Let's Go to the Movies!

I love them, don't you? Most of us have been watching movies since childhood. It seems to me that the premier product the United States exports are Hollywood movies. The steel industry has gone bust. People don't want to buy American clothes, furniture, steel, books, or cars, so movies are the thing.

The problem these days is that Hollywood hasn't been giving us the great movies of yesteryear. I think the last movie I saw that made any sort of lasting impression on me was THE GLADIATOR with Russell Crowe. Of course, he's in a new movie now, THE CONTENDER, and if we're lucky it will be worthwhile, too. But otherwise the movies have been lackluster, both in style and content lately. Have you noticed that or is it just me? Are the thousands of movies I've watched finally left me jaded and dissatisfied? That's always possible. I catch myself turning to the Turner Movie Classics channel on satellite TV instead of tuning into some new nimrod idiot teen movie showing on the movie channels. I don't know how many more semen-stiff-bangs on the dumb blonde scenes I can take anymore.

I used to like horror movies. I think that's because as a five-year-old I was taken to a theater to see a horror film and screamed until I had to be removed to the lobby. I just want to do it all over again--why not? Screaming and being terrified is sort of fun. But the horror movies today are either NOT scary or they're stupid. I don't want to name those not-scary-stupid ones, but you've seen them, I know you have, and did they impress you in any way? I didn't think so.

Maybe the state of the world has affected Hollywood to the point they just don't know what to film any longer. Do we film serious work and address some of the problems people face? Do we stick with comedy to lighten people's lives? They haven't a clue. If they try Serious, it's so sappy we hate it. If they do Comedy, we can't find anything to laugh at. So they've started doing some epic historical films and that suits me fine. Unless they make TROY and try to convince us Angelina Jolie is the mother of her young co-star. Oh come on, Hollywood, you can do better than that!

Still and all, movies, when they're good and Hollywood is on top of its game, are simply magical, able to transport us into other worlds (much like a good book--remember books, please, as most great movies come from great books). Movies give us respite and in a world half-mad, we always need that. Movies can reflect us, or at least someone we know, and help us understand the behavior of our fellows and madams. Movies can help us transcend into understandings we might not have reached without them. And, naturally, movies can entertain us, the way we love most to be entertained.

I'm still in Movies' corner. I cheer for the good ones and turn off and refuse to finish watching the bad ones. I don't care about the movies stars, who is divorcing whom, and who is in drug rehab, that sort of tabloid stuff. They're people. Let'em live. But I do love the movies, I do, I honestly do. Dark theaters with comfy seats, drive-inns (what few there are left) with night air blowing through the windows, dark living rooms while reclining on the sofa---these are some of my favorite places to be. Watching movies.