Evil Sponge wrote:
> "Alric Knebel" <alric@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:q7mdnRBFyYugQFranZ2dnUVZ_ovinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>Evil Sponge wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Bernie Dwyer" <b_duibhirz@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>news:47C1FB82.D7637B52@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>
>>>
>>>>http://www.lep.co.uk/entertainment/Films-39robbed39-of-an-Oscar.3810166.jp
>>>>
>>>>Yes, that's 'jp' at the end, not 'jpg' - no idea why.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>The Sixth Sense? WTF? Maybe if they created a new prize category for
>>>"most obvious plot twist". Jeez.
>>
>>I didn't think it was that obvious. In fact, I went to see it twice to
>>see if they were true to their conceit, in every scene.
>>
>
>
> I've had this discussion with many people now, and I still don't get how
> anyone fails to work it out. I have to apologise here, because it's
> impossible to say this without sounding patronising - but I guessed it
from
> the trailer. And about 10 mins into the film, it was so painfully
obvious
> that I found myself sneering at it and hating it, and even more so at
the
> people who walked out of the cinema saying "wow, that was amazing!" I've
> spoken to a few other people who feel the same way, but it seems the
> majority love it. Er.... anyway... nothing personal. To each his own,
> there's no accounting for taste, horses for courses, etc.
Sneering it and hating it, huh? Why? There was more going on than the
fact that he was dead. Hell, that wasn't even that much of the plot.
You just guessed, but you couldn't have known. In other words, it
popped up as a possibility and you held on to it. At that time,
Shyamalan provided no PROOF.
My own experience was by happenstance. I didn't see that many trailers,
and had no interest in seeing the film itself because I don't like ghost
stories. I saw it on someone's recommendation. No, not accurate.
Correction: On someone's INSISTENCE. So I was sort of sitting and just
watching it, and nothing was really obvious. Now, it's possible at the
point when the boy tells Dr. Crowe (Willis), "I see dead people," that
you'd think, hey, maybe HE'S dead. But I didn't. I was at that point
pretty much caught up in what the boy was feeling. In fact, it didn't
occur to me at all that we were in for some sort of trick. But even
knowing it, so what? I saw it a second time to see if Shyamalan covered
all the bases, and he did: he insured that Crowe touched nothing, said
nothing to anyone but the boy, and did nothing to elicit any responses
from the people around him, while all the while suggesting that HE was
relating to THEM (his wife, the boy's mother). The whole idea was
finely executed, whether you figured it out or not. I know, because I
saw it a second time. Hell, I saw it a third time, at home. That's
because there were other aspects of it BESIDES Crowe's being dead which
worked -- if you weren't sitting with your arms across your chest,
insisting you were so much smarter than everyone else -- like a
diversion, with the director doing a bit of legerdemain by telling a
good story. I liked all of that, despite the fact that I went in to the
initial viewing slightly skeptical, because, like I said, I don't like
ghost stories. There was the story of the boy himself, seeing the dead
people, and that was curious; and how the dead girl showed the little
boy where the video she'd made was hidden, and it was revealed that the
girl's own mother had killed her. The ghosts coming and going and
appearing suddenly was executed to optimize the creepiness. Then there
was all of the stuff with the boy's mother's frayed nerves, her issue
with her mother the boy helped resolve (quite tearful to me); a fine
performance by Toni Collette. There was also the thing with Crowe's
previous patient (the boy who'd killed him), and how he, too, had been
seeing the dead people. Myself, I was involved in all of that, so when
the doctor looked preoccupied, I assumed as is typical in movies with a
romantic subplot that he was more concerned with his professional life
and his personal life was suffering as a consequence. So, taking in all
of that, had Crowe NOT been dead, it would have still been a good movie.
His being dead was merely this other thing, way in the background, a
little extra. You sound to me like you thought the whole goddamned
thing rested on this supposed trick, and once you accidentally GUESSED
it was, you couldn't get past your own superciliousness because THAT'S
what YOU were enjoying about your experience. You take yourself too
seriously. It was just a guess that turned out to be true, which came
to you because of some mood you were in. For the rest of us, it was the
STORY itself, and had Shyamalan ended the story at the discussion
between the boy and Crowe prior to the boy participating in that play, I
would have walked out thinking it was a pretty fair piece of
entertainment. When Crowe turned out to be dead at the moment you
thought he was going to go home and reconcile himself to his wife (all
of his demons resolved, the trick was lagniappe.
In conclusion, you sound to me like someone convinced by his own
pretensions.
--
_________________
Alric Knebel
http://www.ironeyefortress.com/C-SPAN_loon.html
http://www.ironeyefortress.com
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