F/X Porn by David Foster

F/X Porn by David Foster Wallace is a quick but good read on how special effects blockbusters like T2 and Independence Day are like porno films:

“Just like hard-core cheapies, movies like ‘Terminator 2’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ aren’t really ‘movies’ in the standard sense at all. What they really are is half a dozen or so isolated, spectacular scenes — scenes comprising maybe twenty or thirty minutes of riveting, sensuous payoff — strung together via another sixty to ninety minutes of flat, dead, and often hilariously insipid narrative.”

No comment on Planet of the Apes other than: see above.