Whether You Know Its Twist Ending Or Not, The Sixth Sense Is Top-Caliber Shyamalan Filmmaking

When I wrote up on Beetlejuice earlier this year, I noted what an experience it must have been for audiences encountering that feature in its initial theatrical release to discover the extremely idiosyncratic tendencies of Mr. Tim Burton. I'd imagine there was a similar revelatory feelings for moviegoers who saw The Sixth Sense in August 1999. Though M. Night Shyamalan apparently did two movies before this one, neither of which I'd ever heard of before penning this review (the poster for 1998 Rosie O'Donnell movie Wide Awake looks so much like the quintessential 90's family movie poster, it hurts), The Sixth Sense is very much the kind of movie Shyamalan would be associated with for his entire career, a creepy thriller heavily reliant on grounded human relationships and a big twist that knocks audiences off their feet.

The Iron Giant More Than Earns It Status As A Masterpiece Through Incredible Storytelling

I am far from the first person whose ever wrote about how awesome The Iron Giant is as a piece of cinema. Coming at the tail end of the 1990's, a decade that had theatrical American animation reinvent itself as the a huge moneymaker after decades of dormancy after the death of Walt Disney, The Iron Giant was unlike anything else seen in that decades crop of animated fare. Most of the studios chasing the tail of Disney in this era, including the studio behind The Iron Giant (Warner Bros.) were looking to do the kind of musical fairy tales that Disney had turned into box office powerhouses, leading to a lot (and boy do I mean a lot) of animated fare that just boiled down to "Disney knock-off".