After soccer, Tim and I dropped by my workplace for water. I
promised to show him the gym. After he was duely
entertained by the machinery there, we went to the company
cafe to drink. There were no one around except for us. Tim
was bored. He turned on the TV.

On the screen, the crew of a new picture were giving
interviews, from the director and the actors all the way to
the archery coach and the make-up artists. The short
footages impressed us with grace and beauty and, as martial
arts were involved, heoric display of strength and bravery.

While Tim's eyes were glued to the scenes, I couldn't help
remembering the first two sentences of an article I used to
recite: "What characterizes almost all Hollywood pictures is
their inner emptiness.  This is compensated for by an outer
impressiveness." That was 20 years ago and I couldn't recite
it as well as I had.

I went back home and luckily found my 1985 2nd Edition "New
Concept English 4." The threads binding the spine of the
248-page book were giving out. But it was such a delight to
re-read that piece by Mr.  James T. Farrell: "Such
impressiveness usually takes the form of a truly grandiose
realism. Nothing is spared to make the setting, the
costumes, all of the surface details correct. These efforts
help to mask the essential emptiness of the
characterization, and the absurdities and trivialities of
the plots. The houses look like houses; the streets look
like streets; the people look and talk like people; but they
are empty of humanity, credibility, and motivation.  ... In
addition to the impressiveness of the settings, there is a
use of the camera which at times seems magical. But of what
human import is all this skill, all this effort, all this
energy in the production of effects, when the story, the
representation of life is hollow, stupid, banal, childish?"

I happened to own the 1997 new edition of the book too, where
this article was gone.