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      <title>Comments On: In praise of Hellboy
    
      by Pat Graham</title>
      <link>http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy</link>
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      by Pat Graham</description>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#956239]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Steve S.]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[Yes, Hellboy was excellent--very enjoyable and comparatively unpretentious. 
    
    I thought Pan's Labyrinth was good but I also think this: if Spielberg's name were on it instead of Del Toro's, critics would be taking this angle: it runs the risk of turning the fascist captain into a fairy tale villain, promoting a cartoon understanding of evil. 
    
    And (grumble grumble) I love Notorious Bettie Page and relate to the Singer quote here. (It's in my personal top ten.) It's been pretty much ignored critically (and by audiences) from the moment it opened. It may not be terribly intellectual, but I found it to be beautiful on many levels. Perhaps because I'm gay (with little interest in a pin-up queen), I was esp. moved by the filmmakers' integrity in handling the character's religious journey. Gretchen Mol has been robbed--she should at least have gotten an Independent Spirit nomination for one of the most generous and fearless performances of the year. If you haven't seen it, keep an open mind and rent it.
        
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          Posted by Steve S.]]>
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    <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:45:35 -0600</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#949589]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Ray Privett]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[JRJ - I can assess things on objective criteria as good, and I can also have a personal reaction that says they are good.  I guess it depends on what your criteria is: good in terms of objective criteria, or good in terms of personal taste.  I do think it's best when the two things overlap, as Pat Graham says above.  For the day to day critic - which I have never been as a writer, but which I have been as a moviegoer and movie bureaucrat - I think that's what you have to wrestle with, always.  And, speaking as an exhibitor, also whether my assessment of both quality in an objective sense and in a personal taste sense, should necessarily dictate all parameters of if, how, and when to exhibit something.
    
    Now back to dealing with movies about the end of the world (and also with the end of the world itself).
        
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          Posted by Ray Privett]]>
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    <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:44:14 -0600</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#967040]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Sam Adams]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[Ah, one of my favorite topics. I'm wholly with JR here. If you like a movie, it's "good"; if not, it's not. There are ways and ways to like, of course -- you be entertained by ideas as well as pleasurable sentiments -- but I have never understood how a movie you like could be, at least in your own opinion, "bad" (at least, unless, you think you're an idiot). Good and bad, or whatever more pseudo-sophisticated adjectives we might replace them with, are only meaningful as barometers of individual taste. An objectively "good" film sounds very much like "quality," which sounds very much like something I would rather not watch. I agree that all pleasures, at least cinematically speaking, should be without guilt. Maybe GROSSE POINT BLANK isn't the greatest movie ever made, but I'll talk your ear off explaining why it's thoroughly awesome.
        
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          Posted by Sam Adams]]>
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    <pubDate>Tue, 09 Jan 2007 12:03:55 -0600</pubDate> 
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#963798]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[pat g.]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[sorry i'm being garrulous ... "guilty pleasures" is simply a way of saving face, since in fact you're not feeling guilty at all; what's really at issue are embarrassment and SHAME--the critic over your shoulder, that social dimension again ...
        
        <br />
        
          Posted by pat g.]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2007 19:30:40 -0600</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#968423]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[pat g.]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[RAY P.--somehow "liking" and "good" have to overlap, else we'd be getting lists of films that BEST compilers actively despise (since purportedly they're "good" for you, like castor oil and most of the work of godard ... "brilliant" then being equivalent to producing no frissons) * which is why, pace farber, it's not a response you can factor out--like some impersonal deciderator measuring dosages of abstract "excellence" * so: there has to be personal complicity, an affinity, delight, enchantment--what i argued for in my "favorite films" roundup; but what it all means and how you parse it out are another matter entirely ...
        
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          Posted by pat g.]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2007 19:18:23 -0600</pubDate> 
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#954456]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[pat g.]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[JRJ--it's not so much a matter of knowing what you "like" as coming to the rueful realization that "liking" is itself a socially constructed act--and that a good part of what it's constructed of is that very communal ID you seem to think shouldn't be there at all, as a "legitimate" part of the critical equation * case in point, "gretchen moll's bod" in THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE: presumably it "delighted" you (as obviously it did me--or must have, since i put it on my list!) yet for some reason that wasn't enough to move the film into your "good movies" category--albeit the "delight" you got from it was, i'm willing to bet, stronger and more visceral than anything you got from TSOTSI * or another case, of poor, sad lassie not coming home: what could be more dire--is there a dry eye in the house?--and aren't we all immediately "moved" by our collie's straitened fate? * but if being moved's the operative criterion, then we probably should value lassie movies more than, say, renoir's RULES OF THE GAME, which possibly won't "move" anybody, or if so only in more elusive, wistfully subtle ways (and in fact the rabbit hunting scenes might utterly turn you off, an altogether different kind of moving, more on the order of what you'd find in, well, SAW ...) * in lassie's case the below-the-surface message probably runs something like this: can't be one of those three-handkerchief crybabies, gotta make sure this mawkish stuff doesn't blow me off my gyro * and it doesn't and won't ... since the implicit threat of others--your peers, the people you most nearly identify with--laughing you out of their company makes itself felt too keenly * as why wouldn't it: it's arguably what you'd do to them as well ... or, worse, what i might do also
    
    which is how "liking" this or that comes into being, bit by bit through insinuating pressures over a whole lifetime, always in the process of construction ... though if you're like me you might not even be sure what the word actually means * a lot like "personality" or "selfhood" in that, and probably just as fragile--except of course we believe in that construction too
    
    as for the rest, recall farber's distinction between white elephant and termite art and consider the following: between HELLBOY and PAN'S LABYRINTH which is the termite and which is the elephant?
    
    thus do i rest my case ...
        
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          Posted by pat g.]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:43:36 -0600</pubDate> 
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#960583]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Noel Vera]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[Is Hellboy all that shallow? I saw it as a group of people who had to work with each other, often at ungodly hours, learn to live with each other. We recognize the people here--the star player crippled with angst; the rookie in love with the office beauty; the boss who turns out to know more than you thought he did; the loving father figure. 
    
    I don't think the film lived in the special effects; I thought it lived in the characters, and their scenes together.
        
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          Posted by Noel Vera]]>
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    <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2007 03:47:33 -0600</pubDate> 
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#970960]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[JRJ]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[But Ray, we could both name hundreds of movies that meet every formal criterion of quality yet aren't any good. If there were any objective measure of quality, our estimation of films and filmmakers wouldn't be in a constant state of flux; the truly great films tend to be ones that shatter the accepted notions of quality (e.g. THE WILD BUNCH). Once you start discounting your own response, you turn into that woman from the Woody Allen movie: "I finally had an orgasm, but my doctor told me it was the wrong kind."
        
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          Posted by JRJ]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 07 Jan 2007 20:49:03 -0600</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#974261]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Ray Privett]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[P.S. I think it's too much to say that the purpose of art is to give pleasure.  An artwork might give me the opposite of pleasure.  But it's still art.
        
        <br />
        
          Posted by Ray Privett]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:06:26 -0600</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#952586]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Ray Privett]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[JRJ - I guess we have different approaches to quality.
    
    Sometimes, I have liked things that I have known are bad (although I haven't felt guilty about liking them).  I feel that quality can be determined outside of personal taste, for example if some declared and relatively objective standards are set up beforehand which determine quality.  E.g., a good story has a beginning, middle, and an end; cutting within a scene should respect the axis; scenes should transition one to the next; a film should (or shouldn't) have social and political relevance; white balance should be used according to norms.
    
    All of those could be set as standards of "quality," and then, if you follow them, you have made something "good."  But I still might not like it.  Or, you might have made something "bad."  But I still might like it.
    
    Perhaps you're rejecting the idea that quality can be based on criteria like that.  Which is fine (subjectively speaking); just different than what I have in mind here.
    
    Anyway, nice "talking" to you again.  Keep fighting the fight in Chicago.
    
    Ray
        
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          Posted by Ray Privett]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:04:08 -0600</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#957380]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[JRJ]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[I don't really subscribe to the notion of guilty pleasures. The purpose of art is to give pleasure, whether it's the visceral pleasure of beauty, the intellectual pleasure of learning, or the empathetic pleasure of getting lost in someone else's problems. Life is unpleasant enough already without second-guessing your own pleasure.
    
    To answer Ray's question, assessments of quality are just aggregations of individual taste over time. So when you discount your own taste in favor of the critical consensus, you're not only invalidating your own writing, you've invalidating the whole process.
    
    Your question comes up whenever THIS IS SPINAL TAP screens in town and I reread Dave Kehr's capsule, a mixed review noting that the movie's attitudes "are too narrow to nourish a feature-length film." Twenty years later, SPINAL TAP is pretty well acknowledged as one of the essential American comedies (even Anthony Lane could be found rhapsodizing on it in his review of FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION). I could replace Kehr's capsule if I wanted, but I enjoy his writing too much--it gives me pleasure.
    
    I guess that's another way of saying that I'm more interested in writing than in movies. I suppose if I were really interested in movies, I'd be out making one.
        
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          Posted by JRJ]]>
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    <pubDate>Sun, 07 Jan 2007 13:27:22 -0600</pubDate> 
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#967330]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[steevee@earthlink.net]]></author>
    <description>
      
      <![CDATA[Ray - Isn't that what the concept of "guilty pleasures" is about?
        
        <br />
        
          Posted by steevee@earthlink.net]]>
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    <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jan 2007 17:04:44 -0600</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#972520]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Ray Privett]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[JRJ - Your getting back to initial reactions is welcome.  But have you ever knowingly liked a bad film, or knowingly disliked a good film?  Can't taste be separated from the assessment of quality?
        
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          Posted by Ray Privett]]>
    </description>
    <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:05:07 -0600</pubDate> 
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#951290]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Andrew Tracy]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[I'm grateful for anybody who attempts to derail the PAN juggernaut - even Rosenbaum has sadly mouthed the groupthink and presskit-approved "fairy tale for grown ups" pull quote - but I'm not sure that vaunting HELLBOY is the way to go about it. From my blessedly dim memories, I recall Perlman looking fantastic in the puffy red suit and the movie itself being dreadful.
        
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          Posted by Andrew Tracy]]>
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    <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jan 2007 12:54:26 -0600</pubDate> 
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#970273]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[JRJ]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[The critical community, particularly fear of being laughed out of it, is as much an enemy of good writing as the studio publicity machines. Remember all the buzz about THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE? When it finally arrived, it turned out to be a dumb thesis film + Gretchen Moll's bod, and everyone pretended to be interested in the thesis.
    
    Choosing your favorite films should be easy--when you leave the theater delighted or saddened, that's a good film. Articulating that response is another matter, since the really great films touch some part of you that's beyond words.
        
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          Posted by JRJ]]>
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    <pubDate>Sat, 06 Jan 2007 09:37:44 -0600</pubDate> 
    <source url="http://www.chicagoreader.com">Chicago Reader</source>
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    <title><![CDATA[Re: In praise of Hellboy]]></title>
    
    
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2007/01/05/praise-hellboy/#954444]]></link>
    
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    <author><![CDATA[Noel Murray]]></author>
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      <![CDATA[Two points:
    
    1. TAXIDERMIA wasn't eligible for Indiewire's undistributed poll, because it actually has a distributor, Tartan, and it's due out in '07.
    
    2. Maybe the reason HELLBOY didn't make a lot of best-of lists wasn't because people didn't see it, but because they saw it and judged it for what it was: a well-designed-and-imagined action-adventure film without a lot of resonance. (You ask what's different about PAN'S LABYRINTH. It ain't the look. It's the *feeling*. And the meaning: A paean to the history-changing capabilities of the turly righteous.)
        
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          Posted by Noel Murray]]>
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    <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jan 2007 22:50:49 -0600</pubDate> 
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