In my Urban Fantasy class today we discussed the following question about The Sixth Sense but could never reach consensus. (I’ll pose the question to be relatively spoiler free in case there’s anyone out there who hasn’t seen the flick). Both Cole (the kid) and Malcolm (the shrink) have secrets. We know when Malcolm learns Cole’s secret. When does Cole know Malcolm’s secret? The class was split down the middle with half, including myself, maintaining that Cole knows from the beginning, when they meet in the church. Others maintain that he only comes to realize it. Everyone pretty much agreed that he definitely knows by the end of the film—and before first time viewers do. So the question is when does Cole know?

I’m always surprised how much I like this movie, how it mostly holds up as a terrific plot stunt that actually strengthens the movie. The story you think you’re seeing and the story you’re actually watching inform each other quite movingly. If any of my fictional moms ever find themselves on film, I want Toni Colette to play the part. She does great moms. Course, she may be sick to death of moms. Hell, she can play any part she wants.

The red dress at the funeral party didn’t work for me, but mostly the details are wonderful. I keep trying to enjoy his later films as much, if at all, but so far it’s not happening. I haven’t seen Lady in the Water, but I did recently screen The Village. The village idiot did it is not much of a plot. The monster’s still wearing a red dress, but nobody’s dancing. How could a group of professional counsellors come up with something as dopey as the Village? With Shyalaman’s lame ideas. I suspected after Signs that he’d become afflicted with profundity. But The Village just seemed lifeless. I liked the blind girl, however, no matter how implausible her mission.

My urban fantasy class has turned out to be quite small. While I had 25 enrolled last summer, enrollment peaked at 15 in early summer and was down to 11 by the time the class met for the first time. For various reasons, that number has now dwindled to 7. It’s beginning to feel like one of those Agatha Christie stories in which the characters are offed one by one. This lightens the grading load to say the least. The surviving class members are quite a good group, so I find myself with a seminar class in fantasy. One casualty was the result of plagiarism, which always pisses me off. I was hoping to get through the summer without one. They seem to be more common in recent years; the internet makes it so easy, I suppose. But the same internet makes it so easy to catch. Don’t these people Google? The favorite source of stolen words these days? Amazon.com reviews. I just had a plagiarism on Gaiman’s Anansi Boys that was cobbled together from 4 or 5 different reviews, some of which were really quite intelligent. Unfortunately, the authors weren’t enrolled in my class…

I’m still grading final exams, but the sf class ended yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the class. I hope my students enjoyed it as well. When I polled them about the books we read, the results were interesting. There was a tie for the least favorite novel—Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World. However, when I asked what their favorite novel was, Murakami got the most votes of any single novel. So, safe to say, he evoked the strongest reaction and will remain on the syllabus. Ray B. be gone, however. I may return to Bester’s The Stars My Destination for the 50’s choice, though I welcome suggestions.

I’m often asked what I mean by Urban Fantasy and why I’ve chosen that tag for the course. We look at fantasy set in a modern setting as opposed to an idealized past or alternate world. “Contemporary fantasy” is an ambiguous term since it might refer to fantasy written by contemporary authors, regardless of the fantastic setting. “Dark fantasy” fits some of the works we’ll study, but not all of it’s “dark.” Anyway the Tolkienesque stuff rarely interests me even though I love the literature from which it sprang, medieval and renaissance romance. Maybe that’s because Marie de France and Ariosto are so damn sexy.