Uneventful June

with the exception of a particularly long, drawn out week last week, june was fairly uneventful. i did see m. night shamaylan's "the happening"... man... just man...
i mean i was right on the edge:
6th sense: ++
unbreakable:+
signs:+/-
the village:-
lady in the water:--

as you can see from my matter o' fact chart there, shamaylan had, despite a great outset, had broken even. this was the tie-breaker. is he good, but in a rut? is he a lucky hack? what a tie-breaker it was, too! no more, mr. director! no more, please! i'm done with his movies. my god! this was another in a long line of movies these past two years to have "anti" sub-text, for lack of a better term, it had super-text. yes, i am an english major snob who thinks he knows everything about characterization and story telling mechanics, but it's not like i have anything against exposition, as such. it's a really useful tool that lets the reader or viewer in on the rules of the game. ...still, there are ways to do it without actually seeming like you're doing it. showing and not telling, for example works wonderfully in books. now i realize movies are designed for showing so maybe that device gets over used. well, that's where subtext comes in; a verbal kind of showing. the character says something, he might even believe it, but the reader or viewer (from their vantage point) sees this really says something else about the character. subtext at its best can show a divergence between the author and the narrator. so:

a show character will in some non-verbal way convey that he is angry
an expository character will say "i am angry"
a subtext character will say "gee, those there flowers sure are nice" (randomly) and the viewer knows he's angry because they read between the lines

so that brings us to "the happening" (and "the brave one" "d-war" "revenge of the sith" to name a few others) where the characters make comments that are supposed to be subtextual and deep... but they're not (the characters or the comments). they, at best, just tell us what is happening in a shallow way. but with these films, it's more than that- either the actors, writers, or directors were unwilling or unable to reach that core emotion and are trying to imply that they have (think padmae's "you're breaking my heart!"). thus supertext: when a character that should be angry, though very clearly is not, states either explicitly or implicitly that he is angry though, once again, he clearly is not. this movie was chalk full of that.
so, let me very clearly state that "i will never be suckered into seeing one of shamaylan's movies again", as well as "the ribbed crow flies north by northeast" as i shake my fist to the heavens to the backdrop of thunder and lightning.... can't be more clear than that.