I was happy to know that M. Night Shyamalan had a new film coming up. Contrary to film enthusiasts and Shyamalan fans, I enjoyed his previous film, Lady in the Water, pretty well even if it didn't performed well in the box office. I have to say that I got inspired by the film to take a look at studies on folklores.

I expected The Happening to be as great as his previous films and it never failed me. No spoliers here but I say that the film has its strengths and weaknesses. The plot was rather confusing and intriguing to the point of discontentment when things started to reveal themselves one by one. The "human" aspect of the film was not strong enough that made the storyline fail, particulary at the second half. The characters were not established and very quiet but good enough to make the story move at its own pace. I love Mark Wahlberg's character as a HS Science teacher. He was very cute, his voice is a breath of fresh air and it's very unlikely for someone like him to portray a character as good as that. Some effects were uncalled for and I still cannot resolve if I was still watching a Shyamalan film or a Rob Zombie film. The shots were very Shyamalan-esque, especially the lightings.

I'm glad that Shyamalan still ventures in making films that has the "fear of the unknown" concept. Some people will call it silly or very far-fetched, but I like the idea that there are some things in this world that goes beyond human comprehension. The shots that established the story from the beginning (i.e. Einstein's quote, the human body) kept me thinking if these things can be real.

The Happening was a scientific thesis proposal. And it would defnitely take a lot of researches to be able to come up with a well-grounded conclusion to a hypothesis that Shyamalan has presented, but I think the very strength of the film is for us to appreciate things that we never cared about and consider the possibilities that we are not alone in this world.

In top stories today, Will Smith is Hancock. He's unhappy, but probably due to the hangovers he gets from drinking hard liquor all movie long.

Blockbusters featuring an alcoholic superhero are hard to come by. And I always loved Will Smith Movies. With that said, I was really anxious to see Hancock, particularly since his remarkable performance as Fresh Prince in I Am Legend. This time around, Will Smith incarnates a depressed Fresh Prince with superpowers such as invincibility and the ability to fly like Superman. Or in Hancock's sarcastic tone: Some hanging wires and a good camera. Finally an ungreatful Superman?

Here is a plot exerpt from Wikipedia:

Later that night, while Ray sleeps after passing out from drinking too much, Hancock discovers that Mary too has super powers. Mary reveals that they are members of an ancient race and are at least 3000 years old. The race eventually died out because of their weakness which causes its members to lose their powers when in close proximity to one another. Members of this race were created in pairs, and are inevitably drawn towards each other; she is Hancock's "other half".

Very interesting stuff indeed! He's a cool drunk superhero, not to be confused with James Lahey, a drunk cop in The Trailor Park Boys. They both drink on screen, but only one saves lives.

His only weakness is no surprise: A beautiful woman. Oh how I relate. Exept for the drinking... and the Superhero. Thank you Will Smith, Vincent Ngo, Perter Berg, keep the superhero movies coming!

This is the same question that keeps coming up over and over again by filmmakers and everyone has their opinion. Any film that is going to see it's day in the sun is going to have to have a film rep. Its unfortunate for this, but that is the way the festivals go. If you are a filmaker and you are sending in your film to get accepted as a blind submission I regret to inform you but you have wasted your money. 60% of the films have already been decided on by the programmers who just pick films that are discovered from other festivals, that are discovered from other festivals. The festivals are unidated with submissions most of them over 1200 films. Do you really believe that 5 or 6 at the most programmers are going to watch that many films?

The filmmakers in essence are supporting and financing the " party" the one that you don't get to go to I know this first hand. On several occasions I have heard the terms, shmucks and other derogitory terminolgy to describe the filmmakers who are laughed at because they haven't figured this all out yet. That they are only being used. Every once in a while someone gets a small film gem discovered and thats what keeps the wheels turning the dream becomes alive again for the filmmaker. But what they don't tell you, and what they don't want you to know is that film has been "repped". Not a single film is know from inside the industry to simply get discovered, if you believe this, or read this your lying to yourself and you owe it to your actors, crew, writers, everyone to be honest to yourself and all those involved.

Unfortunately there are not many qualified film reps and rather impossible to secure one.
Anyone who charges moneys or fees is bogus, because any successful film rep has made their earnings from pure passion from the project and seeing it all the way through. Once I get involved I my work begins immediately my share is usually 20% TO 25 % depending on many factors. I hope this helps filmmakers in some sort of way so they won't give up, but also stop spending unnecessary funds to provide champagne for the festival parties.

Right now for me I have to be compelled to the story line of the film but also for me to fall in love with a project I have to see that the filmmaker is totally committed in the sense that there is no compromise, for me filmmakers who are willing to change anything according to their vision are not what I call the risk takers. Without taking risk a filmmaker simply falls into the cracks.

Film festivals can be like a circus. Today if there are 100 films playing at a film festival maybe 1% get distributed theatrically.

Its very competitive right now and impossible to secure a film rep or entertainment attorney willing to take on your project or film unless you have created an underground buzz for your film.
I am not a believer in the youtube or myspace filmmaker era, there is too much junk, too many young inexperienced filmmakers trying to get into the business for all the wrong reasons. The problem is most of these young people have not "experienced life" they only read about it in film books or novels.

Right now I am involved with a film that is being directed by Billy Yeager that is about the life and music of Jaco Pastorius. The main reason I got involved with this project was that Yeager's vision of the story was unique. It's not a documentary, and it's not a typical story that would be the same as reading a biography.

I presented the film to a few film investors/ producers and they all had an interest; because the way Yeager had planned to make the film and market it had them convinced that he had a vision, he wasn't just making a film for profit, and believe it or not that is what most film schools and film making books will tell you. But look at it from an investors perspective; any person knows you can find semi-famous or B actors and that won't get you anywhere yet they will all tell you that this is who you need to cast. Its all wrong, all the information out there is incorrect and Yeager not only understands the art of film making but what I call the " art of business" and the distribution process.

It is an art. If the artist realizes this and presents a coherent film package to myself then I am willing to look it over and take it on. But it's the whole overall package and concept today, no one is willing to risk there time or money in independent films without a well thought out articulated master plan.

The great thing about being a Baby Boomer is we got to witness the greatness that was Hollywood in the 1950's, 60's and 70's when celebrities kept it real and weren't the contrived untalented bores they are today. My biggest gripe is that today's has beens make over $200,000 a year with Reality TV Shows and convention appearances which seems like a pretty good living to me while the poor has beens of yesterday were truly down and out and kept it real. Not that I'd wish their suffering on anyone but it seemed more often than not, that yesterday's fallen celebrities, wound up like the late, great, Alfalfa Switzer, star of "Our Gang", who was shot to death over an alleged $50 debt as his film career was going down the tubes. Alfalfa was my first "One Name Star"! Nowadays, they're all over the place- we're practically running out of first names!

Yes, things were done for publicity back then but not to the extent they are today. Back then, there were only three TV networks, and the only time we ever really saw or read about the stars was if they were on a Late Night TV Show or profiled in a monthly magazine or on a daytime game show. Today, the so called stars are on TV and the internet daily and they seem to think they're "too good" to be on a daytime game show. I don't know about you but I feel I've had Britney, Brad, Lindsey, Paris, Angelina, and all the other first names, rammed down my face so much that I practically feel they're family.

The thing is I don't want them to be family- they all totally bore me and strike me as totally contrived cartoon characters masquerading as people. As far as I know, most people back then weren't so delusional to think they had the right to stalk, attack or kill celebrities like Rebecca Schaeffer, Theresa Salaena and Uma Thurman and weren't so obsessed with the minutia of the stars lives like today. When I was a teen in the the late 60's, I thought it would be great being a star but nowadays I wouldn't wish it on anyone. To me its a sucker's deal!

I just started 2009 Gifts and Free Advice my own combination Blog and Online Discount and Bargain Gift Store. My blogs should hopefully make life easier for you by giving free advice and tips on saving gas money, computers, home theater, HDTV, online auctions, e-commerce,electronics, movies, DVDS, relationships and more, that I've learned personally through trial and error. Hopefully, if you like my advice, you might get a birthday present, business gift, Christmas present, Valentines day gift, Mothers Day Present, etc., there. We sell electronics, jewelry and watches, software, books, computers, automotive products, home gyms, HDTV, everything!

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening(2008) had great potential. An excellent premise, many other great films under his belt, decent to great actors and actresses cast in the film, high quality production crew, and all the resources any director could hope to have, yet The Happening fell short of expectations most audience members had for Shyamalan's latest film.

I will admit that one of my favourite films is a Shyamalan creation. Perhaps that is why I was personally so disappointed. However, I got similar reactions from many other viewers with whom I spoke about the film. In particular, Mark Walberg's acting was flat all the way through the movie. He has exhibited various emotions in other roles and he characters have never been pigeon-holed to the point of type casting the singer gone actor, so I doubt that he was stuck on how to bring the character to life. Instead I suggest that Shyamalan wanted the teacher to be presented the way he was.

Also the writing was not fully smooth or explanatory. Some of this is Shyamalan's style that draws movie-goers to his films, but this time he never developed the theme of the movie to a point where the audience actually cared.

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS BELOW

There is lots of death in the movie. That may be one of the better features: interesting and gruesome suicides en mass, but alas, rarely does anyone in the film die that has built up a rapport with the audience. Only one main character dies and that is perhaps the best moment of the film simply because it connects several aspects of the story together.

The story itself is weak because the main threat is not truly brought to a head and there is an attempt to shift the horror from the main threat to a smaller threat which fails miserably. There is also supposed to be the shift in the main characters lives as a result of the nightmare in which they find themselves. That should have been very effective, but again, since the characters were flat and the plot was not developed enough to make the audience grasp it fully or even to care, then the choice to keep this conflict vague simply did not work.

There are good things in the film and the concept is fantastic. Shyamalan has proven himself several times before, so The Happening being less than superb is not the end of the line for his movie career. He will have to make the next project stronger to maintain his fan base, but Shyamalan has what it takes. Not every film can be his best movie. The Happening, while it is not Shyamalan's best effort is greater than many other director's top films and it is still a film to watch, but perhaps make this one a rental instead of spending top dollar on the cinematic experience.

British Television is a passion of mine and that is why I wanted to build a site that catered to that passion that I have found so hard to satisfy on-line using traditional methods such as Youtube and other video sharing sites.

It started out as an idea to build a blog with British television streams and news feeds but soon took on a life of it's own and it became clear that blogging software while excellent and useful in many ways was not going to cut it for what I had in mind.

I then thought about designing the site from scratch in Dreamweaver but that didn't appeal to me either for a number of reasons.

I finally settled on using Joomla! which is a CMS (Content Management System) that allows for server side web building.

It is a fantastic tool but also has its own limitations. In the end I decided it was the best option for me and work began. It has been a painful and frustrating road attempting to realise my minds image of the site in to a functional website but I have finally come up with something that I am quite happy with. It is not perfect and it is far from a finished article but it does what I wanted it do to from the start. Namely, supply the visitor with easy, hassle free British television streams for nothing. No sign-ups, or opt in's at all. Just a resource for people to use and enjoy.

I hope that you to find something to enjoy on the site whether it be Big Brother, Blackadder, or The Apprentice.

It is taking its first baby steps and will be growing in an exponential manner in the coming months so go and have a look and see what you think.

My wife and I watched the movie Juno last night, and I highly recommend it for your own viewing. But this isn't a review of the movie, what sparked today's essay is how (depressingly) little of its dialogue I didn't understand. This was because of the quick cultural references spoken by the teenagers portrayed in the movie. I guess I am getting to that generation where words like cool and hep cat are no longer part of the lexicon. I know, this isn't a news flash.

It occurred to me that years from now we will watch this movie and need on-screen annotations to explain what they are talking about.

But the movie is a static, finished entity. What is more interesting to watch is how pop culture references are being incorporated into various online media, and how they are passed around, consumed, and transformed as part of the media itself. As the online world becomes more a fixture in our lives, we are seeing a much more complex evolution. It isn't just the insertion of a bunch of slang words, but an almost complete encoding or translation of pop culture itself. Witness leet-speak, the gamer lingo that results from substituting numbers for letters that luckily (for me, at least) peaked a few years ago. The more cynical of us could look upon leet as just a substitution cipher, but it really is more than that, embodying a way of life and world view. (The best example is the PurePwnage.com videos.)

The internet has changed almost every aspect of our lives in one way or another, some would say for the better but not all would agree. One aspect of life that many people would agree has been improved for the better has been the introduction of online movie rental sites. As out televisions and home cinema set up's have become more and more extravagant watching a movie at home is now more appealing than ever.

DVD movie rental sites have really improved over the past few years and now offer fantastic search facilities which enable you to seek out almost any movie that has been made including some of the really obscure titles that your average DVD rental store would not contemplate stocking.

The beauty of the online DVD rental sites is the simplicity as well as the great availability that they offer the consumer; sites such as Tesco DVD rental have really taken the market by storm and captured the imagination of the DVD renting public. As these sites have national coverage they are able to keep many more movie titles than your local store as there storage facilities are much greater.

By renting your DVD's online you can plan your viewing days in advance knowing that on the agreed date your movie will arrive through your letterbox and depending on what plan you have signed up for you may be able to watch your DVD at your leisure with no due return date for the DVD. This is great if anything unforeseen crops up and you are unable to watch your chosen movie, traditionally you would have to pay a late fee at the rental store or return it unwatched.

Before committing to any DVD movie rental site it is always a good idea to shop around and have a look at what deals are available to new members as from time to time there are some wonderful deals available on competing sites.

So there you have it, the DVD rental business has moved to another level and if you like your films, no matter what genre perhaps you should check out a few of the sites and see if you can get yourself a deal.