Eric D.

Same here, I ordered the first season a couple of days ago after hearing everyone say how good it is.

Supermallet

The Happening is responsible for one of my all-time favorite Rifftrax.

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Coral

You may be right as I really don't have that good a read on what the general public is into. I didn't even know until today that Airbender was a cartoon.

GenPion

Everyone does realize that this is intentionally funny, right?

CloverClover

this movie was awful and ive liked all m nights movies (except the mermaid crap) . he was the master of suspense of the first half of the 00s

i thought he would bring some of his indian culture/sense of mythology to this movie, but instead it is as bad as everyone's saying. bad writing, bad acting, acting, zero character development. it felt like they were just making it up as they went along, like the fish suddenly being a god that they stab.
for someone that worships spielberg m night has no sense of wonder or adventure, no energy or sense of storytelling in this genre. he's a minimalist at heart

I did like some of the costumes

Supermallet

Even if (and that's a big if) that scene is meant to be funny, the entire film is filled with unintentionally hilarious moments. Pretty much every scene is ridiculous.

RocShemp

All kidding aside, is it The Wicker Man (remake) bad? If so, I'm definitely renting it.

Eric D.

[Fanboy] But that's the whole point. The movie is supposed to be unintentionally hilarious and ridiculous. [/Fanboy]

Supermallet

Yeah, The Happening is pretty hilarious. I highly recommend watching the Rifftrax version, as it ramps up the entertainment quotient considerably.

Edit: I don't think it hits the heights of absurdity that The Wicker Man does, but I think it's a more enjoyable crap film overall.

Solid Snake

I'm not a Deschanel fan but I like her in some films but....I totally didn't know she was in The Happening.

gryffinmaster

Oh, absolutely. It's my kneejerk answer whenever anyone asks me about the worst movie I've seen.

Supermallet

I don't know how he did it, but somehow Shyamalan managed to make Deschanel outright annoying. And I loves me some Zooey D.

RocShemp

Sweet! I'm definitely renting The Happening. As for the Rifftrax version, how do I go about renting that? I've never seen those anywhere.

The O

Best four bucks you'll ever spend.

Supermallet

You have to buy the specific riff you want from their website and sync the audio file to the movie.

Heat

I might catch this movie (the Last Airbender) this weekend, it's at the local drive-in with Shrek Forever After as a double feature.

You know, I can't remember the drive-in getting a movie on the first week it was out.

AnonomusBob15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6i2WRreARo

this and the happening have made for great youtube montages.

GenPion

The movie is filled with intentional humor, so I'm curious as to what scenes represent unintentional humor? The entire film? Because there are moments I was filled with dread as well (for instance: as the gun moves along from one person to the next as people are committing suicide; and when the car with Leguizamo's character slows to a halt - then accelerates, crashes into a tree, and flings his body out of the car).

I'm genuinely interested in your response. I want to know what parts you thought were hilarious.

Supermallet

It's been a while since I've seen it (although this thread is definitely making me want to rewatch it), but the scene where Wahlberg talks to his students about bees dying out, the scene where Zooey Deschanel is just staring at her vibrating phone, the scene I posted a YouTube video of above where they're running from the wind. Most of the movie, frankly. It's horribly written, poorly acted, and terribly directed. And those elements also make it hilarious.

GenPion

The moments you listed above are moments I considered intentionally hilarious. Interesting. In any case -- I liked 'The Happening'. You can all just ignore me and my love of M. Night movies (I'm sure that all of you already are). I've come to understand that I am definitely in the minority on appreciating all of his work.

HE Pennypacker

I didn't like The Happening at all, but several of the comedic scenes in that flick I felt were intentionally placed and written by the director. The guy has had funny elements in his movies dating back to Signs. Calling most of the scenes in The Happening "unintentionally funny" is like saying the scene in Signs where Mel Gibson tries to be intimidating with his baseball bat, or the ice cream store clerk scene, is also unintentionally funny.

Elsewhere, I just don't know what is up with this guy. He doesn't seem to want to learn from any of the things critics have been telling him since LITW. It's right there for him, spelled out as clear as day, on how to at least not have the critics completely hate your movies, yet he defiantly ignores them. Leaving Disney was his biggest mistake. IMO, The Village was his best flick, and all the other Disney movies were good to great. Post-Disney...I just don't know what went wrong in his head. He used to get great performances out of his actors when he was with Disney, but ever since LITW, he's hell-bent on sucking the life out of his characters and calling for these wooden, totally fake performances. It's clear that he's PURPOSELY TELLING HIS ACTORS to act this way, but why the effing change? Has he just lost his mind? Why not go back to directing your actors the way you directed them during your Disney years? Why such a drastic change in your approach to performances?

gryffinmaster

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've still got the Fox watermarked screener lying around the house somewhere, and now I'm pretty damn tempted to dig it out.

gmanca

Personally, I also found it funny as opposed to scary like how bad the kid actors were when kicking on that boarded-up house or any scene with the old lady especially the kitchen/cookie bit with Zooey's facial reactions. Those scenes you talk about being dreadful are ruined by the previous bits like Wahlberg's "your face is beautiful = evolution" or the terrible diner/lion-video scene.

I don't remember any talk about this movie meaning to be funny before it was released; the big hype was that it was Shyamalan's first R rated movie.

Supermallet

Just because everyone is laughing at it doesn't mean that those scenes are meant to be funny.

I'll watch it again and write down everything I think is unintentionally funny, or at least the 10 major things, because I think my hand would get tired if I wrote down every single that was unintentionally funny. But the scenes I mentioned were most definitely not meant to be funny. The first is Zooey getting harassed by a guy she cheated on her husband with, the second is meant to introduce the main plot point of the movie, and the third is meant to be suspenseful.

dcprules

For those who have seen it, how is James Newton Howard's score? Most of the reviews I seen have been harping on all that is bad with the flick but not talking about the score. Say what you will about M Night's recent flicks, but James Newton Howard's scores have still been great. I absolutely love the Lady in the Water score.