"The Happening"

Someone needs to explain to me why I keep going to see movies by M. Night Shamylan. I've seen all the movies he's made, and been sorely disappointed by all but his first major release.

Now, I'll say here that I think he is a capable director. The movies are generally well shot and, usually in spite of the screenplay, well paced. The chief problem is the writng. I think the screenplays have to be the problem. The stories are usually really intriguing, but the execution of the story into a film almost universally misses its mark.

"The Happening" presents an interesting survival movie, but there is no oppurtunity for the protagonists to be proactive, and their eventual survival (it's a M. Night film, so you know it'll have a happy ending) is not a result of their actions, but of the world around them. They could have done nothing, in essence, and the end result would have been the same. To me, that made me rather bored. I just didn't care by the end. Also, the movie is remarkably short, mainly because it seems as if he's managed to write a movie without a third act. In some ways, I'd argue there's just a second act, without much of a first......

On the plus side, Night didn't place himself in a cameo position, and I saw a few trailers for films that looked quite intriguing, so....
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A short thought on villains

This blog certainly is a ramshackle affair, but I hope it is entertaining. I'll continue writing these elements of how to, merely because I believe that teaching is a great way to learn. However, I think I'm going to expand the content here. Writing is about more than just craft, it's about reality and irreverence and a whole lot more. Ultimately, it has to be about life and the world, or, at least, a reaction to what we see around us.

That said, here's my thought on villains for the day. I think the key tenet to a truly great villain is the moment of empathy that allows you to see that the villain does not consider himself (or herself) a villain. They firmly believe what they are doing is for the betterment of their world. And to me, that's the scariest damn part of it all.
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