A Supernatural Story

---

---

"Fate is not a straight road. There are many forks in it. You have the free will to choose which one you take, but sometimes it will bend around and bring you straight back to that same stubborn fate."

Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin)

---

The first time I ever saw Anton Yelchin in a movie was when he appeared in "Hearts in Atlantis," which was based on a Stephen King story.

He was still rather new to the acting profession, but I was impressed with his talent. Sadly, though, I have only seen him in one other movie — "Odd Thomas," which made its debut at the River Bend Film Festival on this day in 2013 — and I will get no opportunities to see him in a new release. He died in a freak accident nearly two years ago.

"Hearts in Atlantis" was one of his first movies. He made many movies in his all–too–short career, but, considering how he died, "Odd Thomas," in which he played a clairvoyant short–order cook, would have been a good finale for his career — which, by the way, was far from what we have come to expect from child stars. Other child stars seem to hit the wall when they try to transition from children's roles to adult roles, but Yelchin was an exception to that rule.

"Odd Thomas" was based on a novel by Dean Koontz.

Like the youngster in "The Sixth Sense," Odd Thomas could see dead people, and they never spoke to him, either, but, in his own words, "I do something about it." His tipoff that something big was going to happen was when he saw the shadowy bodachs who thrived on pain and carnage — and, as the movie began, he started seeing the bodachs more and more.

---

---

They seemed drawn by a stranger in town, and Odd (that was really his given name — an explanation was given early in the movie) said there were more bodachs around him than he had ever seen before. But they seemed to lose interest, which was puzzling — until Odd Thomas did some further investigating.

Odd Thomas, I should mention, had a working relationship with the chief of police (Willem Dafoe), who knew of his talent — but Odd Thomas was at the center of things.

At this point, I ought to remind you that this is a movie about supernatural talent — and it is probably best to avoid giving away any other details.

But "Odd Thomas" had a few other things in common with "The Sixth Sense" — including an unexpected ending for which viewers should have been prepared by all that had come before.

---

---

Of course, that's the way it was in "The Sixth Sense," and the finale of "Odd Thomas" probably lost much of its impact because of its similarity to that earlier movie.

But that didn't mean "Odd Thomas" wasn't worth seeing.

Not Exactly a Christmas 'Gift'

---

---

"Miss Wilson, I don't believe in what you do. I'll just be straight with you. Not only that, I don't like it. But, we've got to the end of the road of our investigation ... and looked under every rock there is to look under ... and we'd like you to tell us what you can to help us."

Sheriff (J.K. Simmons)

---

"The Gift," which premiered 15 years ago today, seemed to slip in beneath most people's radars. That is a shame because it really was a suspenseful tale.

Many of those who went to see it during the Christmas season in 2000 may well have expected to see a holiday–oriented tale if all they knew of it was its title. Boy, were they in for a surprise.

Cate Blanchett played a young widow, a psychic who did card readings for people in a small town in Georgia. In the early minutes of the movie, audiences must have been certain that Hilary Swank, who played a victim of spousal abuse, would be likely to turn up dead. Instead it was Katie Holmes, the fiancee of Greg Kinnear who was having torrid affairs with apparently everyone, who turned up missing.

It was enough to give anyone a headache — and then there was Blanchett's long–dead grandmother (Rosemary Harris) who popped up to remind her to trust her instincts.

There were enough creepy things going on to make sure everyone knew this wasn't a Christmas movie.

Now before I proceed, I should try to address what I see as a conflict in terminology. I said that Blanchett played a psychic although I suppose when I was a child I would have called her a fortune teller because questions about the future are what card readings always seemed to me to be about when I was growing up. You know, questions like will I fall in love and get married? or will I be successful? Magic 8–Ball stuff.

And I gather that Blanchett's character did her share of that with many of her clients, but the clients the audience saw were always having their pasts revealed — Swank's abuse as well as the abuse of another character, Buddy (Giovanni Ribisi), who had been abused as a child by his father.

My point is that I'm not sure if psychic and fortune teller mean the same thing or different things.

It is in the area of revelation of the past that I associate the term psychic — if only because I hear from time to time of psychics being brought on to help criminal investigators who have run into a wall in their probes into disappearances.

That is what happened in "The Gift."

---

---

Holmes' disappearance brought Blanchett into the apparently stalled investigation. She had a vision of Holmes being attacked and killed and then thrown into a pond on property belonging to Swank's husband (Keanu Reeves), and that led to Reeves' arrest and eventual conviction after Holmes' body was retrieved from his pond.

This brings me to one of my quibbles with the movie. It appeared that Reeves was arrested, then almost immediately put on trial. I know the Constitution guarantees every defendant the right to a speedy trial, but that is much faster than the legal process usually works.

(Speaking as someone who, like many novice reporters, covered police and fire beats, things don't happen as quickly as they seem to happen in the movies.)

But Reeves' character wasn't guilty, as Blanchett learned in another vision, and she went to the prosecutor (Gary Cole) to ask him to reopen the case. She couldn't see who the killer was, she said, but there seemed to be no shortage of prospects, including Swank, who knew that Holmes had been sleeping with her husband and, consequently, "she deserved what she got."

Such can be the moralizing posture of a small Southern town.

When I saw "The Gift," I was inclined — and I still am — to think of it as being successful in its bid to be suspenseful, in no small part because of the cast that was assembled. Otherwise, though, I kind of felt it became a rather predictable whodunnit in the second half of the movie.

Film critic Roger Ebert was more glowing in his praise. "The movie is ingenious in its plotting, colorful in its characters, taut in its direction and fortunate in possessing Cate Blanchett," Ebert wrote. "If this were not a crime picture (if it were sopped in social uplift instead of thrills), it would be easier to see the quality of her work. By the end, as all hell is breaking loose, it's easy to forget how much everything depended on the sympathy and gravity she provided in the first two acts."

---

---

There is truth in that.

Blanchett's character provided a balance in the telling of the story — at one point Buddy told her she was the "soul" of the town, and I think the same could be said of her influence on the movie.

But what many people — mostly, I suppose, adolescent males — found and still find memorable about "The Gift" was it contained Holmes' first nude scene.

Ebert's opinion notwithstanding, the movie received no recognition from the Oscars — doesn't seem to be too surprising. The Oscars seldom give nominations to comedies or supernatural thrillers.

That doesn't mean, of course, that they aren't worthy of recognition. It's merely a long–standing Academy bias.

Now, THAT Was a Surprise Ending

---

---

Cole (Haley Joel Osment): I see dead people.

---

I rate the effectiveness of a supernatural thriller by how long it takes me to figure out what is really going on, and I cease to be surprised by what I see on the screen.

I never reached that point with M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense," which premiered 15 years ago today. I was completely fished in, and its now–famous surprise twist ending took me completely by — well, surprise.

I wasn't alone. Film critic Roger Ebert said he was "blind–sided by the ending."

Initially, it appeared to be the story of an isolated young boy (Haley Joel Osment) and the psychologist who was trying to help him (Bruce Willis). Willis' character had been shot by a former patient, who then turned the gun on himself, and the next thing the audience knew, Willis, seemingly healed physically but struggling emotionally, was treating Osment's character, whose case was similar to the case of that former patient.

Osment's character told Willis he could see ghosts. They walk among the living, he said. They don't know that they are deceased.

Willis' advice was for him talk to the ghosts and see if he could help them with what seemed to be unfinished business that they had to complete before they could go on to whatever was next. Osment was dubious; the ghosts scared him, but he decided to give it a try.

---

---

In his review, film critic Roger Ebert observed that "[i]t has long been believed that children are better than adults at seeing ghosts; the barriers of skepticism and disbelief are not yet in place."

I had a general understanding of that at the time, and I'm sure other moviegoers did, too. It made the story more plausible, more accessible — although I have no memory of personally conversing with ghosts as a child.

A breakthrough for Osment's character was his communication with a girl who had become ill and died. She indicated that she wanted him to take a box, which contained a video tape, to her funeral, which he did, and he gave the tape to the girl's father.

The tape, which had been made clandestinely, showed the girl's mother deliberately giving the girl tainted food, causing her death. That apparently was what was needed for the girl's soul to be at peace.

After that, Osment was able to interact with his schoolmates better than he had before, and he seemed to have learned to co–exist with the ghosts. Willis, on the other hand, was still struggling. His wife seemed to pay him no attention, and she had been the model of a devoted wife before he was shot. He was baffled.

Until he came home one night and found his wife sleeping on the couch. In her sleep, his wife asked her husband why he left her, and his wedding ring slipped from her hand. It was only then that Willis realized he had not been wearing his ring, that he was, in fact, one of the dead people Osment had been seeing.

(I hope I haven't given away the surprise ending to anyone — but it was in the theaters 15 years ago, after all!)

Just before Willis' (and the audience's) revelation, Osment and his on–screen mother (Toni Collette) had something of a reconciliation.

---

---

She had been skeptical of whatever he was experiencing all along.

One day, while they were stuck in a traffic jam, Osment's character decided the time was right to tell her what was going on, and he did. She didn't want to believe him when he said he was visited by his grandmother, but he began to convince his mother when he told her a story from her own childhood that she, apparently, had never told him before.

The clincher was when he said that his grandmother had told him his mother had visited the grave and had asked a question. Her answer, Osment said, had been "Every day," but he didn't know the question. A visibly emotional Collette told him.

---

---

Osment, wrote Ebert, "is a very good actor in a film where his character possibly has more lines than anyone else. He's in most of the scenes, and he has to act in them — this isn't a role for a cute kid who can stand there and look solemn in reaction shots."

That's true, although Osment did do essentially that in his previous important movie, "Forrest Gump." Of course, he was only 5 years old when that movie was made. He was 10 when he made "The Sixth Sense" and, presumably, more mature.

Ebert had more praise for Osment's performance — and Willis'. "Although the tendency is to notice how good he is, not every adult actor can play heavy dramatic scenes with a kid and not seem to condescend (or, even worse, to be subtly coaching and leading him)," Ebert wrote. "Willis can."

"The Sixth Sense" was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Osment) and Best Supporting Actress (Collette) but won none.

After 30 Years, They're Still Here

---

---

By 1982, Steven Spielberg already had done some remarkable things on film.

He had given us "Jaws," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "E.T." In the years ahead, he would give us "The Color Purple," "Empire of the Sun," "Jurassic Park," "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan," among others.

Few, if any, movie directors have had the kind of influence he has had — with so many groundbreaking filming techniques in so many genres.

Few directors have had the talent for telling a story — and telling it well, no matter how complex it might be.

And, to be sure, the movie that was released 30 years ago today, "Poltergeist," was one complicated tale. Spielberg didn't direct it, though. He produced it. "E.T." was his directorial project in 1982.

Tobe Harper actually directed it — but it definitely had a Spielberg feeling to it.

I never heard Spielberg — or anyone else — say what inspired the story — an ordinary family living in a subdivision whose lives are turned upside down by a supernatural intrusion.

The reason for the invasion remains hidden until near the end of the movie, when the family's patriarch puts two and two together and realizes that the property, which was once a cemetery, was not relocated as he had been told, that only the headstones had been moved. The bodies had been left where they were, and their souls were not at rest.

As a longtime fan of the Twilight Zone, I often thought the movie's plot was inspired by an episode about a young girl who vanishes to another dimension through a portal that appears in her room. Viewers of the Twilight Zone heard about the supernatural guests but never saw them.

Similarly, the youngest girl in "Poltergeist" was snatched away by spirits who gained access to her through the closet in her bedroom. (For the most part, they were never really seen, either.)

But I have found no evidence to support my conclusion that the show inspired the movie — other than my own suspicions.

It isn't important, I guess. A good story is a good story, whatever its inspiration may be, and "Poltergeist" was a darn good chiller for a hot summer day.

Of course, much of what makes a good story is good story telling, and there haven't been many directors in the last 35 years or so who could match Spielberg.

And, in Spielberg's hands, "Poltergeist" was more than simply a scary film. In the last three decades, it has come to be regarded as a true classic of the horror genre.

The line "They're here" — with that lilt in Heather O'Rourke's vocal delivery — is one of the most recognizable lines in movie history.

Indeed, "Poltergeist" seemed like a blessing for all who were affiliated with it. It cost less than $11 million to make and took in more than $120 million at the box office.

Those numbers were dwarfed by "E.T.," however, and, ultimately, "Poltergeist" and its series of sequels earned a reputation for being cursed. That was because some of the movie's stars died prematurely — a series of tragic coincidences that were, nevertheless, enticing for the movies' genre.

It all began 30 years ago today.

'The Others' Provided a Supernatural Thrill

---

---

"Sometimes the world of the dead gets mixed up with the world of the living."

Mrs. Mills
"The Others" (2001)

---

I have a lot of admiration for Nicole Kidman.

I believe she has given some brilliant performances — even if she hasn't always had great material with which to work.

That wasn't the problem with the film that premiered 10 years ago today — "The Others."

"The Others" was a top–notch ghost story, and I thought Kidman did a great job of portraying an ordinary woman caught up in extraordinary circumstances but striving, nevertheless, to make everything seem as ordinary as possible.

That's a tall order when your children are so light–sensitive that they must be protected from sunlight at all times.

I suppose that should have been considerably more than a hint to Kidman's character that things weren't what they appeared to be — but if people behaved logically in ghost stories, there would be no ghost stories, would there?

---

---

Actually, I think 2001 was the year Kidman really emerged as a major actress, even though she had been around for quite awhile — and in some high–profile roles, too.

She had been showing up in movies for several years, but she really began to catch people's attention in her American debut in 1989's "Dead Calm," and she continued to get attention with roles opposite Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman and Michael Keaton. Then she seemed to break out as a star in her own right in 1995's "To Die For."

But then she vanished from the scene, re–emerging as Cruise's co–star in "Eyes Wide Shut." The next time folks heard from Kidman, she and Cruise were splitting up, and she embarked on the next phase of her career.

In 2001, Kidman returned to the silver screen with "Moulin Rouge!" (a musical), "The Others" (a ghost story) and "Birthday Girl" (a crime/love story), demonstrating her versatility.

She went on to co–star with Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore in "The Hours" and won an Oscar.

Her career has been sporadic in recent years, but I think she really became a major film star 10 years ago — and "The Others" had a lot to do with that. Now, she has reached a point where she can select her projects with more discrimination.

A lot of folks didn't really notice at the time, though. "The Others" had been in theaters only a month when the 9/11 attacks occurred, and, like just about everything else, it was overshadowed by that event.

I won't take time and space discussing the story in "The Others" because you might want to watch a good ghost story when Halloween rolls around in a couple of months.

But I will tell you it was set in the English countryside (aren't all really good, spooky ghost stories set in the English countryside — or something very similar?) around the end of World War II.

I've heard "The Others" compared — unfavorably — to "The Sixth Sense," which was released a couple of years earlier. The comparison isn't really fair. Both films deal with life and the existence of the afterlife, but I found more of a supernatural emphasis in "The Others" — and that meant a story that I found to be more thought–provoking. Not necessarily better, just more thought–provoking.

"The Sixth Sense," on the other hand, seemed to appeal more to the tastes of horror film fans — blood, gore, repugnant images, the stuff that makes you jump in your seat and gives you goose pimples and a definite chill down your back.

(Similarly, I guess, I always found the book upon which the movie "The Exorcist" was based to be better than the movie itself. The movie was obsessed with the flashy special effects of possession while the book delved more deeply into the subject of the rite of exorcism and religious issues.)

If you haven't seen "The Others" before, it has a real twist ending in store for you. You might — in fact, you probably will — need to watch it a second (or third) time to catch what you missed the first.

That is how it was with "The Sixth Sense" — and isn't it true of the best supernatural thrillers?