What's Happening? (no spoilers, I promise)

Last night Drew and I saw "The Happening". This is the latest curious tale from M. Night Shyamalan. He wrote, directed and produced this. I love that M. Night uses Philadelphia or Pennsylvania in general in most of his films. It's really cool to watch a movie and see buildings that I drive past all the time. Uke Washington make a cameo in the movie as a newscaster, which is really neat since I've seen him on the local news hundreds of times. However, the movie itself was kind of blah. Most of the "good scenes" are shown in the previews with the exception of 5-6 seconds. I like Mark Wahlberg but his acting isn't really great in this. John Lequizamo is in it and he's good, it's nice to see him being a real person, not just some doofy guy. Zoey Deschanel is in it as well, and quite frankly all she added to the movie was large blue eyes, too much mascara, and lipstick on/off depending what scene it was.

The show stealer for me though was Betty Buckley, and I had no idea she was even in it. I know she's a Tony award winner and all but she will always be Abby, the stepmother from Eight is Enough in my mind. She doesn't appear until about 3/4 of the way through the movie, but her performance made the difference for me in this movie between "there's $9 I'll never see again" and "well,that didn't suck". As we were leaving I heard someone behind us say "you're not allowed to pick the movie any more". Opinions vary I guess. There's no real language problem in this movie, no sex or nudity, the R rating is really for just a gory scene or two, but noting really bad. All and all, Mr M. Night Shamalamadingdong (hee hee Jen) tells a decent tale, but I don't really think it in any way deserves all the hype and it isn't really what I'd call a scary movie. It's never a wasted night though, when I get to sit next to Drew for 2 hours and hold his hand :)