tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post6640342612051178153..comments2023-04-30T07:27:54.645-07:00Comments on <b>HUNGRY GHOST BLOG</b>: It's stronger than I remembered...David Chutehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-89261290831021068222011-11-07T17:15:05.466-08:002011-11-07T17:15:05.466-08:00By viciously effective, you presumably mean effect...By viciously effective, you presumably mean effective on others... <br /><br />That's the "evil" exception to the usual use of the word "us". <br /><br /><br />I'm sure that there are many people highly evolved enough to feel compassion for the Andy Robinson character in "Dirty Harry"... (Not me, I hasten to add...) Or who at least understand and appreciate how crassly manipulative that movie was. (Probably me now, but not then.) Don't know who the 'us' is there....Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-28698799706819632962011-11-07T13:59:44.765-08:002011-11-07T13:59:44.765-08:00Her basic take on this stuff still works for me. T...Her basic take on this stuff still works for me. The power she's referring to may seem insidious because it can work on us even in films like Avatar that our minds tell us are tissue paper.<br /><br />The phrase fear of movies is certainly loaded, though. I'll admit that. How about irritation at the ease with which we can be manipulated into a plummeting visceral response to something that on paper is trivial? (Works for many operas, too.)<br /><br />Scary still the best term for some things, however, such as viciously effective propaganda films.David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-63469249467991687612011-11-07T11:41:56.179-08:002011-11-07T11:41:56.179-08:00Actually "effect" is also correct here.Actually "effect" is also correct here.David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-41412285995270452242011-11-07T10:16:28.906-08:002011-11-07T10:16:28.906-08:00There's that damning phrase: "The ways mo...There's that damning phrase: "The ways movies affect us."<br /><br />Why assume that your reactions are universal? The corollary -- that the reactions of those who disagree are not only wrong but somehow immoral or unnatural -- is exceptionally distasteful and irritating. Better not to go there, and most critics don't, but she did. Creating fervid acolytes and dissenters....Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-58224958505713451472011-11-07T09:35:17.132-08:002011-11-07T09:35:17.132-08:00The judgements on specific films don't always ...The judgements on specific films don't always hold up, I agree. But the description of the way movies effect us still works -- for me, anyway.<br /><br />The cotext of this essay was that Kael had spent just about ten years (since Bonnie and Clyde) trying to make a case for what she saw as an American-style New Wave. She was disappointed that more of her fellow critics and taste makers didn't agree. And then Jaws and Star Wars were released.David Chutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606470667042155559noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-1190032981819797202011-11-07T06:51:19.531-08:002011-11-07T06:51:19.531-08:00Easier to dismiss? I'd say impossible to acc...Easier to dismiss? I'd say impossible to accept, much after the age of thirty...<br /><br />Kael's weakness is not overstatement but an us-against-them style of polemic that is no longer amusing.<br /><br />The following, as someone once said, is not only nonsense, but nonsense on stilts... (and, as it turned out, wrong about Peckinpah's later movies as well)<br /><br />a new film by Peckinpah is greeted with derision, as if it went without saying that Bloody Sam couldn’t do anything but blow up bodies in slow motion, and with the most squalid commercial intentions.<br /><br />This is, of course, a rejection of the particular greatness of movies: their power to affect us on so many sensory levels that we become emotionally accessible, in spite of our thinking selves.Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896069787782846811.post-68215450224031749152011-11-06T19:00:21.300-08:002011-11-06T19:00:21.300-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Tulkinghornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12380273659057130770noreply@blogger.com