The Sixth Sense

Special Award: M. Night Shyamalan (1999-present) News flash: "The Sixth Sense" was his only good movie. Second news flash: "The Sixth Sense" isn't that good. However, its massive, unforeseeable success (such is the value of a great plot twist, which it undeniably had) started ... morethe Shyamalan cottage industry, in which the selling point for his increasingly dumb, insulting, reactionary, childish (not the same as childlike) movies (umm ... "Unbreakable," "Signs," "The Village," "Lady in the Water" -- that's four for four, y'all) was the "auteur" himself, and his magical spooky fairy tales of cinema. April Fool! He's a disaster! Every time a studio trots him out like he's a modern day Hitchcock/Spielberg/Lucas figure, instead of a poor filmmaker with a shrinking bag of tricks, the hype becomes more implausible, and the sound of retreat is louder and louder. (Warner Bros. / Buena Vista) 

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Sean Nelson is a Seattle-based writer and musician. He is the author of "Court and Spark," a book about Joni Mitchell, published by Continuum Books.