Two Haikus for you!

I see dead people.
John Henson will play me when
the sequel comes out.

Donnie Wahlberg - eek!
New Kid on the Block becomes
Dead Kid on the Block!

My Basic Ramblings: At first I wasn't going to see this movie. My mother'd asked me if I wanted to see it shortly after it came out, and I said thanks, but no thanks. Bruce Willis didn't do anything to me one way or the other, and the little kid whispering all the time in the commercials was annoying. (It also bugged me that he said "I see dead people". Anyone can see dead people; just go to a funeral. He was seeing ghosts.)

However, my attitude started to change when people would talk about "the secret". "Ooh, the secret, the secret, can't give away the secret." So I thought, "Hey, I wanna know what the secret is," and so I saw it.

So now I know it. And I hope you've seen the movie if you're reading this, otherwise the movie will be spoiled for ya.

The movie is cool, and it works, as long as you don't think beyond the scenes shown. Sure, the scene in the restaurant is very sneakily choreographed, and the scene with Bruce and Toni too. But imagine this: You're Bruce Willis. A very, very scary looking Donnie Wahlberg has just broken into your house and shot you. You'd probably want to spend the next few days or so close to your wife, coping with the extremely traumatic experience you've been through, right? Don't you think you'd be a little suspicious when your wife goes to a funeral and gee, whose name is that on the tombstone? They explained it away by saying that the ghosts don't realize they're dead, and will rationalize things to that end, but still, that's a lot of rationalizing that would have to go on.

I've read a few reviews of the movie and some people question Cole's ability to apparently read minds (the "Stuttering Stanley" bit in the classroom). My take on it is that ghosts who knew Stanley had told Cole about the stuttering (kind of like how Cole knew all the stuff about his grandmother).

Another thing I've seen questioned was the deal with the girl and the videotape. Did the girl know she was being poisoned and set up the tape, or was it an accidental recording? Either way, why didn't she say anything to her dad after viewing the tape? (assuming she viewed it; otherwise how would she know to keep it separate in the box?) Was it revealed to her after she died? Why did the mother wait until she was in the girl's bedroom to pour the stuff into her soup? (And what was it that she poured, exactly? The bottle looked like Pine Sol, but I couldn't tell for sure. That was probably the point, though, so you wouldn't get any copy-cat killings or something.)

Did Cole know that Malcolm was dead? He [Cole] didn't see that freaked out by him [Malcolm], although his [Cole's] first reaction to seeing him [Malcolm] was to run to the church and steal the statuette.

Did Cole see all dead people all the time, or did he only see them at certain times? I'd tend to think it's the latter, as he probably would've seen a lot more dead people (I mean, c'mon, the earth's been around for millions of years so there's probably millions of dead people around. Cole probably would've seen more than the handful that he did.)

Donnie Wahlberg really freaked me out. I'd have to say of all the New Kids on the Block, he's ended up being the one with the most credibility. You've got Jordan "My Songs Have Really Disgusting Lyrics If You Listen To Them" Knight, Joey "Trying To Recapture My Youth By Adding a ëY' To My Name" McIntyre, and the other two who apparently dropped off the face of the earth - Jonathan and Danny (and yes, I am admitting the fact that I knew all their names. I will also admit that "Tonight" was not a bad song).

I think being able to see ghosts would be cool. Okay, granted, some of them might be kinda creepy and drippy, but they could give you answers on tests. You could also wrap up a few unsolved mysteries, too. "I'm buried in a cornfield in the middle of Nebraska," Jimmy Hoffa might say. "You should come and visit."

This movie was the second film of Creepy Summer 1999, which could be summed up as "Stir of the Sixth Blair Witch's Stigmata". It's also only the second movie ever to have five weekends at the box office where it topped $20 million. I think the first movie had something to do with a boat.

The movie was written and directed by M. Night Shamalayan. I now want to give my kids really cool middle names so they can do the same thing. (Something like "M. Megaweapon Freemesser" or "J. Underpants Freemesser".) They'd probably resent me for that, though.