M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening Trailer

By EchoTengoBravo February 5, 2008 12:41 AM

It isn't entirely clear what's happening (clever, I know) in M. Night Shyamalan's latest twisty mind-bender, but I have a guess: In the film, the people of New York are given a choice: Watch Lady in the Water once a day for the rest of your lives, or kill yourself right now. Looks like most people didn't have to think too hard about that one.

Shyamalan has really gone downhill, so maybe he's due for a comeback, but at this point it's guilty until proven innocent. And can we talk about the title for a second. "The Happening"? It's the worst, quite frankly. It's as if they held a "Name M. Night's Next Film" contest in an elementary school and only got one entry. It's like they were going to choose the title by rolling some dice covered with random words instead of numbers, and when they threw the dice all but one fell in a gutter.

On the plus side, Zooey Deschanel and Mark Wahlberg are pretty awesome. But so are Paul Giamatti, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, and William Hurt, etc. I'm just saying. Shyamalan has a knack for canceling out any built-in awesomeness that the cast brings. And let's face it, neither Zooey nor Marky Mark have an unblemished project record.

All right, end of rant. Here it is:



The Happening is scheduled for a June 2008 release.

| comments: 8

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The Happening   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on February 5, 2008 5:55 AM

People jumping to their death from high buildings, where have I seen that before?

Oh yeah, 9/11... this movie looks like fun.

Stop Sucking and Make Good Movies!   reply

Posted by Jack (jack@dtheatre.com) on February 5, 2008 10:40 AM

Editor: Scotty wrote this post and submitted just after EchoTengoBravo did his. I felt we should run it anyway. Enjoy:

M. Night Shyamalan?s new movie is coming out.  Let me guess, suspense based movie seeming to employ an unforeseen plot twist and featuring a couple of low rent actors, a standout performance from someone new and a big name draw.  Bingo.  So everyone pretty much agrees that this worked on The Sixth Sense, and even cynical old me liked it, but his other movies have served to only slightly entertain.  I am usually happy when I am on a transcontinental flight and one of them is the featured movie.  I also get pretty hyphy when they hand out chocolate covered pretzels in these situations as well.  So in this new trailer, I see some redeeming qualities.  Allow me to explain.  There are people jumping to their doom of a roof and falling like rain.  I liked this when they almost did it in the Japanese movie, Suicide Club, but the people were not falling frequently enough.  Secondly, it has Mark Wahlberg.  I will not try to explain this I just like him as an actor.  It may be because acting ended his rap career.  Also, Mark Walhberg looks terrified.  I like this terrified Mark Wahlberg much better than I like him as some kind of unflappable hero.  Compare his performances in I Heart Huckabees and The Big Hit.  It also features Alan Ruck who played Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller?s Day Off, kudos to casting.  My main pleasure is that this film seems to feature copious amounts of death.  I love movie death.  My main fear brought out in this trailer is how the words between the scenes bounce like an oscilliscope.  I DO NOT want some kind of a sound to be causing all this death.  That shit is played out.  Like M. Night Shyamalan is afraid of Rock ?n Roll poisoning the minds of our youth.  In conclusion, step your game up M. Night Shyamalan.  One good movie is not enough for you to be considered an outstanding director.

M.Night   reply

Posted by dentonmd (dentonmd) on February 7, 2008 12:34 PM

I love his work for the most part but I'm still not sure how I feel about this movie. I think they could have done a bit more with this trailer. Maybe given us a bit more of what the film is about.  Thoughts?

RE: M.Night   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on February 8, 2008 6:04 AM

I think he should make a movie called Twist and have the twist be that there is no twist... what a twist!

wow, guys...   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on February 16, 2008 12:36 PM

It seems like all of you are just looking for a reason to hate Shyamalan. Give it a rest, its just a ****ing trailer. Wait tunil the movie comes out first, and then you can talk about how you hate the movie or not. Im not even a Shyamalan fan myself, but come on, this is pathetic. We dont even know anything about it. And comparing people jumping off buildings to 9/11? Are you kidding me? Asd I said, you're only looking for another reason to write off this wrio\ter/director.

RE: wow, guys...   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on February 19, 2008 5:52 AM

That shot in the trailer when they realise that people are jumping out of windows didn't remind you of 9/11?

RE: wow, guys...   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on March 11, 2008 8:23 PM

actually they are jumping off the of a roof. and no.

RE: wow, guys...   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on June 9, 2008 9:12 AM

It reminded me of 9-11, when people were jumping out of the burning buildings.  Maybe not everyone saw those pictures, since the public asked the news stations not to show them.  It was too upsetting, and people were recognizing their family.  I don't think that clip was intentionally like 9-11, but it definitely brought that memory up in my mind...and it wasn't "fun" to me.