Jonathan Taylor writes:

Someone's probably written about this already, but, my sometimes ingenious search skills haven't managed to draw it out.

Tyler Cowen linked to a post by James Somers from about a year ago, about the skillful deployment of the phrase "It turns out...." He says it can have the magical effect of convincing even alert readers, in the absence of evidence, of a proposal "in large part because they come to associate it with that feeling of the author's own dispassionate surprise."

This reminded me of an observation—not exactly related and not nearly so incisive—that I've long made about the use of the word "apparently," by people relating information recently gleaned (continued)

Jonathan Taylor writes:

I normally avoid the cross fire of film criticism, but must quickly second Wolcott's estimation of the "stupendous" post at The Sheila Variations about Michael Tolkin's 1991 film The Rapture, illustrated with a stunning parade of the faces of Mimi Rogers; as many times as I've seen this film, I was too often too focused on what Tolkin was up to, to realize how much Rogers was doing.

I'd even quibble with Sheila's assessment of the girl who plays Rogers's daughter—or at least of the hair-raising effect of her whiny plea, "Why can't we die now, mommy?" (Just see it. Ditto re: "the pearl.")

I think Gary Indiana somewhere described Tolkin's films as "period movies about the present." That present still remains ours enough to still feel this effect, even as it is now enough the past, to add another layer of significance. (continued)

JK [Jeremiah Kipp]: You’ve frequently cited Pauline Kael as a major influence.
CT [Charles Taylor]: I got a paperback copy of “Deeper Into Movies” by Pauline Kael when I was in eighth grade. That was a major influence. I still think she’s the best film critic that is ever going to be. She was the best influence and the biggest influence. It was about trusting your instincts, which always the line about her. This is what I loved. This is why all of the “I Was a Former Paulette” articles I’ve read are all, to a one, simply wrong on the facts. I had countless disagreements with her, even arguments. I was never excommunicated. Some of the critics she liked were people she didn’t agree with. She wanted people to be honest. Art should be pleasure, not work. You have to bring your life experience to it, your experience of the other arts to it, you have to be well read, and no one should tell you what you have to like or what you should be interested in. The job of the critic is to help you formulate your own thoughts. Articulate them. Not to tell you what to think, but to get you to think. There was a freedom in her.