They filmed part of Battle: Los Angeles in Baton Rouge (thanks to the ridiculous tax breaks the Louisiana establishment gives the film industry the state loses money and gains only low-paying jobs). Roger Ebert disposes of its aesthetic merits in his lede:
"Battle: Los Angeles" is noisy, violent, ugly and stupid. Its manufacture is a reflection of appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don't even try to make it more than senseless chaos.
But what's more interesting is the Hollywood / Pentagon connection. And that on two levels, before we even get into the Military-Nintendo Complex.
There's the overt propaganda level of relentlessly portraying the US military as the good guys, something examined in the documentaries linked above. There we have consciously registered images, plus whatever conscious emotions you might be in touch with.
But the other on the political physiology level. I'm speculating that the assault on the endocrine system by the fast cuts, loud explosions, and chaotic editing Ebert complains about on the aesthetic level also produce a sort of numbing effect after a while. Associating this numbing (pleasurable after the everyday tension of life in neoliberal insecurity) with the US military leads one to associate them with being saviors at a deeper level than consciously registered images, as in the traditional propaganda movie.
If readers can point me to studies of the subpersonal neuro-endocrine effects of these kinds of movies, I'd be very grateful for the leads.
UPDATE: M 14 March 9:37 am CDT: Andrew Culp reminds me of the work of James Der Derian in this respect.
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