Our first goodie comes by way of Videogum, who have compiled their list of The Worst People of 2008, and damn it if they didn't hit just about every name on Santa's shitlist. From Gwyneth Paltrow—who as Sancho Panza to Mario Batali's tapas bar-jousting Don Quixote demonstrated just how boring watching rich people eat their way through Europe can be—to David Blaine and his failed attempts at inverted-crane-suspension endurance, they've succeeded, where so many have failed, in compiling the definitive year-end asshole compendium. (We'll extend one index finger in objection for Kathy Griffin, but we can't really argue that she's been coasting on the "D-list" shtick for far too long. In other words, if Griffin's celebrity status were an L.A. Department of Health letter grade, we'd eat her burritos without hesitation.)

And now for your excerpt gift. How to choose, how to choose. How about some Manoj?

Oh man. This guy. Where to even begin. The chokers? The self-aggrandizement? Or should we just begin with the tone deaf unintentionally hilarious-but-so-hilarious movie he made about KILLER TREES? M. Night Shyamalan has been terrible at his job for a long time, with movies like Signs and Lady in the Water ranking among the worst movies of the past decade, but he really outdid himself with The Happening. In fact, it was so bad that you almost want him to keep going, just to see what his self-indulgently, filterless retard brain will come up with next. Almost. But actually you want him to stop.

What the hell—we're feeling generous. We'll throw in the infamous Mark Wahlberg Talks To Pharmacists About Cough Syrup scene from The Happening (Wahlberg made the list, too), and repurpose our M. Night birthday card as a holiday greeting. Don't mention it. You guys are worth it.

• The Worst People Of 2008 [Videogum]

The Happs got its DVD release yesterday, bringing us to the above Mark Wahlberg/Zooey Deschanel exchange. For those left confounded by Andy Samberg's brilliant Wahlberg impression on SNL last week, we encourage you to watch both, then imagine Manoj's crackling dialogue replaced with: "Hey pharmacist, how's it going? I like your lab coat and name tag, that looks really great. So you're a pharmacist, right? What's that all about? Where's the cough syrup? OK, well it was great to meet you. Say hi to your mother for me, OK?"

• Enjoy: Mark Wahlberg's "Cough Syrup" Scene From The Happening [Videogum]

Please sign below and pass it along! Even you, Nina Jacobson!

The good news? Manoj will neither writer nor direct, but slough his stories off to hand-picked filmmakers who may or may not make this a B-movie project worth watching. The bad news? MRC is actually letting him bundle the films under the name The Night Chronicles, according to Variety:

The projects aren't formalized, and no writers have yet been hired, but Shyamalan has at least two ideas that could become films. The Night Chronicles will be based near Philadelphia, where the filmmaker lives and works. To oversee development, MRC has hired Ashwin Rajan, a veteran UTA agent who is Shyamalan's cousin. ...

"Filmmakers have always been my inspiration," Shyamalan said in a statement. "Working with the next wave of innovative filmmakers will teach me many things that I can bring to my own writing/directing and give my stories the opportunity to be brought to the screen in a stunning way."

Certain details remain to be worked out, including the size of the words "FROM ONCE-ACCLAIMED PRODUCER M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN" on promotional materials, to whether or not the requisite filmmaker-aggrandizing cameo will feature the directors-in-training or, as per tradition, Manoj himself. But if The Anand Jon Story isn't optioned by lunch, we'll be shocked.

• Night falls for Media Rights [Variety]

At least he was nice enough to chime in with a disturbing note from jail, excerpted after the jump.

Yoga, meditation, and the love of my family and God have sustained me as I grapple with blankets that have blood stains dried in tie-dyed patterns and battle nocturnal visits from entities that include, but are not limited to, rodents and insects (that I have not even seen in the jungles of India!). How much of it is my imagination? I'm not really sure. But the whole thing feels like a Stephen King novel turned into a movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

A fair trial is a wonderful concept but more of a satire in my case, based on how this has been manipulated and has been anything but fair. No one besides the parties involved (traditionally "two") knows IF intimacy/sex even happened or much less if it was consensual or not. Wouldn't one call 911? Get a rape kit or at least STD testing? Would anyone continue to follow, travel, live with someone who allegedly assaulted them?

Oh, give it up, AJ — Manoj would never direct a Stephen King prison adaptation. That's Frank Darabont territory all the way.

• Designer Sex [LAM]

• An Accused Serial Rapist Speaks, Ahead of Trial [WaxWord]

Or especially if you're Manoj Night Shyamalan, who caught nothing but holy hell for a month leading up to the release of The Happening only to nab almost $70 million worldwide in less than a week of release. As we noted yesterday, he and Fox had their own funding deal with backers at India's UTV, but the lucrative terms buried today in Variety's DreamWorks coverage make Manoj's Folly suddenly look like Manoj's Mint:

Under that arrangement, Shyamalan traded his first-dollar gross participation for 25% ownership of the pic's copyright and a cash break arrangement that allows him to share 50% of the film's revenue stream once UTV and Fox recoup budget and P&A costs. After a strong opening weekend, that deal looks like it could pay off for Shyamalan, who brought the film in at about $50 million.

We've seen this before, of course, with the Holy Trinity of Spielberg/Lucas/Ford most recently pulling down low eight figures after Indy 4's opening-weekend windfall. But Manoj! You player! A Nickelodeon movie hardly seems an appropriate follow-up; may we suggest instead a psychological thriller about a vacationing American family on the run from a mysterious epidemic, later discovered to be brought on by — SPOILER ALERT! — the exotic money trees wreaking cultural havoc around them. Too personal? Too soon? Fine — just as long as you don't start making us call you A.T.M. Night Shyamalan, we'll trust your judgment henceforth.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• New financier for DreamWorks [Variety]

Fox Mexico director Juan Carlos Lazo said the strategy is generating buzz in the heat of the summer blockbuster season, as Happening gears up to compete against such Hollywood tentpoles as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Incredible Hulk. ...

But might some viewers be misled by the iconographic Mexican imagery?

"We have gotten questions if some scenes were filmed here, but it's clear that this is a foreign film when one sees the names of the director and Mark Wahlberg on the poster," Lazo said.

Moreover, with the Spanish-language title change El Fin de Los Tiempos, the poster offers a fantastic array of new defacement options — good-bye The Crapening, hello Film Ed's Penis Too. We'll try to have an appropriately puerile Korean analog as well by the end of the day.

• 'Happening' Ads go Local in Mexico [THR]

1. The Incredible Hulk - $54.538 million
For first reactions to The Incredible Hulk—Universal's attempt at "rebootting" the Freakishly Betrapezoided One's franchise—we defer to non other than Hulk-fan-on-the-street Dante Reno. Approached by Variety for comment, Reno proudly gestured to the area of his brain once designated for foreign languages, which, after two punishing hours of Dolby Digital Cinema Smaaaash™ effects, had now solidified into a useless clump of scar tissue. Still, that smile, and the words, "Aw, dude it was awesome," suggests to us that it was all worth it. Hulk back. Hulk smash. Hulk good.

2. Kung Fu Panda - $34.321 million
Crossing the $100 million divide this weekend was DreamWork's literal-minded Kung Fu Panda, in which ancient Asian fighting techniques named for animals were transformed into an adorable CGI menagerie of martial arts masters. It's a clever conceit that will be used to lesser success in direct-to-DVD companion title Yoga Cow, featuring the voice talents of Larry the Cable Guy as Downward Facing Dog and Cameron Diaz as Squatting Fish-Lotus.

3. The Happening - $30.5 million
Manoj laughs last, as what was sure to be his Lady in the Water bellyflop follow-up—a woodenly paced arborcidal thriller promptly tossed by critics into the chipper— wound up bringing in a very respectable $30.5 million from horror fans looking for some Friday the 13th thrills. (They got some, plus Mark Wahlberg "placating a ficus.") Having established his bankability once more, there's virtually no limits on where director M. Night Shyamalan's imagination might take us next—perhaps a religious allegory set in rural Pennsylvania, where a film critics' convention threatens the very fate of the Shrimphrogs, an ancient race of clog-dancing extraterrestrial amphibia. (With, of course, a cameo by the director as the NASA scientist who first discovers their existence.)

4. You Don't Mess with the Zohan - $16.4 million
There really is a Zohan! His name is Nezi Arbib, and he lives in San Diego.

5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - $13.547 million
Want even more Jones excitement? Stay tuned for the further adventures of franchise inheritor Greaser LaBeouf, in...Mutt Williams and the 'Slap Me Harder, Faggot!'. SUMMER 2012.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE June 13–15, 2008 [boxofficemojo.com]

WHAT'S NEW: Edward Norton still may not be doing much to promote The Incredible Hulk, but once all the behind-the-scenes drama died down and we actually got a chance to see the film, we realized, "Hey — this isn't so bad." Or rather, it is what it is: A loud blockbuster for 14-year-old boys, with top-to-bottom miscasting (with the exception of a pathologically brutal Tim Roth) exacerbated by action auteur Louis Leterrier's hamfisted touch. But! It is kind of spectacularly dumb, arresting summer viewing — we've heard it described as King Kong meets The Bourne Identity, which is just about perfect — and predictions of a $55-$60 million opening might even be understating things. It certainly won't get much competition from the paucity of what's around it this week, particularly...

THE BIG LOSER: The Happening has miserable word-of-mouth and an R-rating working against it, and while we can't add much beyond our previous dispatches and what our own Reviewer X mentioned here on Monday, we can say that we'll be pretty shocked if Manoj's Folly cracks $20 million by Sunday night. And that's probably a number Fox would be happy with, even if it means third or even fourth place overall behind Hulk, Kung Fu Panda and possibly Zohan. But this isn't Speed Racer — if this does hit $20 mil, expect a backlash to the backlash by the time we reconvene next week.

THE UNDERDOG: We alluded yesterday to the unhinged creepiness of Quid Pro Quo, a mystery/romance/mindfuck featuring Nick Stahl as a paraplegic radio journalist who, er... stumbles? Rolls? OK, happens upon a subculture of "wanna-be" disability fetishists. Among them: Vera Farmiga, who takes an immediate (and suspicious) liking to Stahl's baffled chair jockey even as their physical trajectories cross radically — hers en route to the paralysis she craves, his en route to walking again. The actors' heavy lifting saves writer-director Carlos Brooks's pretentious ass on more than one occasion, but conceptually, anyway, Quid wields the kind of strength and endurance M. Night Shyamalan only experiences these days from his hair product.

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD releases include the terminal-cancer buddy bomb The Bucket List; the Hayden Christensen teleportation adventure Jumper; Michael Haneke's American remake of his torture opus Funny Games; Zak Penn's terrific poker-culture satire The Grand; and finally, by popular demand, What's Happening! The Complete Series.

So are you Team Hulk or Team Happening? Can Manoj shatter expectations and bring home the hit he so desperately needs? Did we miss a diamond or some other, less-precious gem in the rough? It's Father's Day weekend — what does your old man want to see?

What about a reunion with the Funky Bunch who are also reportedly getting back together? "Not a f—ing chance," he told me.

"They asked me if I would partake and I had to decline," he continued. "Part of me would love to run around and act like a freaking a-hole again but I can't do that. I've got two kids. I saw something on VH1 or something about me in the 90s and I thought, oh my God, how am I going to explain this to my kids? I have a few years to think about how to finesse it but I do think about it on a daily basis."

This is actually a pretty easy one for Defamer's Bureau of Parental Reinvention, which encourages honesty and accountability in all situations dealing with early-'90s pop and/or underwear modeling. Look no further than Billy Ray Cyrus, whose embrace of his mulleted working-class roots yielded the phenomenal, 'tween-enabling trailer-trash empire we know today. And he didn't even have to star in an "eco-thriller" by the director of Lady in the Water. And what of Uncle Donnie rejoining New Kids on the Block? What message do concealed "Good Vibrations" really send? Come on, Mark — it's time. Be a man. Be a father. Be Funky.

• Mark Wahlberg and the M. Night of the living dread [NYDN]
• Mark Wahlberg Passes On Funky Bunch Reunion. [MTV]

The only big observation I would add to the earlier review it is that The Happening doesn't deserve as many words as the tipster gave to it. The film fails in every respect, but it's also really, really boring. The conflict follows such a simple outline and the plot structure dissipates after a few minutes, and you're left with a bunch of people on the road fleeing an invisible force for the rest of the running time: Little Miss Sunshine as a horror film. It's bad, but not even ambitious enough for viewers to enjoy the stinking muck.

Yikes. More spoilerrific details, including background on Shyamalan's First! Ever! R-rating! after the jump.

The Happening is all concept and no execution. You can see the ideas that gave rise to the film, but there's no film there. Mark Wahlberg is a science teacher grappling with some... science-y disaster. Wahlberg and wife Zooey Deschanel have to overcome their marital problems in order to stay alive. Blah blah. They get scared, head to the field, join with other survivors and run, run, run. There is so much running. They're scared, but they don't know what scares them. This is standard Shyamalan turf, but none of his past films have felt this bland

Even the suicides, which earn the film its R-rating, feel strangely uninspired. The sight of people jumping from buildings or shooting themselves are predictable and thus not frightening. One exception: A great long shot of a car crash that's followed by another horrendous act done in such a cool-headed manner that it truly chilled me.

But that's one good shot. It's padded by the shallow melodrama of Wahlberg and Deschanel's characters, and Shyamalan's cheap use of heavy violence presumably for no other reason beyond making the audience go, "What the fuck?" I'm mainly referring to a scene involving child death, but really, the whole movie is like one big WTF. If you've heard the line from the trailer, "There appears to be an event happening," then you've heard it all. And you've heard enough.

Maybe the real twist here is that the movie doesn't actually open on Friday, but just continues to exist in a world of inverse hype. Anyone else got a better idea?

• 'The Happening' [Fox]

THE CRITICS DON'T GET HIM: [I]f my last film was Lady in the Water and it was unfairly judged before it was even screened for critics I would be a little pissed. If it then received a 29% [Rotten Tomatoes] rating and several of the reviews included the words on par with "ego" and "pretentious" I would be even more upset. This would tell me that the people reviewing the film didn't even give the film a chance. ... Just because it is an M. Night film doesn't mean he is trying to scare you James from Sci-Fi Movie Page!

THE FANBOYS DON'T GET HIM: [T]he "lackluster work" part is a matter of opinion so I will let them have that. However, hating how the film is presented as the next "big movie" is not his fault. He doesn't handle marketing, you critiquing the studio in this case, not the movie or the director. When this person then says we know to "expect a slow pace, lots of emotionalism, experimental camera angles, possibly a cameo of Shyamalan himself, and a twist ending" I am trying to figure out where the problem is. Then to say there is nothing "ground-breaking" tells me that this person is expecting Shyamalan to be the second coming, something he then goes on to say he most certainly isn't. Well, guess what, he is just a guy making movies.

HELL, NOBODY GETS HIM: The final argument against Night is that he is egotistical. ... Let's say Night thinks he is the greatest director of all-time. First off, what does that hurt? How does it hurt his films? A commenter at IMDb believes Lady in the Water is to be taken literally and believes Night is trying to say "he's the WRITER THAT WILL SAVE THE WORLD!!!" Then again, by that logic Clint Eastwood believes he is a Wild West gunslinger as well as a bad ass San Francisco cop. To that I must ask Clint to make a decision, you can't have both.

From this brain we're promised a whole week of reintroductions to "all five of Night's previous films," starting Sunday with The Sixth Sense — which, of course, was actually the director's third film after 1992's Praying With Anger and 1998's Wide Awake. Leave it to a true fan to prove his idol's forgettability.

[Photo credit: Rope of Silicon]

• M. Night Shyamalan is Public Enemy #1 Because... [Rope Of Silicon]

· The Happening: We don't know how much more there is to say about Manoj's Folly, but the accompanying photo suggests the troubled film's marketing campaign may have its own climactic twist ending in mind. Follow the jump for a larger version and the rest of our glimpse at cinema's June swoon.

· The Love Guru: Still no word yet on whether irritable Hindu spiritual leader Rajan Zed had his studio-promised look at Mike Myers' bomb-to-be, but go-to Hindi heartwarmer (and supposed Love Guru influence) Deepak Chopra got loose with both an essay in Guru's defense and a word of support for Myers:

"He said, 'Listen, it's kind of a satire. It's a lampoon,'" Chopra said, recalling Myers' words. "He said on the surface it's like that, but on a deeper level, it's a tribute."

Myers "has the most profound understanding of Eastern wisdom, traditions and spirituality," Chopra said. "In the end, the movie is about self-esteem and love. It is about, in fact, love being the ultimate truth. He goes about it in a very silly, humorous way, but that's his style."

What? It's a comedy? Huh. We'll be damned — literally.

· Get Smart: We're getting a bad feeling about the movie for which we nurtured some of our highest summer hopes. First, there was that excruciating Carell/Rock/Hathaway interlude Sunday at the MTV Movie Awards, during which an audience member was responsible for the funniest joke:

A pair of sources also sent word in recent days that a small press screening last week yielded generally scalding reaction. Warner Bros. , meanwhile, is offering the minimum one screening on each coast the week of its June 20 release — opposite The Love Guru. We might make alternate plans that weekend; maybe the Dark Knight trailer? Like, 40 times in a row?

"It never really worked," argues David Weitzner, the former head of worldwide marketing for Universal and an adjunct professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. "It's pomposity on the part of studios to think that the public is going to respond to an advertising message that says to see the film because it's from the director of another film. It's stupid and to some degree, it's fueled by ego." ...

Mr. Shyamalan, who will get his name above the title for The Happening, still believes that a director's name on the marquee — one that is not Steven Spielberg's — can sell a blockbuster as easily as a star's can.

"The problem is the assumption that if I am selling the movie — because I'm selling me — that I'm being egotistical. If Will Smith did the same thing, it would be perceived very differently," he said. "You're supposed to be hidden if you're a director. That's a rule that who said in the movie business?"

Manoj, Manoj, Manoj. Seriously — have your lawyer add a clue to that pricey contract rider of yours. No one cares about your ego, just your tone-deafness: Recent tracking has The Happening distantly trailing The Incredible Hulk among June 13 openings, with only 54% of survey respondents noting Awareness of the film and a genuinely tragic 2% acknowledging Un-Aided Awareness. In other words, it's conceivable that maybe "Oscar-nominee Mark Wahlberg" and Zooey Deschanel have greater name value among The Happening's target demo than "M. Night Shymalan." We're just saying.

But that beingsaid, there is no truth to the death-knell rumors that The Happening won't screen for critics; we're told the studio is putting the film out there June 10 — two days after its planned junket and not in time for weekly critics' deadlines. We'll be there, naturally, hoping all the while his newfound press-shyness doesn't take; we kind of just want to take the poor bastard out for a drink.

UPDATE: A Fox spokesman sends word that press will have the opportunity to view The Happening during the junket on June 8-9. Hooray.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• Shyamalan's Hollywood Horror Story, With Twist [NYT]
• 'Hulk' Set to Stomp Shyamalan's 'Happening' [Fantasy Moguls]

In his intro to an exclusive scene on Yahoo! Movies, the director manages to liken his latest to The Godfather, The Exorcist, The Birds, and the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and describes The Happening as being "the scariest movie that I've ever made." On that last point, we think the director has truly delivered—at least where incredibly bad filmmaking is capable of inducing bloodcurdling terror. Collider.com ran their early review yesterday. Be warned, Manoj Twists are revealed! M. NIGHT SPOILERALERT!

"The Happening" is a terrible, terrible movie. I mean, it's bad on an epic scale. It's so bad that I can't possibly tell you how bad it is without understating the point or making it sound like I'm picking on the film. But let me stress: this is not pent-up Shyamalan aggression or a desire to see him fail. This is bad in a jaw-dropping "they can't really be serious, can they?" kind of way. The closest comparison I can draw is to Neil LaBute's "Wicker Man." [...]

The most obvious fault in "The Happening" is the acting — in particular Wahlberg's performance. I'm saying this with no hyperbole, but Wahlberg might very well give the worst performance I've ever seen in anything...I can't help but feel that Shyamalan — intentionally or otherwise — is ultimately to blame for forcing some truly awful line readings.

[THIS IS THE SPOILER PART:] It's plants that are responsible. They've decided to wipe out humanity and release the neuro-toxin as their natural weapon.... What Shyamalan quickly finds, though, is that it's very, very hard to menacingly cut to an evil-looking tree. That doesn't stop him from trying, though, and he inexplicably adds wind as a way of livening up the scenes. When the leaves of a tree start to blow, evil's afoot.

While none of this bodes too well for Fox, or lovers of not-awful cinema, the Pollyanna in us can't help but seek out the silver lining: And we thought of one! At the very least, some pants-pissingly hilarious YouTube mashups are surely just a few months away, giving Nicolas Cage in a bear suit clocking some Texas Polygamist Wife-looking chick a run for its money with a montage prominently featuring Marky Mark going postal on a yellow poplar.

• The Happening Trailers & Video Clips (3 videos) [Yahoo]
• An Early Review of M. Night Shyamalan's THE HAPPENING [Collider.com]

"It is an extremely scary movie. This is meant to scare you," the Indian-born director told reporters Monday. ... Mark Wahlberg plays a schoolteacher on the run from a natural disaster that threatens the entire world.

"The emotional center of the movie is if you knew you were going to die — that was a fact — what would your conversation be like? What would be the last thing you would say to your loved one?" Shyamalan said.

Indeed — what would be the last thing you would say to your loved one if you faced certain death in a M. Night Shyamalan movie? The mind positively reels with options: Maybe, "At least it's not Lady in the Water." Or maybe, "I'm gonna get my SAG card for this one." Or maybe, "Not me, God! Not in Philadelphia!" Or maybe on this one, "Wait, this isn't the cock from Boogie Nights." Or, if you're Robert Downey Jr, you just ball the script up, throw it at the director and start from scratch. The horror! What would you say?

• Shyamalan: 'The Happening' is terrifying [USA TODAY]