It Happened alright.

Well, It Happened.

Last night I went to see the movie "The Happening". I wasn't too sure how it would turn out and the only thing that I read about it was something close to "Nature Strikes Back". But, as it was an M. Night Shyamala(h)-ding-dong movie I was hoping that there would be his usual plot twist at the end like he's done with Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and The Village.

However, what I got was a whole lot of wasted time. The movie's plot was so completely out in left field that I was reeling from it within the first ten minutes. I tried to find some redeemable quality in the concept, but all I could see was a bunch of shock-based scenes intended to give the audience a scare in between their moments of confusion.

The filming of the movie was so terrible that you ACTUALLY see the boom mike coming down from the top of the screen to follow the various actors who are on camera. Now normally I would have chalked it up to a single mistake that they didn't catch in editing but this happens over and over again. It's so noticeable because the microphone has a big red line around the end so you can see it switching direction from one actor and then to the other.

Normally, in disaster movies such as this, the audience can become involved in the movie by watching the characters figure out the 'rules' to the disaster. Either it's something as simple as: "Get out of the city" or "Stay in the light." But this movie's plot is so far out there that there isn't really a 'rule' that you can hold onto. Anything and everything that is green wants to kill you. The end.

So, there's about two hours of my life that I will not be getting back.

Grade: F

People of the Book

From "People of the Book"

"My work has to do with objects, not people. I like matter, fiber, the nature of the varied stuffs that go to make a book. I know the flesh and fabrics of pages, the bright earths and lethal toxins of ancient pigments. Wheat paste -- I can bore the pants off anyone about wheat paste. . . . Of course, a book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand. The gold beaters, the stone grinders, the scribes, the binders, those are the people I feel most comfortable with. Sometimes, in the quiet, these people speak to me. They let me see what their intentions were, and it helps me do my work."

I received a link about this book from a friend who had seen a review on the Washington Post.

As the article mentioned:

Why is it, in this day of rampant technological change, that readers continue to be fascinated by stories of dusty manuscripts moldering on rickety shelves? Think of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, in which a monk investigates charges of heresy by prowling through documents in a medieval library. Or The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, in which four Princeton students find puzzles aplenty in a 15th-century manuscript. Or even those big blockbuster bestsellers -- Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (ancient arcana of numerous varieties) and James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy (ancient Peruvian manuscript).

Why? Why he asks? Well, the answer is quite simple.

It's a Book Thang.

-T