The Happening & In Search Of The Midnight Kiss
It was my birthday last Tuesday and for some reason I really was not interested in the traditional celebratory drink, I must be getting old plus I knew that friends were descending en-masse at the weekend so I’d save my liver until then. I did however want to do something to celebrate so naturally I gravitated to the cinema and the only release that held the slightest interest was M Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Happening‘. I’m not really a fan of his work, especially since sitting through the terrible ‘Lady In The Water’ a couple of weeks ago but what he can occasionally pull off are very effective, tension building sequences which display a certain mastery of cinematic rhythm, editing and sound to construct some nail-biting sequences. For what it’s worth the plot involves husband and wife Mark Whalberg and the cute Zooey Dechanel as teachers caught up in a unspecified terrible event that has struck America. Terrorist attack? Bio-weapon plague? Credit Crunch? Well, not quite…
Well, the best I can say about it is that it’s only 90 minutes long. It is utterly preposterous when the cause of the ‘happening’ is revealed and there is some truly terrible, 
terrible dialogue and absurd plot developments. A couple of spooky moments aside you have a $57 million B movie and hey, I like B movies but not when they think they’re like, really significant and important. The film is obsessed with showing the viewer just how contemporary it is whilst jamming an absurd environmental message down your throat which has probably set back the whole movement a couple of decades. Major spoilers but an amusing dissection of the film here, suffice to say do not bother.
I followed this up with another cinema visit yesterday as last years record number of visits isn’t going to break itself now is it? I had some time to kill before an NFT event so I opted for Philip French’s film of the week, ‘In Search Of A Midnight Kiss‘. The film can be summarised as a monochrome LA set version of Before Sunset where struggling writer Wilson posts a lonely heart column on Craiglist in search of a date for New Years Eve. He 
gets his wish in the form of the abrasive Vivian and they spend an eventful evening together – but what will the New Year bring? This was quite entertaining, in that usual independent, low budget American sort of way. Some taut dialogue papers over some unnecessary scenes and plot faults, overall if like me you find hilarious the prospect of someone being caught jerking off over photo-shopped pictures of his flatmates girlfriend like Wilson does in the films opening scene, then this is worth a watch.
The highlight of the week however was hosted over at the NFT – a premiere of the first episode of Season 5 of ‘The Wire’ with an interview with the series creative mastermind, David Simon. The episode itself was of the usual fantastic 
quality and it was an absolute joy, with spoilers in mind, to see a certain character back where he belongs – fans will know what I mean. ‘Wire’ acolyte Charlie Brooker hosted and Simon gave 
eloquent and detailed answers to the questions, revealing how the seasons were put together with specific areas to examine (the media in Season 5) whilst providing realistic story arcs and never, never cheating the integrity of the varied roster of characters. Here is the opening scene (again, no spoilers but it will give you a flavour of the show), I cannot wait until this is out and I can devote a weekend to the final ten hours of quite simply one of the top five TV shows of all time. Simon revealed that Obama had recently been quoted as saying ‘The Wire’ is his favourite TV show and quite hysterically that Omar is his favourite character – for you non Wire fans Omar is a homicidal bi-sexual career criminal who almost suicidally preys on drug dealers. A perfect role model for the next president I think <oh, the satire…>
Just to round things off let me give you some recommendations of films old and new I’ve caught recently. I watched the magnificent ‘Mulholland Drive‘ with a film theorist commentary that has been posted on the web. This managed 
to clear up some of the questions and mysteries that orbit the film and it is on reflection a much more straightforward tale than I suspected. It’s certainly up there as amongst Lynch’s best along with ‘Eraserhead‘, ‘The Elephant Man‘ and of course ‘Blue Velvet‘ and remains a thoroughly mesmerising film. Plus I really, really like Naomi Watts which helps….
Park Chan-Wook’s follow up to the acclaimed ‘Oldboy‘ was the amusingly titled ‘I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK‘ which sees him dropping the fascination with revenge films for a charming romantic comedy. Yeah, right. interesting to see he’s making a full on horror film, that should be pretty intense. I can also recommend this and this for some classical, traditional Hollywood entertainment.
Minty's Menagerie 
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