The 6th Sense is Actually Proprioception

Recently the movie Glass hit theaters and while I personally do not watch M. Night Shyamalan movies because, with the possible exception of The Sixth Sense, they are not — you know — good, I did for a brief moment, when I heard that there was film called “Glass”, entertain the charming and wistful notion that it might be a documentary about the history of glass.

Boil me up some fake movie theater butter because THAT is something I would pay to go see!

I can already hear you shouting, “Now wait just one minute sir, Signs was a damn good movie!”

But here’s the thing: No. No it was not.

As I recall, there is a scene in that movie when Joaquin Phoenix beats an alien to death with a baseball bat. That’s dumb.

Also, if I recall correctly, that scene is shot in such a way that you only see the beating of the alien with a baseball bat in the reflection on a TV. You know why it is shot that way??? Because the premise of the scene is dumb. And the movie KNOWS IT! That is why it is shot that way. It’s like that scene in the second Matrix movie when Laurence Fishburne is fighting somebody on the top of a moving semi truck and for some reason he does a handstand on the edge of the trailer in the middle of the fight and the logical next shot would be a wide shot so the audience can see what is happening, but instead they go to a super tight shot on his face because everyone involved with the making of that movie understood that the premise of the entire moment was so unbelievably stupid that is was basically insulting to the audience.

Anyway.

Glass has a fascinating history and while I am not going to even attempt to explicate here all of the ways in which you should find it interesting, I will just share this one nugget of ensorcelling glass-related information:

Beginning in the 13th Century, the water-treading, lagoon-locked city-state of Venice (in what is now the nation of Italy) sequestered all of its glass production and its glass makers and their families on the island of Murano, about a mile outside of the city. This was done to prevent the spread of the technology of glass blowing. Much like gunpowder, silk, and pasta (which is Chinese), glass production was once a closely guarded secret. Glass makers were not allowed to leave the island without permission from the government and if they did, they could be killed.

It’s like if the Manhattan Project was taking place on Ellis Island so New York City could keep a watchful eye over it.

Are you telling me that you would not be interested in watching a documentary about that? Because I sure as hell would. See? Glass is interesting! And I have not even told you yet about Depression Glass! But I will save that for another time.

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