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The Happening (Special Edition + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] 
Actors : Mark Wahlberg, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley, Zooey Deschanel
Director : M. Night Shyamalan
Studio : 20th Century Fox
by 20th Century Fox
Release Date : 2008-10-07
Publisher : 20th Century Fox
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 2
EAN : 0024543533214
UPC : 024543533214
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 32 reviews)
List Price : $39.99
Our Price : $15.00
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Description |
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Disc 1: **Forced Trailers: Digital Copy Trailer, Untitled X Files Movie BD, Babylon AD BD, Street Kings BD, Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia BD **Train Shooting **The Hard Cut **Forces Unseen **"I Hear You Whispering" **Gag Reel **Deleted Scenes with Introductions by M. Night Shyamalan: *Elliot and Alma Fight (Extended Version) *Lion Attack (Extended Version) *Music Recital *Survivalist Porch (Extended Version) **The Happening - Visions Of The Happening: A Making Of **A Day For Night **Elements Of A Scene **DBOX (use logo) Disc 2: Digital Copy |
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Marketadvisory.com |
You'd expect the end of the world to be no day in the park, but in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, a day in the park is where the end begins. One otherwise peaceful summer morning, New Yorkers strolling in Central Park come to a halt in unison, then begin killing themselves by any means at hand. At a high-rise construction site a few blocks over, it's raining bodies as workers step off girders into space. And all the while, the city is so quiet you can hear the gentle breeze in the trees. That breeze carries a neurotoxin, and what or who put it there (terrorists?) is a question raised periodically as the film unfolds. But the question that really matters is how and whether anybody in the Middle Atlantic states is going to stay alive. The Happening is Shyamalan's best film since The Sixth Sense, partly because he avoids the kind of egregious misjudgment that derailed The Village and Lady in the Water, but mostly because the whole thing has been structured and imagined to keep faith with the point of view of regular, unheroic folks confronted with a mammoth crisis. Focal characters are a Philadelphia high-school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg, excellent), his wife (Zooey Deschanel) and math-teacher colleague (John Leguizamo), and the latter’s little girl (Ashlyn Sanchez). Instinct says get out of the cities and move west; most of the film takes place in the delicately picturesque Pennsylvania countryside, with menace hovering somewhere in the haze. There are no special effects (apart from a wind machine and some breakaway glass), but the movie manages to be deeply unsettling in the matter-of-factness of its storytelling. Especially effective is its feel for what we might call the surrealism of banality. One warning sign that someone has been infected by the neurotoxin is irrational or erratic speech and behavior, yet Shyamalan has a genius for dialogue that sounds normal and everyday as it's spoken, yet flies apart grenade-like a second later as its logic (or illogic) sinks in. Then there's Deschanel's eye-rolling dodginess about the messages some guy has been leaving on her cellphone. Or the fellow (Frank Collis) who addresses his greenhouse plants as though they were his children--has a stray toxic zephyr wafted his way, or is this just his idea of normal? --Richard T. Jameson
Beyond The Happening on DVD 
Jumper on DVD | 
Street Kings on DVD | 
Deception on DVD |
Stills from The Happening (Click for larger image) |
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The Happening does |
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Very well done movie and a step towards returning to the form and style of his first successes (rather than the disappointing "Lady in the Water"). M Knight continues to excell as always at setting a scene and a mood, and Mark Wahlberg and Zoe Deschanel are excellent, Betty Buckley fantastic and absolutely scarey. I feel he could have done better at the finish...too much was left hanging, though the transferance of the "happening" to France at the end was nicely done. The extras on the DvD were somewhat disappointing though, especially the "gag" reel. It became apparent that everyone involved with the production expected the impact of the movie and some of the action would be far creepier or scarier than they actually were. For a viewing population perhaps desensitized over the years by the plethora of schock garbage full of exceptional blood and violence, M Knight doesn't seem to understand that at base, "The Happening" remains rather tame in that respect. Nonetheless, I'd recommend it with two thumbs up to anyone, with the hope that M Knight can keep returning to the heights of his first achievements. |
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The Happening |
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Once again Marketadvisory has sent a BlueRay that doesn't open past the menu. This the fourth one I've paid for. |
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This movie totally blows. It's the worst film M Night has ever made. Save your money. |
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I would rate this film ZERO stars if that were possible. Even if you accept the nutty premise that all of the plants on earth are revolting against the humans because they are sick and tired of the pollution, the really, really stupid thing about this movie is the notion that the plants emit a chemical that makes you want to commit suicide. I could accept a story along the lines of a toxin of some kind that the plants emit that kills people off, but just getting a whiff of a tree in the breeze is enough to make you drop what you are doing and go jump off a building or start blowing people away with a gun??? Come on, M Night, I love your other films, but you completely dropped the ball with this one. Get back to the quality of 'Signs' and 'The Village.' |
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M. Night? What The {bleep!} Happened?! |
I have to shamefully admit something here: I'm an M. Night junkie. I love just about everything he's done. Yes, even Lady in the Water, which had a heartfelt message at its core and a great actor (Paul Giamatti) leading the way. And there were at least some creepy creatures in it. Lots of things were "happening."
Unfortunately, you can't say the same thing for THE HAPPENING (I've given it the unfortunate new title of "The Unhappening").
Let's see ...where to begin...
I guess the story is as bad a place as any...
First off, if you're going to make a thriller, it needs to be scary. The Happening isn't. The story has an enemy that we never see. And although unseen enemies can be psychologically frightening if done right (a bit of a caveat), they can be hard to pull off. The simple fact that not only was The Happening's main antagonist(s) not in the least frightening, it was seriously lame and completely unbelievable as to how the main protagonist comes to understand how it's "chasing them."
Second problem...
Acting. Although I'm no die-hard fan of Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), I have enjoyed previous films with him as a main character. But here he pulls in a very wooden and careless performance. Perhaps the script stymied him, perhaps not. But I think the bad script/story is definitely to blame, because also in the cast were John Leguizamo (Ice Age) and Zooey Deschanel (Failure to Launch), both of which I consider high prizes in Hollywood and often underused. Their stilted line deliveries ("Don't take my daughter's hand unless you mean it!") and equally wooden performances seem to point toward story problems of epic proportions.
The final stone...
I'll cast the final stone and mention the complete lack of anything approaching a character we can sympathize or identify with. Again, pretty much a script/story problem. People die. They fall off buildings, stab themselves with hair pins, allow themselves to be run over by a riding mower, hang themselves, crash their cars, and die in fairly gruesome fashion (earning the film it's first R rating for M. Night). And I think this is where he screwed up. He must've equated gruesomeness with theatrical tension, but that wasn't the case. There needs to be a human element to the story and up until now, M. Night has been able to deliver it.
But here, it just ain't "happening." |
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THIS MOVIE GOT A BUM WRAP! It Freaked Me Out.. |
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Heard the bad reviews? Not true. M. Night's a modern day Hitchcock. Very freaky, a little dark, but never gratuitous - the violence is mostly left to your imagination, which makes it creepier. Loved the acting, characters, story, and it looks beautiful on Blu-ray. Keep it up, M.! |
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