An Example of a Great Post

To those who are visiting this blog for the first time, please scroll down and read the previous post first, then this one.

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OK. I've gotten a remarkably positive response from those I've invited to join our weekly film discussion club. Please know that the people I've invited are going to be great contributors. I am confident that we'll learn much from one another.

Barrett Hilton, a film student in the heart of it all who is currently making movies himself, sent me the following e-mail about "The Happening." This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about! This isn't an official post, necessarily, but take a look at Barrett's comments on Shyamalan's new flick:

By the way, I found it interesting that "The Happening" was so horribly reviewed. I'm probably the biggest critic of "Lady in the Water" around, and was very dissapointed to hear about Night's sort of ego-fueled refusals to change the script, but "The Happening" with its few problems is not the stink bomb critics are making it out to be. It should score around 60 or more and be recomended as good Summer suspense, and a movie that follows in the footsteps of Hitchcock, making us terrified of seamingly nothing.

Too bad to see critics not able to put aside their beefs with Night. Let's face it, anyone who makes a hit like 6th Sense as their first studio feature is a walking target. Don't get me wrong, he hasn't helped any to make himself more likable, but if another director made "The Happening," there's no way reviews would have been so poor.

Anyway, I'm kind of glad in a way the reviews were so bad, because I went expecting Lady in the Water II, and instead really enjoyed the movie. There were weaknesses, the biggest being the filmmakers not realizing that the lion eating the man footage was hilarious, not horrifying.

[Spoiler Alert:] Also, I understand that many would be annoyed by the lame explanation that the plants are doing it, but I see that as more in line with "The Birds," where the point is something ordinary turns deadly and that's horrifying, than some kind of genuine scientific warning about the world turning on us as Roger Ebert saw it.