Chicago - Life on a Train

One of the most interesting things about visiting Chicago is public transportation. It's almost impossible to move around in Chicago without a connection to it - even if you don't travel by train, the sound they make echoes around the city. And, coming from a place like Dallas, it's like an entirely different world.

In Dallas, everyone owns a car. In fact, many families have several cars. There was a time when I was living at home (and my sister was 16) that our family had three cars. They barely fit in our single driveway, but that's simply life in Dallas. If you want to get somewhere, you're going to need a car.

In Chicago, many people don't own cars. You walk to a bus station or a train station, and you take public transportation. For the price of $2.25, you can go from one side of the city to another. And there are very few places in the city that are not accessible by a simple train or bus ride. For everywhere else, one of the billions of taxi cabs would be happy to arrange for transport.

Dallas has tried public transportation. Dallas-Area Rapid Transit (DART) has buses and trains, but they have a limited range and scale. If you want to get to Fair Park, downtown, or Victory Plaza...the train can help you. Like the trains in Chicago, they're cheap and can get you where you need to go. The problem is that the trains don't go enough places. There aren't enough rails, and there aren't enough destinations. Not to mention the fact that I've lived in Dallas my entire life, and I've been on the train less than 20 times. And I'm not sure I've ever been on a DART bus.

The train would be a great way to get to a Cowboys game or a Rangers game. The problem is that the train doesn't go to Arlington. And because Arlington refuses to join DART, it's possible that trains will never go there.

But who am I kidding? I live a couple blocks from a DART train station, and there's a train station a few hundred feet from the American Airlines Center. But how many times have I, a Dallas Stars season ticket holder, actually taken the train to a game? In 100+ games, I have never taken the train. Instead of spending a couple bucks to ride the train to and from the games, I spend gas money driving down to the arena and pay $15/game for parking.

Why? Because public transportation isn't a part of our DNA in Dallas. When it's introduced, most of our bodies attack it like an invading virus, and it's quickly forgotten. And, honestly, I don't even know how long it would take to get from the AAC to the local train station after a game. It might be a little longer, but it also might be about the same. Take out the savings, and it'd probably be worth it.

But, like with the night I mentioned in the previous blog, it's just odd to think that you don't have a car close. That, in essence, you're at the mercy of the city government to get you back home. If the train doesn't come, you're stranded. And you're two-dollar train ride turns into a $30 cab ride. That comfort, it seems, is worth the $15 parking and the money you'd spend on gas.

But I was intrigued by the idea of life on the train. In just one weekend, I easily walked several miles. Going from train station to destination might only be a few blocks, but those few blocks would certain help anyone's fitness regimen. Much more so than the short distances people in Dallas walk from a parking lot.

And while $2.25 seems like it might be a lot for a one-way ticket on the train, how much money do we spend on gasoline? I fill up my tank every couple of weeks, and it costs between $60 and $70 to get that done. For me, the train costs would be about the same. But what about people who fill up every week?

Then there was something that simply floored my poor Texan mind. In Chicago, they have cars that you can rent by the hour. You simply go to a designated place (smart phones make them easier to find) and reserve a car for a certain amount of time. Because grocery shopping can be a pain if you're traveling by bus or train, you can get one of these cars, take it to the store, transport your groceries, and drop it back off when your done. Our friend John says it can cost between $10-$20 for an hour.

It was such an incredible idea to me, partly because there would be zero reason to have this service in Dallas. But in a place like Chicago, it makes perfect sense.

Now, as is the case with any form of travel, things can be easily romanticized. When you visit a city, it's very easy to only see the good side of things. You're not at work, you're going from fun activity to fun activity, you're eating the best food, you're sleeping in, and your bed is made for you. When you're going to work, living in your own place, and living normally, a city can be completely different.

So it's hard to say how I think I would feel if I lived somewhere like Chicago. Would the train intrigue me if I had to take it every day? If I ended up stranded every once in a while? If I was at the mercy of the system? Would it eventually annoy me, or would it simply become as simple as hopping in my own car?

My friend Woody swears by public transportation, and it's one of the reasons he loves cities like Chicago. He will take the Trinity Rail Express from Fort Worth to come to Dallas, and I'm sure he'd be one of the dedicated riders if DFW got more public transportation.

As for me, I really don't know. While it was certainly interesting to exist without a car in a big city, I might just not be built for such a thing. The freedom of having my own car, my own space, and my own time might be too important to me.

But I do think that I might give the DART a shot to one of the Stars' games this year. Because I probably shouldn't knock something I haven't really tried.

Chicago - Surreal In the Rain

The boys and I just got back from Chicago - a weekend trip to the Windy City. Woody, Tim, and Ashley all arrived in Chicago by Thursday, and I joined them Friday afternoon to complete the quartet.

The first night there, we took the train down to Wrigleyville to meet up with Tim and Ashley's old roommate John. I don't know John well, but I did have a few classes with him. That said, I think he's a really cool guy, and I was glad that we had a fun person to lead us around.

That night, we had a dinner at a trendy diner, and then we headed to a cool bar down the street known for having games to play while you drink. After that, we went to John's show. John is a fan of improvisation, and he's currently a performer at an Improv theater down the street from Wrigley Field. We saw his show, and then we went to a bar down the street to meet some other people from the show.

We drank for a bit at a bar that, at least for that night, only played country music. I tried to imagine if this was how people viewed all Texas bars, but never really worried too much about it. It was a fun time in a new city, and I enjoyed it.

But then the rains came. I had worried about the rain, but it was mostly in the context of the Cubs game on Saturday. The idea of it raining any time in the other 50+ hours never really concerned me. As we walked out onto the street, I realized that I'd made a bit of a mistake in that.

Woody had left a little earlier to catch a train back to the hotel. He was back home, dry in his bed. We were looking at a down-poor in Wrigleyville.

Because going out in Chicago is different than going out in Dallas. People don't drive down, struggle to find a parking place (or valet) and then hop back in their car and drive off. People in Chicago might not even own a car, so they travel by public transportation. Trains are everywhere (and pretty cheap, especially compared to gas prices), and the city seems to have more cabs than any other vehicle.

But here's the problem. You still have to walk to a train station. Only one train line runs after 1am. And all the cabs were overwhelmed.

So it was a surreal visual to see all these young people standing outside, huddled against the storefronts, waiting for their turn to get a cab. People stood as close to the wall as possible to avoid getting wet, and to avoid getting splashed by the rising flood as cars went by. Some of the guys removed their shirts, which had been soaked. Most of the girls cowered or tried to move quickly in their cute outfits and high heels.

Some people gave up almost immediately, retreating to local restaurants that were still serving. As we tried to come up with a plan, we fell back to a pizza place that was filling with people that just wanted to stay dry. We tried to hide in John's theater, but we were quickly kicked out.

Here I was, in a strange city...in the pouring rain...and we had no idea how we'd get back to the hotel. But what was so incredible was the way that the city was so alive. Closing time in Dallas is usually pretty standard - small groups break off to find their cars. Here, however, the people had nowhere to go. They just stood along the street, talking and laughing and waiting. The city was alive with people who felt like they were stranded. Some speculated as I walked by that it would take an hour to get a cab.

But we didn't really feel like waiting...particularly with a noon Cubs game creeping up on us. We started to walk down to the train station, taking refuge in a 7-11 briefly while we game-planned. The train could take John pretty close to his apartment, but it would take us five blocks from our hotel. None of us felt good about the idea of walking five blocks at 2am in Chicago, but it started to look like our last hope.

But as we were underneath the train, a cab rolled by without any fares. We quickly grabbed him, and the four of us piled into the taxi. A $30 cab ride took us to the hotel, and we were saved.

But the city was still surreal. People were running around, some people were riding bikes, and the city was still alive with excitement.

And the roads? Flooded. I've never really seen anything like it because the water had nowhere to go. Streets filled with a foot or two of water, and some streets were even shut down. I don't know if it was a problem with runoff or too much rain, but it didn't seem like it was an insanely intense storm. Woody later claimed that they received six inches of rain, but it sure didn't seem like it.

It was very cool to be in an area like that. I don't know if it's something I would love to do on a regular basis, but I certainly enjoyed it one time. It was just a strange visual and a unique experience...particularly for my first night.

Christopher Nolan and Batman

Today, the official teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Rises was released. The Dark Knight was one of my favorite movies of all time; not simply because I'm a fan of the Batman (I'm willing to admit this moreso than any other nerdy obsession) - but because it's a great movie. It could've been about a rogue cop and his insane nemesis...and I think I would've loved it just as much. The fact that it was a Batman movie was really just icing on the cake.

And this is Christopher Nolan we're talking about - my favorite filmmaker. And it's not just about his Batman work. I think Memento might be my favorite movie - it's phenomenal in every way I can think of. It makes you think, and the creative way it's structured makes it exponentially better than it could have been traditionally.

His other movies are genius too. I loved The Prestige, and the way the narrative plays with you. You're taught to love and hate both characters, and you're torn between which of the rivals you want to win in the end. Even a movie like Insomnia takes a relatively generic cop movie and finds a way to do more with it.

And don't get me started on Inception - a movie I've obsessed about recently as it's been on HBO on a virtual loop. The movie gets deeper and stronger each time I see it, and it's just beautifully done. There's so much attention to detail, and each time I see it, I see or appreciate something new about it. And it makes you think...not just about how you interpret the ending...but how it can relate to our own wishes and dreams. And it's amazing that, after The Dark Knight...I was able to appreciate a movie that Nolan made when he could've been making another Batman.

But he did. And even though the movie is a year away, I'm still really excited about the third Batman film. Nolan, so far, has done no wrong, and I can't anticipate a scenario where he doesn't meet expectations. Even though my expectations will probably be through the roof (Dark Knight was one of the few movies that surpassed my expectations in theaters).

Something about the trailer bugs me, though. Plastered through the video are references to this being the end. The conclusion. That this is it.

And that makes me upset. Bale is the perfect Batman to me. Nolan is the best director, with an amazing perspective on what makes this world make sense. And the supporting cast (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman) are also very good in their roles.

This universe is Batman to me. Because, somehow, it's not a comic book world anymore. It somehow makes sense that a billionaire would train to be the world's greatest fighter and dress up in a bat costume. It doesn't draw you out of the world with crazy CGI, ridiculous gadgets, or over-the-top villains. This Batman makes sense.

And in my perfect world, he'd keep doing it. He'd make a Batman movie...take some time off...and make another movie...then come back to Batman. Bale and Caine and Oldman could do the same thing - Bale could make a Terminator movie or The Fighter or whatever he wants in between playing Bruce Wayne.

And I understand that they can't or won't. That artists don't want to do the same thing over and over again, no matter how popular it is, how much money it makes, or how critically acclaimed their work has become. That, sometime, it has to end.

What sucks is that Nolan and Bale could leave...but Batman will not go away. The Dark Knight broke all kinds of records, and the hype for the new movie will continue to build for twelve more months. This is a property that Warner Bros. will not allow to go quietly into the night.

It happened before. Tim Burton's Batman was popular, and the sequel was also quite popular. Then, Burton left, and Michael Keaton left with him. But instead of letting the series die off, the studio gave the idea to someone else. And we all know how that worked out.

Don't get me wrong - I wasn't a huge fan of the Burton films, which were more "gothic" than "dark". All in all, I think the Nolan films are light years ahead in almost every way. But the Schumacher films were a disaster, and they almost killed the franchise for good.

And I can't imagine someone else taking over the films. Or, better yet, who would take over the role of Batman. The role of Gordon. The role of Alfred. Roles that have been grabbed by actors and not let go.

Part of me hopes that the Batman series is put to rest after Nolan is done with them. Let Batman rest for a while, and then come back at it in another decade for another generation to give someone else a chance. Maybe Batman can appear in Justice League movie (or series of movies). Or maybe they can try and film The Dark Knight Returns.

But, of course, my main hope is that Nolan reconsiders. That he realizes that this is a character that he knows well. One that he can do. And one that the group doesn't want to let go. Maybe he makes a fourth or even a fifth film.

Because, honestly, the man could make a million of these movies, and I'd still be hoping for one more.

Wow, I am weird

I went through and read a lot of my old stuff. I've been writing this blog for three years now, and I've been through a lot since then.

And I'll be honest, a lot of the things I've written were just for me. I don't advertise this blog because it isn't really important if people read it. I had a large handful of things that I wrote on here that I don't even get anymore because they were written in a code that I understood at the time (and have, since, forgotten).

I know it's weird. But, there are times when I need to write something. Anything. To get the thoughts out of my head (so they're less destructive) and out to the Internet...where anything bad can be absorbed my the power of our collective insanity.

I've phased a lot of the craziness out. The weirdness remains, and it will be here for a long time. But I want to thank you for being here. For sticking with me. And for helping to absorb the insanity.

Death

I'm extremely saddened by the story of the death of Shannon Stone, a 39-year-old firefighter from Brownwood, Texas. There is no reason for me to know the name of Mr. Stone because his Thursday night should have been normal. He was supposed to take his 6-year-old son, Cooper, to his first-ever Rangers' game. Prior to the game, the son simply wanted a baseball. In anticipation of this, Shannon bought his son a glove. When they got to their seats, right next to the left field wall, they hollered at Josh Hamilton to throw them a foul ball. When he got one in the second inning, Josh threw them one.

It should've been a great moment. Cooper would get his foul ball. He'd hold it and stare at it for the entirety of the game. He'd tell his mother. He'd tell his friends. He'd bring it to school. He'd keep it in a safe place. It should've been a big day for him.

And now it's the biggest day of his life. Because his father, desperately trying to get his son that ball, fell off the stands. He fell 20 feet and landed on his head. He died half an hour later.

Now his wife has no husband. Brownwood has one less fire fighter. Cooper has no daddy.

My father died when I was nine. He didn't die in front of me, and he died by his own hand. It didn't make national news, and it didn't affect nearly as many people. But, in almost every way, that act completely defined the person I eventually became. The ripples from that act still affect me today. And they will affect Cooper for a long time.

Because I know what happens next. Cooper, at age six, is probably too young to full realize what happened and what it means. My sister was six when my dad died, and it didn't really affect her as much as it affected me. Maybe it's because she was simply too young to remember much about him. Maybe growing up without a father was just normal to her. I hope that's the case with Cooper.

But here's what's going to happen. At some point (and it probably already happened), Cooper is going to fully grasp that his father is gone and isn't coming back. He's going to be sad, and he's going to want to be all alone. All the love in the world, all the money from donations, and all the support isn't going to mean a damn thing. He's going to want his dad back and nothing else.

Then his friends are going to find out. They will probably find out from their own parents, but the comprehension on his friends' levels won't be as strong. They won't understand the pain, and they won't understand the reality of it. To many of them, Cooper's dad is just a random grown up. And because they're kids, they're not going to know how to react to Cooper.

I know most people left me alone. I had a lot of friends before my dad died. I had many, many less afterwards. I assume that parents and teachers told the kids that I would be sad and that they needed to be nice to me. Or leave me alone and let me grieve. Either way, I don't remember much support from my friends. Then again, I've blocked almost everything from that era. Children aren't supposed to have that much pain inflicted on them, and a still-developing brain simply can't handle it.

I hope Cooper does better than I did. I hope he handles it like my sister did. I hope that Cooper's friends rise up to support him, and more importantly, that Cooper is able to accept that support (something I almost certainly didn't do).

It's going to be hard. Cooper is going to go through the rest of his life without a father. And, unless you have lost a parent, you simply can't understand what that's like. He has one less parent to talk to about serious issues. And, as a young boy, he lost his one guide into the world of being a man. His mother, whether she ever remarries or not, is going to have to handle all of those responsibilities. She's going to have to serve as mother and father, and it's a Hell of a job.

I thank God that my mother was strong enough to do that, and I pray to God that Cooper's mother is as strong as mine.

And, eventually, it will get better. You learn to live a life, and having no father becomes the norm. There are times when the idea of a father is simply alien to me. When one of my friends talks about their father, I have trouble comprehending the concept. Which, I suppose, is the mind's way of handling it. It fills in the hole left as well as it can. Sometimes too well.

But there will be times when it will come back. And like a sore wound, it will hurt just as bad as when it happened.

And he's going to struggle with his faith. How could he not? He's going to see all of his friends running around with their dads. Getting taken to ballgames by their dads. Getting coached by their dads. Playing with their dads. And Cooper is going to hate that. He's going to hate the fact that everyone else has a dad and he doesn't. You think kids get jealous about their friend's new iPhone. Try that with a parent.

If he's like me, he's going to wonder "why me?" And it's going to take a long, long time for him to be able to forgive anyone for the pain he's had to endure. For a childhood that was taken away from him.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't have a bad childhood. But I also didn't have the childhood that I could have had. I was forced to grow up way too fast, and I was forced to comprehend a topic that children shouldn't even have to worry about. I've missed out on 18 Father's Days. My father wasn't present to see me graduate high school or collage. He won't be present at my wedding, and he won't ever see any future grandchildren. He won't be there to give away his only daughter, either.

And, unfortunately, I still had my father to blame. He killed himself. It wasn't a tragic accident - he made the conscious decision to abandon his family and leave us with the bill. It's something that I will not forgive because I do not want to forgive it. If there's a Hell, he can rot in it. And if he's not, I will do what I can to drag his ass there. He had no right to do that to my sister, and he had no right to do that to my mother. Zero. None. So fuck him.

Cooper has no one to blame but crappy luck. Because so many things had to go happen for Shannon to die. They had to get those exact seats. They had to go to that exact game, which was only played because a different game rained out earlier in the season. Conor Jackson had to hit it exactly where he hit it, somewhere where the ball would land without anyone catching it...causing it to go onto the field. Josh had to throw it exactly where he did. No one else could catch him. And he probably had to land exactly how he did.

Any of those factors change, and Shannon would've been fine. Cooper would've been fine. And I wouldn't be typing any of this.

Maybe he'll understand that he was simply given a bad hand. Maybe he'll realize that some people get breaks and some people don't. Maybe all the love and support will get through to him, and he'll be able to forgive everyone (including God and himself) for what happened. I know if it were me, I wouldn't be able to do that, but hopefully Cooper is stronger than me.

It sucks. It really does. Losing a parent is one of the worst things that can happen. It tears apart adults so you can imagine what it does to a child.

And I don't understand why it has to happen. It's something I struggle with every day. Why couldn't any of those factors have changed, even slightly? And you might say that billions of miracles happen every day. That people are constantly saved from things like this happening.

And I'd ask, "why not one more?"

If I had a chance to speak with Cooper, I'd tell him how sorry I am that this happened to him. That I understand what he's going through. I'd try and help him navigate the coming days, months, and years...in hopes that he might not make the same mistakes I made. That he doesn't allow the sadness and hatred and anger to envelop him. That he might find a way to get beyond this a stronger person.

And I'd simply wish that he didn't ask me any question that started with the word "why?" Because, to this day, I don't have the answer to those questions. They're questions I still have, and I will have until someone can answer them.

I hate that this happened to him. I cried last night. And I've been sad all day. I feel terrible for Cooper, but I also feel sorry for the 50-year-old fan who couldn't save Shannon. I feel sorry for Brad Ziegler, who watched it happen and cried himself last night. And I feel sorry for Josh Hamilton, who will certainly internalize this.

No part of this story isn't sad. I can't help but visualize what Cooper must have felt like when he watched his father fall. When he saw paramedics rush to his side. When some stranger came and took him to some mysterious room in the bowels of the ballpark. When he was rushed to some strange hospital. And when he had to travel home without the man he came with.

He must have been so scared all night. And the night only got worse from there.

I don't know how to end this. So I'm just going to stop. But I hope that you realize that life is so fragile. Any of us could die at any moment so try and celebrate every moment you have with the people around you. Hug your loved ones. Tell them that you love them. And live for as long as you can.

M. Night Shyamalan

Tonight, I watched Devil, which is the first entry in the so-called "Night Chronicles" by director M. Night Shyamalan. The point of these films are ideas from Shyamalan done by other directors and writers. It's a way for Night to get movies done without having to do all of the work, and it's an idea that I like.

For many others, it was a joke. The story of Shyamalan's success in Hollywood is one that has happened many times before. A figure does something that everyone loves (in his case, The Sixth Sense) and people expect that from him/her from that point on. The "bit" of "the twist ending" became a calling card for Shyamalan for all his movies, and when it "happened" in a couple of his other movies, people immediately turned on him. They said he was stale. That he was repetitive. And that he thought he was God's gift to writing.

I never really understood that. So I want to quickly break down Shyamalan's films and figure out what these people are talking about.

The Sixth Sense - It's Shyamalan's classic movie. Unfortunately, it's also his first. It's a beautifully shot movie, and it's just a great story. I will openly admit, here in front of the six of you that read this, that I cry at the end of the movie. Or, at the very least, tear up. When Cole admits to his mother that he can see ghosts, telling a tear-jerking story about his grandmother, it just hits me every single time. The movie is about acceptance and love more than anything, and I think it has a great message about holding on to the things we really care about...and knowing when to let go.

Unbreakable - This is probably my favorite Shyamalan movie, and it had to grow on me. Coming off his first movie, people expected a lot out of this movie. And, at first, it doesn't seem that great. Bruce Willis is, again, the star of the movie, and he plays a man who learns that he is "unbreakable." Over the course of the movie, you realize that this is a superhero origin film. Willis' character is powerful, strong, and invincible. He even has his one weakness - water. The "twist" at the end is that Samuel L. Jackson's character ends up being the villain of the film.

But that's not a twist if you really watch the movie. It's a comic book story at heart, and every comic book story needs a villain. And there are only, really, about four characters in the movie. Willis, his son, his ex-wife, and Jackson. Plus, the movie is pretty consistent in its superhero story structure, and that means that Jackson had to be the villain. In fact, Jackson's final monologue pretty much tells you why you should've seen it coming. More on that in a bit.

Signs - This is the Shyamalan movie that I struggle the most with. It's an alien film, and it's something that I've never truly bought into. It's a movie I always say that I want to watch again, but I never end up doing it. But I heard something about the movie that might make me appreciate it a bit more.

A lot of the complaints about the movie revolve around the end. After being a pretty scary movie throughout, using darkness and shadows instead of real images, we finally see the aliens in the final few minutes. They look kinda dumb, and they get hurt by water. Kinda like with War of the Worlds, people get mad because something so easy could take down a villain. It seems like a cop out.

But then I heard that the aliens in the movie aren't aliens - they're demons. And then things start to make sense. The whole movie is about faith - Mel Gibson, the star, plays a former priest who lost his faith. He lost his wife, and he can't forgive God. And, through the movie and the attack, Gibson's character learns to trust God again.

So what does that have to do with aliens? Nothing. But if you decide the creatures are demons, it makes sense. Gibson's demons are literally attacking him (and his family), and he has to fight them with the help of his newly-regained faith. I need to watch the movie again for subtleties, but I don't remember anything in the movie that necessarily disagrees with this theory. And, if that's the case, I might run with it. It tidies the movie up a bit.

The Village - So the Sixth Sense had a definite twist ending. Unbreakable really didn't, but I can accept that a lot of people thought it did. Signs definitely didn't. And, yet, because of the twist in his first movie (and assumptions about his twists in his later films), Shyamalan got this reputation for "twist endings." And people started to look for them in his films. Looking for clues instead of watching the movie.

The Village definitely has a twist ending. We learn at the end of movie that the narrative actually takes place in modern times, when we'd been left to believe that it was taking place in the past. There were clues to this fact throughout the movie, and a lot of people figured it out when they were watching it for the first time. And, for some reason, they held this against Shyamalan.

The problem with that is this - it isn't a contest. Shyamalan isn't trying to trick you, and if you figure out the ending, it shouldn't affect the quality of the movie. Ashley says this about movies a lot - if he can figure out the ending before it happens, he criticizes it.

But you can go into the movie Titanic and know how the movie is going to end. The boat is going to die, Kate Winslett's character is going to live, and Leonardo DiCaprio's character is going to die. We know this because the actual boat sank, Winslett's character appears in the present, and DiCaprio's doesn't. It didn't stop the movie from being good, and it didn't stop people from loving it.

But because people figured out the ending to The Village, it gets disqualified. As if the only reason that the Sixth Sense was any good was because it tricked everyone. Which isn't the case...the movie was great whether it ended with a twist or not.

Is The Village great? No. But it has a lot of really good moments, it tells an interesting story, and it keeps your attention. And when you think about the ending and consider what it all means to the characters, it is actually quite thought-provoking.

Lady in the Water - People got mad at this movie because there was no twist. So if he has a twist, it sucks. If there's no twist, it sucks. This was when people were completely turning on Shyamalan, and it started to annoy me.

Is Lady in the Water great? No. But it's also not terrible. If it'd been done by any other writer/director in Hollywood, it probably wouldn't have been beat up that much. It's a nice little film that I've watched and enjoyed enough to watch a second time.

A big criticism of this movie is that Night actually appears as himself in the movie (in a role instead of a cameo this time). And, in the movie, he plays a writer who is told that he will eventually publish something great that will be appreciated after his death. Reviewers trashed this as Shyamalan being egocentric, and they trashed it. They also trashed that Shyamalan had a movie reviewer killed in the film so it might just be sour grapes between the writer and critics.

And people seem to forget that it's supposed to be a fairy tale. But, as you'll see with the next movie, people always seem to forget what Night's actually trying to do.

The Happening - Okay, here's the movie that people really hated. And it's the movie that I seem to go out of my way to defend.

With every DVD, Shyamalan includes one of the films he did as a child. And while it's cool to see the work a great director did before he was famous, he always includes a movie of the same genre as the feature film. So he's not doing it to be cool...I think he's trying to reference the tone of the movie he's trying to do.

The Sixth Sense is a ghost story. Unbreakable is a comic book story. Lady in the Water is a fairy tale. If you know this going in, you enjoy the stories more because he's really writing a love letter to the genre more than anything. It makes his stories formulaic, but that's kinda the point.

People hated The Happening because they thought it was about plants killing people. The problem is that it isn't. And unlike the demon theory for Signs, this is actually backed up by the story.

The first thing you have to know is that, like his other movies, Shyamalan is paying homage to a genre. And the genre in this movie is B-movies from the 1950s. These were movies that were supposed to be shocking, and they were all based on flimsy science. The nuclear age had been thrust upon people, and we had all these nightmares about what it would do to our world. This was the time that Godzilla was thought up. That monsters were coming to life in all shapes and sizes. That people wanted to be scared of the unknown.

The second is that, like in Unbreakable, Shyamalan comes out and tells you what he's trying to do. Except, this time, he does it at the very beginning. The protagonist is played by Mark Wahlberg, and he's a high school science teacher. He brings up a story to his class about the disappearance of honey bees, and he asks his students to think of what could've happened.

And he ends up declaring that there is no answer. That scientists would come up with a theory, and that the theory could be right and could be wrong. That there's a chance that people would never know the true answer, and there's a good chance that the "accepted" answer would eventually be proven wrong.

Then the people start dying. No one knows what's happening, but the main characters decide to flee the cities. Rumors start, and the characters hear that the towns are safer than the cities. That people are safer in smaller groups. And then there's the theory about the plants.

One of the characters believes that plants are fighting back. That they're releasing a toxin into the air that is making people suicidal. And this theory is accepted by most of the characters for the remainder of the movie. And, because of this, it's accepted by the audience.

Here's the problem - people forgot the earlier scene. And Shyamalan even throws in a scene at the end of a haughty scientist proclaiming the plant theory and why everyone should believe it. It's a scientist giving science's official theory, whether it's right or wrong. It's exactly what Wahlberg's character said would happen. But people ignore that and focus on the plants.

And that's my main criticism of Shyamalan critics - they don't pay attention. They don't watch the movies. And they don't ignore their pre-conceived notions of what an M. Night Shyamalan movie is supposed to be.

So when the Night Chronicles were announced, people laughed. When I first saw a trailer for Devil, a big fat guy in the audience openly laughed when Shamalan's name was mentioned and scoffed at the name "Night Chronicles."

But again, they don't see what Night is trying to do. The criticism about Night is mostly about writing. His movies aren't original, his endings are predictable, and that he's lost his touch. Well, Night is removing himself from the equation outside of the ideas. And the ideas are the one thing that I don't think ever gets criticized. You never hear that Shyamalan's movies are bad ideas...just that they aren't executed well.

Well, Night isn't writing these movies. He isn't directing them. And he's not appearing in cameos. He has an idea, and he gives it to someone to make real.

And, still, he gets criticized. I'm not going to say that Devil is a great movie, but it's, again, watchable. And the best part of the film is the idea itself.

Which is the only part of the movie that Shyamalan did.