or so the better half has been whining about wanting to see “The Happening.” Last night we went to the theater, against my will, and saw this piece of shit.
Spoilerz ahead~! You've been warned. You can thank me later.
If you didn’t see my post in the Movies Folder, here you go.
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Well, it's official. Mrs. kkk is no longer allowed to make selections for "movie night."
Replace the road with a field and I just saved you $9 (or whatever your theater's early-bird discount is).
If you go to this YouTube's page, the most recent comment at the time of this posting is:
Now watch "The Happening" with Mark Wahlberg!
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The sad thing is, I’m not making this up. Hell, I was WISHING for one of those last-minute SWERVES that M. Knight Shy-whatever typically puts in his films. Make Marky Mark part of a group of rouge scientists "plant"-ing poison across the Northeast. Make it a group of tree people trying to take over the world. Make it all a dream. Make it have something to do with lemmings. Make it something other than vegetation fighting back against humans. I guess the swerve took place during the movie’s marketing campaign, making people think this would be a worthwhile piece of entertainment. Well, it was rather funny. Here are some other insta-thoughts I’m typing up as I’m going along:
* Why the hell did the “second wave” of plant attacks take place in France? What about the Amazon rainforest or in a country whose environmental policies put the EVIL United State to shame? Hell, filming the final scene in India would have given the movie’s director a chance to make his usual cameo as being one of the two people talking before the toxins start up. It would have been a better appearance than the one he did. (For those that don’t watch credits, he was the caller stalking Marky Mark’s wife.)
* The plants attacked the Northeast? Good, wipe those liberal environments out. Guess Mother Nature doesn't have an electoral map.
* Not only did I think of South Park’s global warming attack during certain parts of this film, but when Marky Mark’s math friend decided to go back and find his wife in Princeton, I imagined a joke said by Gilbert Gottfried, “My girlfriend once said to me ‘kiss me where it smells.’ So I took her to New Jersey.”
* Like Smues said in the Movies thread, for as accomplished an actor Mark Walberg is or becomes, I can’t help but think of him as “Marky Mark.”
* I actually had some hope at the beginning when Marky Mark was talking to his class about why bees were disappearing. When the kids began throwing out possibilities (pollution), Marky Mark was shooting down the theories (there aren’t any carcasses – the bees are DISAPPEARING). One of the theories was GLOBAL WARMING and Marky Mark made some remark about the temperature shifting by a fraction of a percent. I’m not sure if this line was made in sarcasm by the character, but it made me snicker. Little did I know that WE DIDN’T LISTEN~!
* When you mow your lawn, does the grass get mad at being cut or happy because it's like a person getting a haircut? I know I feel much better after a trim.
I’ve got nothing better to do at the moment. I might as well rate Mr. Knight’s movies from least favorite to most.
Lady in the Water. I don’t even remember what most of this was about. Some fairy chick being chased by monsters and all the tenants of some complex unite. The only thing I can recall is there was some movie critic that made me chuckle before getting killed because the script didn’t go according to plan. I think M. Knight said this story was a tale he read to his kids. That’s nice and all that, but it doesn’t mean you should make it into a movie.
The Happening. For as awful as this movie was, at least it made me laugh. There where three times during death/violence scenes when I was laughing out loud, which prompted Mrs. kkk to say “Are you laughing NOW?” Yep. It was that bad. But at least it wasn’t as boring as “Lady.” Oh, here’s something I liked. Watching those two shithead kids mouthing off to some people that barricaded themselves in their house and warned Marky Mark’s group to get off their property. Hey, they were on private property. Actually, I made another South Park crack during this time. “Well, they was trespassin' and I was protectin' myself. I, I have my rights!” Zero dollars to the person to first guess what episode this line came from.
Unbreakable. I saw this movie only once and that was about two years ago. I’m not hating on it, but it was too slow for me. Then again, I knew what the ending was before watching, so I’m sure that played a factor in my indifference. If you like this film, more power to you. I can see why you would.
The Sixth Sense. Another meh from me. Then again, I knew Bruce Willis was a ghost the scene after he was shot. And this time I did not know anything about the spoilerz~! The kid wasn’t that bad, and I liked how he got “used” to the ghosts as the movie went along.
The Village. Wow, why am I doing a review of M. Knight’s movies when I really don’t like any of them? Trust me, this film, Unbreakable and the Sixth Sense are not all that far apart on this list. Why do I put this film above the others? Only because it dealt with a group of people wanting to escape city life – and who can blame them for doing so? They could have just moved out to the suburbs for a generation or two before the blacks and Hispanics take over, but if building log cabins and establishing forbidden forests is your thing, then who am I to judge?
Signs. Some people like this movie. Others HATE it. Me? The first time I watched this film I was thinking “Where the hell is this all going?” Then Mel Gibson’s family met the aliens and all those quirky things that we learned throughout the film (the kid with unfinished drinking glasses, the other kid with lung problems, the ex-baseball player with no bat control) finally came full circle. Was this all a coincidence? Or were each of these oddities given to the characters for a reason? You have to decide, but I have already made one decision long ago – I like this film. Yeah, I’ve heard the arguments about why would aliens land on a planet with water (a deadly substance for them) covering most of the surface. (And let’s not even get into what would happen if it rained, snowed or got foggy.) But I’m giving this one a pass.