#89 - The Sixth Sense

What makes a movie transcend just being great and enter into the realm of one of the Top 100 movies ever? AFI's criteria for their list was the following: the films had to be feature-length and American-made, had to have substantial critical recognition, had been a major award winner, had lasting popularity over time, or had a historical significance or a cultural impact.

Here's how I feel about 1999's "The Sixth Sense": just because we got the phrase "I see dead people" and one of the first hugely popular twist endings does not make it one of the 100 best movies of all time.

Now, I had never seen this movie until last night. But of course, like everyone else, I knew the major spoiler: Bruce Willis's character Malcolm Crowe is actually dead for most of the movie. So when I was watching the movie, it was rather obvious to me that his interactions with the characters who couldn't see him were completely absent. It doesn't matter how detached you've become from your wife, she's still going to say hello or something when you come in the door.

This blatantness is one of the aspects that irks me so much. It completely destroys the re-watch factor. Would I have enjoyed this movie if I had seen it in theaters in 1999? Most likely, yes. I'm not the swiftest to pick up on things in movies like this, so it would have taken to the very end to figure out he's really dead. But watching it with the pre-knowledge that he is dead was more like a hunt for clues than an enjoyment of what is supposed to be the 89th best movie ever produced in America. I feel like this movie could only be watched twice and be truly enjoyed -- once for a first-time viewer, ignorant of the twist, and a second time to go back and see all the clues M. Night Shyamalan left for the viewer.

The suspense was good, and some parts were rather frightening. But "Saw" was better to me in those aspects. It just seems to me that the AFI voters squandered a slot on the list just because the movie was wildly popular and introduced the twist ending to mainstream film.

While I was watching the movie, all I could think about was poor "American Beauty." This is the only time I will ever do this; this blog is about what movies are on the list, not the ones who aren't or should deserve to be. But I just can't help but think why 1999's "American Beauty" was left out when "The Sixth Sense" was selected. "American Beauty" swept the Oscars that year, winning five awards instead of zero like "The Sixth Sense." I know awards aren't everything (they're just one of the criteria listed), but don't they count for something? If everyone thought one movie was better the year both of them came out, shouldn't we compare them the same way in the future?

To put it in simple terms, I found "The Sixth Sense" to be enjoyable but far from worthy of being given a spot on the list of the greatest movies in the history of American cinema. Also: "Pulp Fiction" at #94, but "The Sixth Sense" five spots above it? Blasphemy.