tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3301183716564462573.post6441633173947135867..comments2023-10-30T09:50:01.436-07:00Comments on The World of Edgar Allan Poe: Is the "Mysterious Star" Fading?Undinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16214242522330278662noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3301183716564462573.post-81354889033584614302014-05-09T11:22:47.151-07:002014-05-09T11:22:47.151-07:00Barra's essay is a piece of shit. Ironically,...Barra's essay is a piece of shit. Ironically, Barra is a worshipful disciple of Pauline Kael, one of those Kael fans who thinks Kael could think and do no wrong. He even claimed in a Kael puff piece that Kael was the only film critic who ever mattered. That in itself is a contradiction, because Kael's most noteworthy characteristic was her defense of "genre," her belief that genre pictures could be great works of art and it was sheer snobbery to assume they couldn't be. Just look at her championing of Sam Peckinpah or Brian De Palma. That Barra can dismiss Poe merely because his fiction was genre fiction, while simultaneously elevating Kael to the pantheon of supreme arts critics, proves beyond doubt that his thinking about aesthetics is incoherent and self-contradictory. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com