Steve Green on Hollywood's dearth of heroes:

Shakespeare's tragedies still resonate all these centuries later because in the stories he told, the world was just – it was people who were flawed.

Most of Hollywood's tragedies can't sell tickets even on opening weekend because in the stories they tell, the people are still flawed – but only because the entire world is crap, too.

Shakespeare taught us that the wicked would get their just desserts. Hollywood wants us to think that we're all wicked, and deserve whatever we get.

Considering the state of the world – and considering many people now have big TVs and DVD libraries chock full of genuine heroes and heartfelt tragedy – it would be nice to be reminded now and again with new movies that we aren't all doomed. It would be nicer still to be reminded that even if we are doomed, maybe we don't deserve to be.

Tammy Bruce on Hollywood nihilism:

Hollywood honchos continue to wring their hands over why you've stopped going to the movies. They blame ticket prices and DVD availability. They had better start considering the fact that filmmakers are so disconnected, so nihilistic, that the hopelessness and hostility they feel toward the world now permeates their work. Americans will no longer go see movies which are nothing more than the manifestation of the backwash of malignant narcissists. We're also sick and tired of listening to actors lecture us about how awful the US is, and more recently, why a cold-blooded mass murdering gang founder should have been given clemency. Enough is enough.

Not only will we not go see films which insult us, we refuse to support an existential worldview. We happen to think life does matters, that decency is a good thing, and that people are inherently good, not bad. We also have stopped believing the lie that Americans are bad people. We looked away for 4 decades as that lie was spread, but that time is over.

So you can take your gay sheepherder, noble communist supporting reporters, big-business is evil, Americans are hopelessly and inherently corrupt and violent and unfaithful movies and go to Cannes where at least the Parisian set will love you. But that won't exactly pay the
bills, will it?

James Lileks' tongue-in-cheek look at the summer movie season:

Ticket sales are way down, and Hollywood wallows in self-pity, wondering what America really wants. The studios collect a stack of comment cards nine miles high that show Americans are craving
movies about NASCAR racers who join the Marines, go to Iraq, and kill terrorists with martial arts kicks. The comment cards also indicate that most Americans have no idea where the accent falls on “Affleck.” With all of this in mind, astute producers greenlight a picture about how Edward R. Murrow valiantly kept Joe McCarthy from introducing the Patriot Act. Quentin Tarantino starts another film where some guys, okay?, hip guys in black suits, dig? (who turn out to be neo-Nazi, Christian, Canadian separatists) fly planes into public schools. The
cockpit-encounter dialogue is killer. Why do they call it a cockpit, man? You don’t think that’s gay? You think the whole shape of the plane is an accident? It’s all just suppressed homoeroticism, man. In the climax, the bad guys will ram their Boeing into a school that refuses to teach Intelligent Design.

Finally, some guy in TCS Daily:

The lack of positive Hollywood films to commemorate the bravery displayed on 9/11 by firemen and rescue workers, the passengers of Flight #93, as well as American soldiers who have fought to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq has been startling.

How much do you have to beat Hollywood over the head before they begin to understand how disconnected they are from their audiences?

This exchange was at the end of a slugfest of an interview between Hugh Hewitt and the L.A. Times' Michael Hiltzik:

HH: If you think the L.A. Times is healthy, and you don't know why it isn't, I can't help you. I really can't. You cannot heal what you cannot get...

MH: Well, luckily, I don't think we're not turning to you for our help.

HH: What was that?

MH: I said luckily, we're not turning to you for our help.

HH: Or to people who listen to me for subscriptions, right?

MH: Well, I guess not.

HH: All right. That's what I thought.

MH: All right.

HH: Michael, thank you for that last, late-arriving, but nevertheless much welcome burst of candor. If you're listening, the L.A. Times does not want you to subscribe.

Seems fair--that's also the attitude that L.A.'s chief export takes with its Red State consumers.

Update: Holy cowboy! Malcolm Muggeridge, call your office: it's the flyover-country friendly family values ad for Brokeback Mountain!