Studio:Hollywood Pictures, Spyglass Ent.  ,Prod.Kennedy,Marshall,Mendel.Written & Dir.M.Night Shyamalan,Stars ,Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams .Release date:Fri. August 6,1999..Theater:20scr.Movie played on: 1 screen . Theater packed..Gross so far:My guess: 20-30mil. first weekend.

This being August, there usually aren't too many films yet which alert me to their oscar availability, but lightning strikes twice in as many months.  First, The Red Violin grabbed my attention, (but probably nobody else's) now the haunting mood piece, The Sixth Sense  gets my vote for the second film of the year with oscar potential. (Okay, Eyes Wide Shut does get a nod, but I don't think it will be nominated.) The Sixth Sense, being marketed as , variously, a Bruce Willis picture and a horror film, or in writer-director  M.Night Shyamalan's own words, Ordinary People meets The Exorcist, delights and provocates at the same time. I was reminded, when viewing the trailer a few weeks back, of Mercury Rising, another Bruce and kid movie which is still in the public memory. Since I had no compunction to see that one, at first I didn't really think that this would be first weekend material, especially with Dick and Mystery Men opening this week, and the fact that I just saw The Haunting. Has anybody noticed, or does it seem that this summer has been filled with a Hallowe'en season's worth of horror flicks?

Bruce plays a child psycologist in The Sixth Sense, and I was reminded of The Color of Night. In fact, the end of the first scene in Sense reminded me of a similar scene in Color, but as this intricately structured work of art unfolds, these needless comparisons to other Bruce Willis pictures are null and void. As John Anderson in the L.A. Times wrote, this isn't a Bruce Willis picture, but he sure can be proud  he was in it. The unknown truth about Bruce is that he has evolved from wiseacre to an excellent actor over the past few years. His character, Malcolm Crowe, is a beaten man, unable after the first somewhat shocking scene (PLOT POINT ALERT) to cope with life, and especially his job as a child psychologist after his brush with mortality.  Don't read that L.A. Times review, by the way. I believe I would have had a much better shock at the scene if I hadn't known what to expect. Shame on those critics.

He is teamed with his next case, Cole Sear, who confesses to communicating with the dead, so real are they to him that they appear as if they had just died, with wounds and burns aplenty. Just the thing to scare the young 8 year old, except he is, although really upset at his "gift", somewhat knowledgeable about the implications. For instance, he doesn't tell his mother, the always amazing Toni Collette. He suffers her punishments, instead of giving her the truth to "his secrets" because he knows that she might not be unable to understand. I cannot think of a child actor as convincing in his role as Harley Joel Osment, who has a well deserved sidebar in Entertainment Weekly. He has astounding depth. The interplay between doctor Crowe and young Cole is frighteningly real. You really believe Cole when he confesses his gifts to Dr. Crowe. "I see dead people. They want me to do things for them."  You feel for him as he "sees" the dead walk around, and you sense his knowledge that he has to go through and do whatever the dead need for him to do.

The character, although young, is world weary in this respect. And the actor conveys the character with what looks like amazing ease. I remember Linda Blair in The Exorcist, but even she doesn't convey the depth of emotion shown by Harley Joel Osment. His is a name to remember (and a hard one to remember, at that. So is M. Night Shyamalan. What is it with these names these days?). The oscar should go to him in April. He is that good.
The audience, made up of a mix of  Saturday afternoon teens , the 18 to 49 crowd, and some more elderly types, were all "sucked in" by the plot.

Too often, when the dolby digital soundtracks in theaters do not go all out to break one's eardrums, I can hear quibbling and silent conversations in the audience during "slow parts" in movies. What we used to call dialogue scenes. The Sixth Sense has plenty of dialogue scenes,and the audience sat in rapt attention.There was  also plenty of intriguing camerawork, mostly handheld, and a perfect sense of time and place.
The film is shot in Philadelphia, and gives a better sense of the city, I think than, say Blowout by DePalma, even though that is a favorite of mine, and uses the city to good effect.

In fact, the scenes of row houses where Cole lives reminded me of the Georgetown sequences in The Exorcist.
I keep mentioning The Exorcist, because when I , like many others, first saw that movie in 1973, no matter how jaded I thought I was, I was deeply moved by that film. Likewise, The Sixth Sense is moving. I hesitate to even call this  a horror film, although that is what it seems to be marketed as. I really don't want to compare it to Ghost, because the tone of each film is completely different, but there is a comparison to be made.. The depth of emotion shown in the good scenes in Ghost (and I'm talking about the penny scene, not the pottery scene) is far more real in The Sixth Sense. I cried during this film, as did many others in the audience.Whereas Ghost plays on the audience's emotions, The Sixth Sense takes them by surprise. You thought you were going to another Blair Witch or The Haunting by the ads, and were blown away by the emotional resonance, and it
is far more real than in movies like Message in a Bottle.

I always try to shy away from plot as much as possible. The trailer gives too much away, as far as I'm concerned, but the reviews can be notorious for spoiling an audience. So many people seem to only know films from the reviews they read, anyway. Then they finally catch up with the movie on video or HBO, when it has been out for so long that it loses it's power. I really think The Sixth Sense is going to be , if not number one this week, then number two. Lines for the evening performance were long, but so were the ones for Mystery Men, and I want to see that movie, too.
Word of mouth can't hurt, either. Bruce is not Bruce Willis, but seamlessly loses himself in the conflicted and "sad" character of Malcolm Crowe. Harley Joel Osment deserves an award. People were repeating his signature line "I see dead people, and they want me to do things for them," as they left the theater. And Toni is perfection, as usual.
Also, I want to mention Olivia Williams, one of , if not , the best things  in Costner's The Postman, and a shining light  in Rushmore (Also produced by Barry Mendel). She is dismissed in Anderson's review as "the distanced wife" but that she is onscreen when she needs to be, and she is glowing and beautifully poinant. (Although some of this poinancy is admittedly because of the screenplay and not because of her acting chops.) I want to see her in more work. She reminds me of Anette Bening when she started out.

Roger Ebert likes the movie, and admits to being "blindsided by the ending". Anderson thinks the ending is overdone. In any case, the audience does not second guess The Sixth Sense. For a movie with that title, that is a wonderful thing to think of. Usually, you can "write the screenplay as the movie unspools" even if you have no senses, or any sense for that matter. This summer the films are fairly smart. Even the scares in The Haunting were self conscious. The Sixth Sense is just good storytelling. At least the movie doesn't look like it will disappear. Probably a hit. Possibly an oscar contender.