"Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," New Yorker Review
Dear F,
The following review confirms my frequent sense that modern movies (and television serials) have grown as adept at emotional/ideological manipulation as Hollywood moviemakers have been in their mastery of horror-movie manipulation. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/03/three-billboards-outside-ebbing.html
Yes, we get dependable "hits" of "feel-good" (and "feel-bad") biochemicals... but Pavlov dispenses them.
Admittedly, I was entertained by "Three Billboards."
But I always sensed an "occult" "coven" of "smart" producers supervising the "production" of each scene (and I stress the word "production") with a well-tuned psychological sense of how to seduce viewers with the next adrenaline/endorphine/dopamine-releasing plot shift.
By my lights, it is a rare modern movie that grows out of its own central integrity and unifying inspiration.
On the other hand, I recently watched "To Kill a Mockingbird" (for the first time since its release) and I was in awe of its intrinsic "inevitability."
Although Mockingbird was not, on balance, a tragedy (despite Tom Robinson's death), this great Gregory Peck film partook of the ancient Grecian sense that reality tends to unfold along obligatory pathways connecting "wrongdoing" and "consequence." (See this user comment on Roger Ebert's highly critical review. https://www.rogerebert.com/letters/whats-wrong-with-to-kill-a-mockingbird)
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