A ‘Wonderful Life’
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Contrary to the pontifications of your writers, critics who refuse to go gaga over that leaden hunk of whimsy “It’s a Wonderful Life” are not afraid of their emotions.
Rather, they refuse to be seduced by Capra’s cheap sentimentality. Like the Christmas Muzak that bombards us everywhere we go, this holiday “classic” constantly assaults us with its trite characterizations, facile solutions and total lack of soul.
Since it was a commercial flop on its initial theatrical release, I can only assume that generations of couch potatoes, defeated in their own lives, are desperate to buy into the plastic lie of the self-sacrificing “little” man.
Someone who panders so shamelessly to the lowest emotional common denominator can never be a true artist.
DAN O’NEILL
Los Angeles
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