Posted 7:59 PM by Gene

Now the things that once really mattered in these movies -- corruption, eroticism, madness, death -- have lost their sting. Death, especially, is often without consequence in modern film. It is presented balletically. Or as a spectacle of mass destruction that claims only anonymous extras or digital doodles. In noir, it was passion's final expenditure, obsession's last terrible gasp, projected in vivid, unforgettable ways.

--AOL's Richard Schickel, in a LALA Times review of a book about film noir.

I'm TIRED of synergistic company men like Richard Schickel having it both ways. Either movies are better than ever, or they're not. This clown wrote a long piece for The Wilson Quarterly about how awful it was that we don't have healthy foreign-film experience anymore, how stupid teens had taken over the domestic film biz -- at the same time he wrote a Time-cover press release for his company's Eyes Wide Shut. He no doubt praised a lot of that "ballet" in the first place; he's probably helping fiercely on the marketing for the Matrix sequels. Stop the sales pitches, please!!!!!