Day Seventy-Two: The Sixth Sense

THE SIXTH SENSE

Starring:
-Bruce Willis
-Haley Joel Osment
-Toni Collette

Written & Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

MPAA Rating: PG-13 - for some mild/moderate grossness


Remember back in the nineties when M. Night was the shizz? Yeah, me too. THE SIXTH SENSE, SIGNS, and THE VILLAGE are the only ones I’ve actually seen, and according to movie reviewers I both trust and admire, his other films aren’t quite up to snuff.

Turns out THE HAPPENING was about plants. PLANTS, people! ANGRY PLANTS!

But, I digress.

Anyway, Haley Joel plays Cole Sear, a little boy who doesn’t like it when people look at him like that, so stop it. Cole is a very sensitive child, probably because he spends most of his days looking at gruesome spirits wandering around trapped in our world. Seriously, it’s bad. Mischa Barton ruins his fort and pukes all over the place.

Cole’s mother is at her wits end with the strange circumstances surrounding her child. Although she notices strange things, she cannot see the big picture and she doesn’t know how to ask for help. But she’s a good Mama who feeds her baby Cocoa Puffs and she got him a beautiful dog.

Although he’s smart, Cole struggles at school. He’s compassionate and interesting, yet he has no friends. Cole starts seeing child psychologist Malcolm Crowe, who is interested in Cole because of the similarities he shares with a former, ill-fated patient.

Eventually, Cole confesses his terrible secret to Malcolm. The secret is this: he sees dead people.

I didn’t feel the need to go all ****SPOILER ALERT***** on you there, because I’m pretty sure that anybody who is reading this blog at least knows the basic premise of this huge beast of a movie.

But if you’ve never seen this one, I won’t be the one to ruin it for you. I will say, be wary of the color red. In fact, I probably wouldn’t rent the DVD from Redbox. Nor would I wear or eat anything red while watching the movie. But that’s just me.


Just a few observations I’ve made concerning Shyamalan films (once you know how to spell his last name, you’ll never forget it. Much like ‘Mississippi’ or ‘Wednesday.’):

M. Night likes to shoot his stars in reflections, presumably just because he can. Shyamalan thinks he’s Alfred Hitchcock, and more often than not he will cast himself in one of his movies. I wish I could cup his face tenderly in my palms and whisper in the kindest way possible, “M. sweetie, you need to stop this. Because you suck.”

Quentin Tarantino, I am also looking at you.

Shyamalan also seems to have a thing for struggling marriages and abandoned spouses, as evidenced by several of his other films. Of course the biggest Shyamalan-ism is the “what a twist!” ending he seems so fond of.

A few thoughts on the acting: Bruce Willis does very well in this picture, but the star of the show is, of course, wee Haley Joel Osment. H.J. tears it up, let me tell you. This kid could do anything! The sad but true fact is, I haven’t been impressed with him in anything sense SENSE. But maybe he’s through with acting and he’s working on getting his real estate license or something.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

“It’s a buyers market….they’re everywhere….all the time…walking around like regular people….you won’t tell them my secret, right?”


FINAL GRADE: A

Off in search of something blue for a change,

M. (not Night)