It's just that what "clicked" was a guy's faith and that completely alienated the target demographic. Even when you read Talkbacks here, religion is bashed like nothing else, so I don't see how anyone of those Talkbackers would come out with anything other than a "nice filmmaking for a while, then a complete shit ending" conclusion.

That said, Frailty was another movie that dealth with religious issues from around that time and I think it stuffed the answer in our faces moreso than Signs but because that ending was completely crazy (seriously wtf, so is that how fundamentalists see things?), I wonder what people thought of that.

The whole monsters thing really sidetracked everything, and I think he tried to undo that with the way he resolved things, but that just made it more of a mess.

If anything, he comes up with great premises for movies. He's also a great director. His writing is also amazing when he's on his game, but he hasn't been so since the first half of Signs. So it's hard to say that he should just produce films, or just direct, or whatever, because if he's clicking in all areas, he can do it all better than most any new director.

The "intervention" idea sounds great. Maybe his kids will grow up and smack some sense into him.

Unfortunately, his last two films sucked. I enjoyed Signs, warts and all, but I can not forgive him for The Village and Lady in the Water. I really hope he regains his momentum with The Happening, but I won't be holding my breath.

I like all this guy's stuff. This looks promising, and so, when I hear someone say 'I loved the Sixth Sense' and 'I hated Lady in the Water', I understand where they're coming from, and that tells me more about what The Happening is gonna be like than any film criticism they'd spout off.

Negative reviews are the geek world's version of bread and circuses; it keeps us placated until the next big thing. Instead of viewing something on its merits, we judge it for where it falls short. It's either maturity or old age that make me look at the screen and wait for each instance of a filmmaker's craft to determine if what they made was 'good' or 'bad'.

I don't put much stock in reviews anyway, unless they're wildly different from what I was expecting.

Man, if you weren't expecting bad reviews on this one, you don't pay attention to how the online world works. M. Night is the online film community's favorite punching bag next to Kevin Smith. So, when I see bad reviews, it just reaffirms my faith in how fans online report on this guy's flicks. I'll probably still see this one.

Who on earth thought evil plants were a good idea. Aside from Triffids, obviously.

Check out the movie poster. His name is bigger on it than the freaking star of the movie. His movies have ceased to be about the characters and have become about Shamalamadingdong's enormous ego. He won't be getting another dime out of me after that turdfest The Village. I'm thankful I haven't seen Lady in the Ego Trip and I won't waste a cent on this sure to be cinematic abortion.

Wake me up when Shamalamadingding produces something to suggest he wasn't a one two trick pony (The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable). Shamalamadingdong jumped the shark when he put "the twist" into Signs (and in so doing came up with the lame idea that water was harmful to aliens ... as if a speicies that advanced wouldn't have figured that out before they tried to invade a planet where the majority of the surface is water).

I know pronounce him M. Direct-To-Video Shamalama-Two-Trick-Pony

Give me a fuckin' break.

which was awesome, in case no one let you know.

he should stop getting cast, in my opinion.

Unbreakable is M Night's best film.

an origin story to a superhero we don't know. absolutely brilliant.

Aiming for the "Denny's crowd" and knowing magic formulas for making hit films seems to be no match for an over-active ego. It's too bad because he does seem to have talent.

You know, what you have to remember about M. Night is that he's really only one of a handful of directors who's willing to take a chance on an idea. While most of the other studio hacks as busy pumping out sequels or sure fire comic book movies, he's out there in the wilderness crafting his own stories and doing his own thing. You gotta commend him for that.

But these are scary times for him. One more turd from him and he might be in danger of not finding a studio boss who will bankroll him.

Here's hoping he can put a good polish on The Happening before it debuts.

Well, the aliens weren't too bright either. They invaded a planet that's like 80% made of something that will kill them.

Poor Night. Back to 'Stuart Little' with you...

The problem is, he's copied his own style so much, it's become a parody of itself. The "slow burn" kinda film was done well at first. That was just his style. And it made sense early on, cuz everyone was "damaged" somehow. The kid was @#$%ed up over the visions, Bruce was hurting, etc. In Unbreakable this worked too because of the sad people in a failing marriage. The problem later was that every character since those movies have spoken and acted like that no matter what their personalities should be. And then it became boring instead of "stylistic" or whatever. And I like Bryce D.H. She's no Jessica Biel but she's cute. And can't resist a redhead, either.

They revealed that the way to beat the aliens was with water. That was dumb as shit. The scene with the alien at the birthparty creeped me out though, when I saw it in the theater.

The cause of "The Happening" sounds dumb. I won't be wasting money to see this, but if it's bad enough I'll find some way to see it like I did with Wicker Man.

Zooey Deschanel, meanwhile, may be a major league hottie, but she's been flat and monotonous in everything she's done, so she should do just fine in this. Sounds like a Twilight Zone episode, done po-faced and art-house, with no real ending and some godawful expositionary dialogue in it. I'll check out the DVD, and fuck MNS. CELL was a better end-of-the-world story anyway, and needs to be made - it was better than this shit sounds.

] Shyamalan, the secret's out. You're a one-hit wonder and fucking incapable of being that good again. Go home and watch your Spielberg DVDs for the rest of your life.

All you MNS fans need counselling. You're not seeing something that the rest of us aren't - you are in fact using that excuse to pretend that you are smarter than everyone else, when in fact you just need to justify your need to be abused by every new MNS flick that comes along. You're as bad as George Lucas Prequel Trilogy apologists, and are the enemies of true cinema. Go and do something horrible to yourselves, you fucks.

Our theater audibly groaned when M. Night's name came up for this trailer. And they actually laughed at it, when the trailer was over. Fuck this shit.

The series of DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS was just awesome. There's many ways of doing a story like this, and the UK TV sci-fi stuff of the 1970s did it best - THE QUATERMASS CONCLUSION, like all the Quatermass stuff was fucking terrifying - and THAT'S how it should be done. But no: this will be full of flat, monotonous line reading, long slow dolly into close up shots, fuck all in the way of an advancing narrative, and the most egotistical cameo imaginable by this over-rated shitdog.

Mark Wahlberg - you should know better than this. This movie will suck balls.

Roger Ebert said it best:

"Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore.

And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets."

amen brother. after that piece of dog shit, I have had zero urge to see anything Shyamalan has done. this is no exception. even though I'm engaged to Zooey Deschanel...

*Crickets*

Not that I'm defending some of these ideas. I don't think they're as moronic as some do. Personally I think the main problems with Sham were just repetition and ego. He'd have gotten away with more if he hadn't kept telling us he was a genius. And people tend to respect a Spielberg for trying something outside their usual genre. Night just never broke the style up. Even hitchcock made some very different looking things, even within a style.

But, seriously, how many clipped tone speaking Indian subcontinent Vetenarians are working in quiet white farm country? Maybe a lot...but stunt casting yourself really jars the viewer out of your genius fantasy reality...

Unfortunately, while I respect the fact M. Night makes standalone movies (ie. no sequels), his storytelling ability has fallen into the toilet. Seriously, I haven't found one compelling character to feel or root for in any of his post-Sixth Sense movies. I didn't bother to see "Lady in the Water," which turned out to be a solid decision. "The Happening" seems like more of the same M. Night trying too hard and falling flat on his face storytelling.

My suggestion: M. Night should direct someone else's screenplay. Instead of continuing to work as a plummeting auteur, he should give up the need to anally control every single aspect of his moviemaking and find his inspiration again.

He needs to reboot, big time.

It sucks that such a good cast of actors was wasted on "The Happening."

Something happened, huh? OooooooH! Something also happened in "The Simpsons", "Aliens", and "Shrek," but they didn't call those films "The Happening." They called them "The Simpsons," "Aliens", and "Shrek." See how alluding to something specific you'll see in the film helps?

"The Happening." Man...

Anyone else think his movies' visual signature looks lame? I almost want to describe it as plastic-y...I can't quite put my finger on it, but everything seems kind of LIFELESS - and this is even aside from the performances.

I hope someone knows what I mean.

I always admired his limited use of CGI or trick shots. But he really could try some variety.

Another example is his review of A.I. It's not my favorite film, I think it took some risks that succeeded, others that failed, but his real problem with it is that he doesn't believe a machine can have a soul. So that's his problem with the movie, not realizing that the movie exists TO PLAY AROUND AND ATTEMPT TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION. Well, folks, Mr. Moravec, Mr. Turing, and Mr. Kubrick for that matter, MR. EBERT knows the answer already, rending any artistic endeavor in pursuit of an answer or an exploration of the question moot. The answer is, MACHINES CANNOT HAVE A 'SOUL' OR SENSE OF 'SELF', whatever the hell that is. Case closed. Ebert, at times, reminds me of the worse kinds of 'scientists', the obtuse kind that think all of science rests on what happens in a laboratory and what's already been put down, not realizing the tremendous leaps of imagination that it took to get to the theories that we have now.

As far as Shyamalan, I LOVE The Village, and see it as a parable about isolationism, not wanting to deal with a changing society, and using fear to keep young people in line... hence 'the elders'. And then, it sort of asks, "what's wrong with that?" There's so much more to that movie, philosophically, than people give it credit for and, YES, I AM glad it's not just a monster movie. Lady in the Water didn't work quite as well for me, but you have to watch it PURELY as a story ABOUT telling stories and inspiration. It's INSANE in what it's doing, to the point of pretentiousness at times, but it's just about inspiration and telling a story and coming up with characters... the very act itself and how you try to tie those things together in the end in order to satisfy an audience. It's kind of a crazy, audacious movie. I don't totally disagree with people who would say, yes, audaciously bad, but I'm able to somewhat enjoy it for what I believe it's trying to do.

and since when does quoting a review that I agree with mean that I think the reviewer is god's gift? Ebert's review of Crash is about as far from my opinion as I think anyone could have been, to the point where it almost makes me angry how much he missed the point. Kenneth Turan's review of Crash was exactly my take on it. on the other hand, Turan's review of Fight Club is one of the most retarded things I've ever read in my life, and I taught high schoolers how to write essays for 3 years...

if a review gets it right, in your opinion, no reason not to cite it. it's not always so black and white.