I saw a couple of movies yesterday. The Village reminded me of a couple of things:

1. I really enjoy "auteur" type movies where you can absolutely tell who directed the thing because they have a distinctive style and tone. The enjoyment I get from movies by Tarantino, Kubrick, the Coens, and M. Night Shamalamadingdong outstrips the amount of enjoyment I get from their stories and plots, because they keep me interested stylistically.
2. Relatedly, I like it when directors play with color in interesting ways. Exhibit A here would be Far From Heaven, which is exceptional if only for that reason.
3. M Night's movies have a profound sense of claustrophobia that adds to their creepiness. In The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, this is often manifested in tight shots in closets and confined apartment spaces. In Signs much of this tension plays out in a farmhouse. In The Village, he actually manages to do this with outdoors scenes, which is quite an accomplishment.
4. Having a Knob Creek and soda (more like a double, actually) at the theater can make for a lovely buzz during the first half hour of a movie.
5. Regardless of all this, The Village is really boring. I got enough enjoyment out of the things above to make it a 2.5 star experience, but plot-wise I found it a yawner, even though I didn't see a lot of things coming.
6. I get so caught up in the M. Night style that I always forget there's a twist coming. This probably means I'm a moron.

The other movie I saw was Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle. (See item #6, sentence 2 above.) All I can say is that this movie will live up to your expectations, regardless of how good or bad those expectations are. Mine were somewhat high for humor, and I wasn't disappointed. If you never like dumb movies, you don't need to be told to stay away. If you love dumb movies, you don't need to be told to go. If you sometimes like them, this one's probably one of the better ones, and so worth at least a rental. The extreme guys' music and the Newark beating of lesser versions are worth the price of admission.