Variety columnist and deputy online editor Anne Thompson is your trusted source for breaking film industry news. She tracks Hollywood, Indiewood, the Oscars and film festivals around the world. ...
Many critics have compared writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. It's no secret that Shyamalan is a fan of the master of psychological horror. What The Happening and The Birds have in common is also what made The Day After Tomorrow so effective: they tap into our fear that after messing with Mother Nature, she will turn on us. The idea behind The Happening, that trees and plants will revolt to protect themselves from humans, is chilling. Given all the movie choices this freakily hot weekend, David, Nora and I agreed to see The Happening. My theory: we didn't know exactly what we'd be getting (which is good) but we figured it would be well-made, scary fun, and not dopey. Shyamalan is an original: he's not playing by studio formula rules, so his movies have a directorial stamp and personality. In an ideal world, someone would tell him that Mark Wahlberg, while he is a likable everyman, can be stiffly unheroic, even whiney. And the scene when the grass comes whipping across the field in a line incites laughter (at least in me). But I screeched obediently during the Psycho-sequence with the deliciously over-the-top Betty Buckley. In short, we got exactly what we expected. It's too bad that the right smart people didn't come together to make this movie even better. I suspect that's Shyamalan's fault; he doesn't seem open to other people's input. He's got to be the smartest man in the room. Nora ...
Anytime
Many critics have compared writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. It's no secret that Shyamalan is a fan of the master of psychological horror. What The Happening and The Birds have in common is also what made The Day After Tomorrow so effective: they tap into our fear that after messing with Mother Nature, she will turn on us. The idea behind The Happening, that trees and plants will revolt to protect themselves from humans, is chilling. Given all the movie choices this freakily hot weekend, David, Nora and I agreed to see The Happening. My theory: we didn't know exactly what we'd be getting (which is good) but we figured it would be well-made, scary fun, and not dopey. Shyamalan is an original: he's not playing by studio formula rules, so his movies have a directorial stamp and personality. In an ideal world, someone would tell him that Mark Wahlberg, while he is a likable everyman, can be stiffly unheroic, even whiney. And the scene when the grass comes whipping across the field in a line incites laughter (at least in me). But I screeched obediently during the Psycho-sequence with the deliciously over-the-top Betty Buckley. In short, we got exactly what we expected. It's too bad that the right smart people didn't come together to make this movie even better. I suspect that's Shyamalan's fault; he doesn't seem open to other people's input. He's got to be the smartest man in the room. Nora ...