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little esther, BIG laughs

On this movie. I think it's very good and well-made. At the time I thought Shyamalan was a filmmaker with a lot of promise and I was excited to see what he'd do next. He spent a good amount of time squandering that promise, but that doesn't necessarily speak ill of this effort. I don't think it's a Top 100 movie of all time. I can think of many better movies in the "horror" or "supernatural" genre (The Exorcist definitely deserves a spot if this does). Once you know the twist, I think the movie is still good but it loses something -- the thematic content (IMO) isn't quite robust enough to elevate it to the level of greatness. I don't see where it's saying something profound about art or movies or the human condition. It's just a neat story, well-filmed. Worth praising, but a pretty common thing in the long history of cinema.

That's a really interesting qualifier that I hadn't considered before but in more recent years there have been some films within the horror genre that have come out where our protagonist is actually the one doing the most damage/the "monster." The three examples I can think of are Raw (French) and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (Iranian) and Let the Right One In (Swedish). I would probably say that the middle could be considered not a horror film but IMDB still has that as one of it's two genres. I wonder if this is like a European thing where the monsters of our nightmares get stories where they end up being the ones we cheer for in the end? ETA: OH! And The Others! That's probably a horror movie that can be directly compared to Sixth Sense due to its similar twist ending. I also loved that movie lmao.

Yea. Those drama real-world frights you mention are the real scares in the movie. The actual ghosts are not all that terrifying, really, beyond just their presence (usually as a surprise for the viewer). That's why I wanted more of those scenes -- let Haley go into the scary real world, with ghosts helping him out, and have him confront the horrors of reality. A woman with Munchausen Syndrome where she hurts her children? No match for Cole! Single mother needs encouragement? That's an affecting ghost story if you ask me. (I still think Sixth Sense comes very close to this, but doesn't quite go all the way with it.)

I believe that horror has different subsets just like any other genre has. Not all comedies are the same and neither are all dramas, but I definitely wouldn't put either Crimson Peak nor Shape of Water into the horror genre just because it has supernatural elements to them. But I still would put The Sixth Sense into the category because even in the drama sense of it I still find it rather terrifying. It's terrifying as a mother to not have any clue what's happening to your child and then find out he can see dead people, and it's terrifying that a mother would have the ability to kill her own children for attention. It's not just the ghosts that make this scary in my mind, it's the real world aspects as well. I compare it a lot to The Witch, which a lot of people got PISSED at because they said "nothing scary happens," but in my mind the unnerving aspect of watching this family turn on each other and lose themselves to the witch is absolutely scary. Jump scares shouldn't be what makes something into a horror film imo. But with Get Out specifically, Jordan calls it a horror film so I think that out of that no one really gets to tell the creator otherwise.

I agree that this isn't a horror movie. While I'm not sure what the definition of horror is, I think its primary goal (or one of its primary goals) is to scare people and I don't think that is The Sixth Sense's goal except for a couple sequences. I can see why some people consider it horror though. 1. I remember people in 1999 saying it was scary. Not everyone but certainly some enough people to earn a reputation as a scary movie. 2. I'm not sure horror has a really strict definition and certainly not a long time ago. People like Edgar Allen Poe are considered horror writers and some of their best known works aren't strictly horror in my mind. So, if you look at The Raven or Telltale Heart or Cask of Amantillado (just pretend I spelled that right) as lumped in with horror, then Sixth Sense kind of fits in with that vaguely gothic, dramatic, tense kind of story. Especially when the line between horror and thriller is very blurry. 3. Horror gets very little respect. There's a running criticism or dismissal of movies as "just horror" meaning they aren't important or can't mean something the way "important" movies like Citizen Kane are "important". Or potential horror movies being labeled thrillers instead of horror. So I perceive a lot of horror fans really wanting anything with horror elements to be considered horror especially if it is critically adored. It helps horror get more respect. I think that's why a vocal group of people want to say "Shape Of Water is a horror movie! It has a monster in it! Why don't Hollywood call this the horror movie it is?" Or as Syncasey said about Crimson Peak. Even something like Get Out which has terrifying elements in it, some people were reluctant to call it horror. There's a desperation to get respect for horror.

Also, to the point that Bruce only effected the temperature at the end, wasn't Haley cold in the hospital when he told Bruce about seeing dead people? Did I imagine that you could see him shivering as he said it?

Hey guys. I'm back

countin down to labor day folks

I hate to be this person so early on but I think this one of the most overrated movies of all time. The fact that it is even in the Top 100 of all time I find incredibly baffling. That's not to say that this is a bad movie. It's not. It's an okay movie with two great performances and there is Bruce Willis. I'm sure I'm not alone on this so I don't want to harp on the twist too much, but to me the greatest flaw of this movie for me is how much it centers on that twist. I agree 100% with Amy that there are scenes like the magic trick scene which are just M Night trying to tell us that he's got a secret and begging us to notice or find out. They are like little self indulgent road bumps along the story. There are so many things like the wardrobe that make no sense when you think about it. He's allowed to change or customize his clothing because of what he touched that night? Why? That's note a "rule" of ghosts. It's not even a rule the other ghosts in the film get. It is a rule created to "throw you off the trail" of the twist. In addition you have other ghosts in the film like the cyclist who have clothes that have blood or signs of their injuries on them. So why are Cole's clothes clean? He's in denial so he can't see it? Does that mean the cyclist has just accepted their death? In addition where is the gore? We see other ghosts in the film with their cause of death wounds visible, so does that mean Bruce is walking around with a bullet wound and just unaware of it? Or is it a denial thing yet everything other ghost is in acceptance? So much of what they allow him to do is entirely to serve the purpose of getting you not to expect the twist despite the film stopping in moment to tell you a twist is coming and you won't believe it. I find it slightly insulting. Instead of putting a twist in a leaving clues for people to figure it out, they go out of their way to muddy the waters and it is not to help tell a better story it is for the sole purpose of pointing a finger at the audience and saying "gotcha!"

i say we post any college newspaper articles we've written in hopes of them getting read on next week's pro version. i'll start: here's a review of "the life of pablo"

I'm still finishing the pod, but I wanted to react to Amy's comment about Willis' acting. She mentions that he had some emotion in the first scene, but is too stiff for the remainder of the film. Is this not because he's no longer human from then on? I sort of took this as a conscious decision, and not bad acting. He's supposed to be distant and sort of odd, right?

In the late 90s, I handled the artwork and marketing materials for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, which is north of Philadelphia. Greg Wood (Mischa Barton's dad) and Janis Dardaris (that terrifying woman in the kitchen) were in the repertory at the time, and it was a kick to see local actors I knew in a movie like this. They were the best!

okay kiddos, check it out. in a move that surprises no one coming from a podcast listener/a kevin, i got overexcited and bought an extra ticket to HH live in brooklyn this sunday (early show) without checking if my one friend who is also a fan was available (it was late). SO, if anyone is in the NYC area and needs a ticket, get in touch somehow. (tickets were $25 with fees, but if you can't afford it, we can work something out.)

Funny you bring up nWo, because I remember Alex Jones losing his shit about them. He basically said "THEY'RE DOING THIS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE!! They make a group, call them the New World Order, and they put Hulk Hogan in it to make everybody like them! They want you to like the idea of a New World Order! It's happening folks, it's happening, and they're showing you exactly how they're gonna do it!" One little caveat that Alex didn't understand... they were the bad guys. It was also around the time when they introduced Zeb Coulter as Jack Swagger's Tea Party Lunatic manager. "They're making the Americans the bad guys, they're making the American guy look stupid, and have the Mexican beat him, it's to make people look at America like we're the dopes, and to embrace globalism!" One little caveat that Alex didn't understand... Swagger, despite being the villain, was supposed to be dominant, but the idiot got caught in a DWI and a car full of weed 2 weeks before WrestleMania, and they just wrote him off. Swagger and Coulter later became good guys when there were "Russian" villains. But, it was hilarious, how the WWF made up the nWo for people to like the idea of a one world government, when the WWF didn't have anything to do with it.

Would be such a hoot if Sean and Hayes did a popcorn gallery this weekend for american labor day, would qualify as some of that irony stuff they do that I can pick up on every single time 100%

God that woman brings up bad childhood memories of some of the moms I dealt with when I went to a Christian private school from 2nd-6th grade. As for the horns I remember Dio gave an interview where he credited his grandmother with the symbol, which she would use in a "mind your manners because I'm watching you" kind of way. In regards to other hand gestures, I'm sure Smigg is aware of the Too Sweet controversy in regards to a hand signal used by a variety of wrestling factions including the NWO, Degeneration-X, and the Bullet Club, only for the latter to be given a cease and desist order from the WWE who apparently trademarked the gesture, but that has come under questions as there are numerous colleges that use the signal and the original wrestler who used it, Kevin Nash, said he started so after he saw Turkish gangsters using it during one of the WWE tours in Europe in the 90s and thought it looked cool. In other words, people are weird when it comes to hand signals.

That makes sense. I had forgotten that she had said that so that does put another question mark on top of it. Maybe, in the same vein as what I mentioned, Chazelle tried to really pass it off as this super original concept? When again Mamma Mia really leans in to what it is?

Though if that's the argument (and it's totally fine for someone to prefer Mamma Mia), then I'd expect the criticism of La La Land to be "it's pretentious" or "it's no fun," not "it's unoriginal." It's more the thrust of the argument that confuses me, not the idea that someone might not like the movie.

The weirdest scene in this movie is where Giselle puts a fish in her mouth and spits it out in front of the assistant. WHAT IS THAT? I know she's cute and quirky, but even cartoon Giselle wouldn't put her fish friends in her mouth especially since they talk in her world.

Just as a note, Buster Keaton has a cameo in Sunset Boulevard, which I think is also on the AFI list. He's one of the "Waxworks" who come to play bridge.

Every Frame a Painting is a great series. I think I heard he's working for Filmstruck now.