Boo! It's time for "Oscar Horrors". Here's Deborah Lipp on Best Picture nominee The Sixth Sense.
In 1999, I started going to the movies by myself. My marriage had ended, and there were visitation weekends when my ex had the kid, I was alone, out of sorts, and determined to do something with that time that felt good.
Going to the movies alone is great. You always get the seat you want, because there’s always a singleton somewhere, and you don’t have to engage in long discussions about what to see. You just…go. That’s how I saw The Sixth Sense...
I knew absolutely nothing about the movie, because I hadn’t discussed going with anyone, and I hadn’t seen a preview. A friend said she loved it (and said nothing else). I was in the habit of going to a local twenty-plex and buying a ticket for whatever looked good.
The Sixth Sense blew me away. Everything about it makes me sad for M. Night Shamalayan’s subsequent career. The direction, the visual construction, the acting—everything.
My experience with The Sixth Sense has become my go-to argument against spoilers. To be a virgin to a film, wide-open, is an exquisite movie experience.
Previews that tell the whole story, posters that reveal secrets, and endlessly, the Internet, are destroying that experience. If The Sixth Sense were released today, what are the chances we’d be surprised by the time we saw it? The other day I read an article about a shocking episode of Orange is the New Black. The headline was clearly marked “spoiler,” with appropriate warnings about which episode it was. But the url gave away which character came to a dark end. The freaking URL!
I would probably have loved The Sixth Sense anyway. But here is my public and impotent plea to respect the cult of “no spoilers”, because that cone of silence is a gift to movie lovers.
Season 3 Oscar Horrors is a Wrap
The Bad Seed - Supporting Actress
Bram Stoker's Dracula - Makeup
Dr Jekyll & Mr Mouse -Animated Short
Flatliners - Sound Editing
Fatal Attraction - Film Editing
Kwaidan - Foreign Film
Misery - Actress
Pan's Labyrinth - Production Design
Sleepy Hollow - Production Design
Sweeney Todd - Best Actor
The Uninvited - Cinematography
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? - Cinematography