Children of Men 2008

This was my first watch and I was both pleasantly surprised and rewarded with a socially progressive & technically ambitious low budget scifi film but also a little soured with its pretentiousness. Children of Men is full of fabulous camerawork and cinematography that is a bit overstated and distracts from many moments. Instead of dramatic they are so aesthetically pleasing or grand that they eclipse the acting or we are pulled out of the reality of the story. Its forgivable only because this is more of a preposterous, symbolic genre movie than seriousness high drama. Its even comedic and campy at times and only a little bit excessive in its kitsch and lightheartedness. Its a brisk, serious-enough and thoughtful diversion from the post-apocalyptic adventure films of its period. I highly recommend it as a fine middlebrow exercise in commercial art filmmaking.

The Happening 2008

This film has an 18% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5/10 on IMDB but a favorable 3/4 from the late Roger Ebert. It is now regarded in popular online circles as one of the worst films ever. This is sad evidence that most modern audiences don't know a good film and don't know when they are being fooled.

The Happening is another Twilight Zone-ish piece of weirdo Hollywood filmmaking from M. Night Shyamalan. Its a deadpan spoof of disaster films (Spielberg's War of the Worlds seems like the obvious target) and a quite brilliant satire on human self-destruction. The brilliance of Shyamalan is that it avoids being serious, preachy or un-entertaining while being a very thoughtful, vicious and nightmarish movie.

The plot finds Mark Wahlberg and an increasingly dwindling cast being killed by... nothing. More specifically, air. More specifically, chemicals in the air created by plants that have grown highly conscious and murderous in reaction to human habitation. Its a fairly plausible bit of science fantasy but its handled in a consciously obtuse way. What takes it from the realm of realism is that the chemicals cause people to commit suicide in over-the-top and gory fashion. M. Night is making a comment on the public's then-obsession with realistic torture and gore in film, TV and news. The film is formatted closest to a Saw sequel or any dumb "body count" movie from the period. He also uses this bit of exploitation to divorce the film from seriousness. But it never stops being smart and characters keep being believably human: selfish, stupid, absurd, hilarious, layered and weird. In case you think its just weird for weird's sake or just plain corny, the film is loaded with a B-movie soundtrack, quirky acting and gruesomely absurdist slapstick constantly winking that its all a big joke. A clever joke told with a straightface that builds to a thoughtful punchline.

Zooey Deschanel steals the film as Wahlberg's bizarre wife who is still not quite in love with him. By the end she has fallen for him and his compassion, intelligence, resiliency and self-sacrifice. A wonderful allegory reveals itself as plants see the love and self-sacrifice of this couple and decide to spare them and let humans have another go at living on this planet. Or did the psychotic greenery just run out of gas? The final scene leaves us wondering.

The Happening is a great love letter to classic sci-fi cinema: its over-the-top melodramatics, low budget minimalism, absurd premises and usually earnest themes. No shock that it went over the vast majority's heads, so kudos to M. Night having the courage to make a film destined to bomb and be misunderstood. Its a real labor of love, which is rare in Hollywood. Even more, its an intelligent, unique and hilarious labor of love. Its the most cult movie in his wide body of cult movies and its probably my favorite. I think Shyamalan evokes the work of such greats as David Lynch, Werner Herzog and Kurt Vonnegut here. Its pure surrealism done in the grandest scale yet.