I just saw Phone Booth, the delayed Joel Schumacher psychothriller. Fun movie, by turns clever and tense. Well paced, too. I don't much care for Colin Farrell, but Kiefer Sutherland is great and Forest Whitaker does just fine.

I continue to be disturbed by being entertained by depravity. "Psycho with a sniper rifle threatens people on a street in Manhattan" - bring on the popcorn!

I keep coming back to something from The Republic, section 377b:

And shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?
Plato identifies stories as having great power in the moral upbringing of children and argues for strong censorship of arts. I have problems with the larger argument (particularly its basis in a criticism of fiction), but I continue to consider the moral effect of modern entertainment on our society.
culturemovies
  2003-04-06 23:15 Z