So, what, exactly... happened?

The Screening Room
Specially Written for What's Up

“Mother of God,” said the assertive bystander. “What kind of terrorists are these?”

That’s the question asked in M. Night Shyamalan’s newest film “The Happening,” about which the best part is its length: one hour, 31 minutes.

It’s awful, but at least it’s over quickly.

The movie, like any good scary story, starts out at 8:33 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. It’s shot almost completely in daylight, much of it outside amidst lush green fields. No creepy darkness, no damp warehouses — Shyamalan employs none of the usual tricks of the terror trade.

But unfortunately for the filmmaker so well known for his infamous twist in the “I see dead people” favorite “The Sixth Sense,” his latest venture is likely to be remembered only as a flop. When it comes to the Richter Scale of Scariness, this one barely even registers.

“The Happening” follows Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Alma (Zooey Deschanel), a young couple on the brink of breakup. He’s a high school science teacher trying to teach today’s youth to think outside the box, and she’s having tiramisu dates with another guy. Though the audience is supposed to be rooting for them to work things out, Wahlberg and Deschanel are so completely devoid of chemistry that if the repopulation of Earth lies with them, humanity may as well be written off with the dinosaurs.

The two are fleeing Philadelphia by train with Elliot’s buddy Julian (John Leguizamo) and his young daughter Jess after word of a terrorist attack hitting the East Coast — one that makes its victims stop whatever they’re doing, stand like a stick of celery for a few seconds and then exert enough mental capacity to decapacitate themselves. In short order, they become willingly suicidal.

While early depictions of this attack are striking — one scene shows construction men walking off a building’s edge in a very haunting, non- “It’s raining men” kind of way — what starts out going down Spooky Lane ends up taking a turn on the Insipid Plotline Highway.

Instead of the usual twists and shocks, the movie plays like a hyperbolized environmentalist’s warning as we discover early on that trees and shrubs are plotting through the wind against the invading human species. Yes, you read that correctly. The plants emit a poisonous chemical that causes people to do themselves in in various disturbing ways, like shoving their heads through plate-glass windows or running themselves over with an industrial-sized lawnmower. Gone is the expected and hoped-for Shyamalan-stamped mind puzzle.

It’s campy and shallow, and at times has a realism akin to a junior high play. After their ride out of town goes kaput, Elliot and Alma go running for the hills with the rural Pennsylvania locals. While fleeing, they just so happen to stop for a side character’s speech on the misunderstood nature of hot dogs. Not that I’ve ever been in the situation, but I’m guessing if I’m outrunning an invisible, fatal airborne toxin, I’m not going to stop to listen about the manifest destiny of link-shaped pork.

At another point, while witnessing the deaths of a group of poison victims, Alma faces Elliot and yells “we can’t just stand here as uninvolved observers!” Not only is that probably the most complex sentence spoken in the movie, it’s delivered with a wide-eyed exasperation that simply can’t be taken seriously.

Ladies and gentlemen: There’s even a moment in which Elliot tries to save himself by singing a Doobie Brothers song.

Sure, there are a few successes in the film. One includes a speech from Wahlberg regarding a “completely superfluous bottle of cough syrup,” and another — possibly a shout out to a jump-from-your-skin “Sixth Sense” moment — has the camera coming upon a landscaper’s truck, then a series of ladders and finally a dozen men’s bodies hanging in the trees.

But the real ringer is the setting. How enticing can a film be when its antagonists are America’s fruited plains? While it could be said Shyamalan uses nature as-is to make his audience think, (i.e. Is Mother Nature about to lash out at our polluting population? Has she already begun?) it still stands that it simply doesn’t work.

The film also stars an ill-used and nearly unrecognizable (they grow up so fast!) Spencer Breslin, and strides along at the pace of a host of horrible instrumentals. When it comes to this summer’s blockbuster disappointment list, this one just nabbed the top spot, knocking even “Jumper” out of the race. Despite its intentions, “The Happening” just doesn’t have it going on.

"Sex and the City": Here's to the fans

The Screening Room
Written Specially for What's Up

Story stays close to home, drama goes Big.

Nothing pulls the sequined sling-backs out of the closet like an elite Manhattan event, and Friday night there was one of those happening at just about every movie theater in every town in the country. The opening of “Sex and the City: The Movie” may not have curb appeal to the Average Joe, but there were plenty of Average Janes, some dressed in above average fashion, amassed at local cinemas for the much anticipated reunion of Carrie Bradshaw and Co.

That’s right, the girls are back in town. In fact, they never actually left it.

“Sex and the City: The Movie” takes place four years after the HBO series’ credits last rolled in 2004. Like the rest of us, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) have moved on since we last checked in, with relationships, kids, careers and great outfits hanging in the balance.

In the spirit of the night, I attended the movie with my own trio of pals, each of us wearing some fabulous footwear of our own. Chatter from the mostly female audience filled the air like the snapping of blue studded Manolo’s on a New York City sidewalk. And as I sat waiting for the previews to begin, it was in true Carrie Bradshaw fashion that I couldn’t help but wonder ... was this even going to be any good? Would our great sexpectations be rewarded, or were we about to get a TV-turned-movie flop about as tranquilizing as “Bewitched?” Sure, show producer Michael Patrick King is back and in the writer’s and director’s chair. But where should we draw the line? When it comes to a good thing, how much is too much?

While I was at it, I had to question the obvious: Would Big and Carrie make it for the long haul? Would Charlotte finally become pregnant like she’d always dreamed, and had Miranda survived these last four years of motherhood and marriage living in — gasp! dare I type it? — Brooklyn? Finally, would the whole of Manhattan’s male populace ever be the same with Samantha off-the-market, living monogamous in Los Angeles — and like a shark that can’t stop swimming, could she actually survive that way?



Answers to these queries and more are given throughout the movie, which plays like an extended episode of the show. While it’s nothing that will land in the movie halls of fame, it’s certainly just what series fans were hoping for. The plot smacks of familiarity, as a wedding, an affair, a breakup and a pregnancy unfold. And knowing Samantha, there may or may not be some jaw-dropping bedroom acrobatics.

Going bicoastal and bringing back many of the show’s original side characters, the movie poses a few questions of its own: Can there be happily ever after 40? When it comes to love, is forgiving and forgetting enough? And for that matter, is loving yourself truly most important?

Chris Noth, Evan Handler, David Eigenberg and Jason Lewis all resurrect their significant other roles, and new to the mix is Carrie’s assistant, played in a sweetly show-stealing performance by Jennifer Hudson. The movie dabbles in its usual comical spriteness, but takes a few surprisingly dramatic turns. It certainly doesn’t shy from exposing the downs — not just the ups — of its heroine’s fantastical lives. And another new character is found in a certain closet, which plays an integral role in the Big and Carrie saga that might just fulfill the secret fantasy of every clotheshorse on earth.

Clearly made with fans in mind, “Sex and the City: The Movie” isn’t one for those unfamiliar with the series. Then again, it may just inspire them to pick up the DVDs and give the first round a go.

But the one thing Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha taught throughout their six devoted years on the small screen rang true once more. Whether in finding love, losing it or just clinking cosmos on a Saturday night, there’s at least one thing you can never have too much of. One thing, sappy as it sounds, that will never go out of style. Stripped of its glitter, in its own way the movie raises a toast to friendship. Because like stepping out in a favorite pair of shoes, that’s the one thing you can count on time and time again.