24 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
24 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
you've seen this moment before , recently : a particularly troubled character senses danger of the paranormal kind when the room temperature inexplicably plummets to below freezing .
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the difference is that when it happens to lili taylor's nell in the haunting , we don't care .
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the hero of the sixth sense , a young boy named cole , is a rich creation , and we wish nothing more than for the ghosts who haunt him to take a hike .
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the seasons have changed since an ex-patient shot jaded child psychologist malcolm crowe ( willis ) in the comfort of his own bedroom .
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desperate to get his career back on track , even at the expense of his crumbling marriage ( to williams , of rushmore ) , malcolm councils the deeply troubled cole ( osment ) .
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the preteen displays all the quirks of malcolm's would-be killer : scars on his body ; antisocial behaviour ; and the reluctance to reveal a big secret .
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only after cole is locked in a closet by some bullies ( and hospitalized as a result ) does he divulge to malcolm , in a spine-tingling scene , that he sees dead people walking among us , all the time .
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malcolm assumes , and given his profession , reasonably so , that cole is schizophrenic , not psychic , but the sincerity in cole's anguished confession prevents the doctor from taking drastic measures .
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he will instead pursue the supernatural angle , becoming a kind of surrogate father to cole ( who lives with his single mother , lynn ( collette ) ) in the process .
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the sixth sense has more in common with ghost than poltergeist .
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( though shyamalan does , somewhat unforgiveably , crib the self-rearranging kitchen business from the latter . )
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it's far more heartwarming than frightening , and the film would be none the worse for wear without its few pulp shocks .
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cole attracts the dead for reasons unknown , but they're not out to harm him , really-they just want to be heard , even if it means scaring the bejesus out of the innocent gradeschooler .
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perhaps the apparitions seem more ghastly to us , at first , than they really are because we're looking at the situation through the eyes of an eight-year-old .
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that's right : willis , for the first time in years , gives up the spotlight to his costar .
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we appreciate malcolm's domestic dilemma , but we identify with cole , recalling our fears of the bogeyman or the closet monster or the thing under the bed .
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both actors deliver immensely likable performances , and their dynamic is manifest .
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willis convinces us that he's a doctor , something he was unable to do as a horndog shrink in the overheated color of night .
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osment is phenomenal , a true professional who resists mugging for the camera like some child stars with too much experience in television commercials do .
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the sixth sense ( atmospherically shot by the silence of the lambs' cinematographer , tak fujimoto ) is actually a drama-its spooky , effective ad campaign is misleading .
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only because i was expecting something different did i notice-rather , feel-the movie's running time , which is just shy of two hours .
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the story unfurls slowly but engrossingly ; its unexpected finish is definitely worth the wait .
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i'm not sure said big twist ending is bulletproof , but i admired its audacity .
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