“It would be very convincing to say that there’s no hope for movies — that audiences have been so corrupted by television and have become so jaded that all they want are noisy thrills and dumb jokes and images that move along in an undemanding way, so they can sit and react at the simplest motor level. And there’s plenty of evidence, such as the success of Alien. This was a haunted-house-with-gorilla picture set in outer space. It reached out, grabbed you, and squeezed your stomach; it was more gripping than entertaining, but a lot of people didn’t mind. They thought it was terrific, because at least they’d felt something: they’d been brutalized. It was like an entertainment contrived in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World by the Professor of Feelies in the College of Emotional Engineering.”

— Pauline Kael

Taking It All In (1983), Why Are Movies So Bad? Or, The Numbers (1980-06-23)

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Pauline Kael 72

American film critic 1919–2001

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Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

Taking It All In (1983), Why Are Movies So Bad? Or, The Numbers (1980-06-23)

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Pauline Kael 72

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