I have never been overly optimistic, but I am becoming ever more pessimistic about the future of the movie business. With such gripping stories as Constantine and Kingdom of Heaven gracing the big screen at Carnegie Mellon, I am tempted more than ever to gouge my eyes out to keep from seeing the flickering lights of the movie screen ever again. 

Seriously, what has become of the movie industry? Why is it that while an occasional movie will be provocative or intensely amusing, most just burn up like some poor demon in Constantine? How is it possible that with all the money being spent of movies, they are not getting better? 

For example, what are screenwriters paid for? The average movie would be just as good if it lost the dialogue but kept the images and the music. When Orlando Bloom responds to, "Does knighting a man make him a better fighter?" with a dramatic pause and then, "Yes," you know it is time to hit the mute button and just watch Jerusalem get beaten on by trebuchets in silence.  What a great idea, kind of like a silent movie. With all the remakes these days, it is a wonder they have not made one in the past couple years. But more on that later.

Interestingly, while movies are declining in quality, they are also becoming much more blatantly propagandistic. Take the example of Constantine. If you have not seen it, please avoid doing so. In addition to missing another breathtakingly poor performance by Keanu "I know kung-fu" Reeves, you are missing an excellent rationale for stopping further immigration of Mexicans into the United States. The movie's plot consists mainly of how a Mexican guy finds some Nazi/Devil spearhead and heads into the U.S. to bring about the end of the world. Along the way, he hops a border fence and kills all the cattle around him and a white man. Oh, did I mention that because of this illegal immigrant, the Apocalypse almost came about? Yep, it is a great day in Hollywood when xenophobic ideas like that are aired in the movies. 

On the other end of the philosophical spectrum, there's the classic Disney-style movie in which a kid lives in a lousy world but dreams about being a singer/athlete/actor. The latest example of this kind of movie is Cinderella Man. In this movie, the main character is a down-on-his-luck boxer who has been laid low by the Great Depression. Along his journey, he meets up with a friend who is quite frustrated by the fact that the rich men are eating caviar and sipping champagne while he and the rest of the poor are starving. Of course, the main character tells him that things will get better and that if they only hold on a little longer, things will be all right. Sadly, the activist fellow does not listen and ends up getting killed by the police for trying to organize workers. What about the main character? He gets all the material goods he could possibly want. So what is the moral? Go ahead and reach for your dreams as long as they do not require the rich and powerful to sacrifice any of their riches and power.  

Or perhaps Unleashed is more your style of film. That in itself is almost impossible as it is a poorly meshed blend of drama and hardcore violence. Imagine going from watching brutal killing to watching a teenage girl play Beethoven on a piano in the span of seconds, because that's what you see in Unleashed. But Unleashed is more than just another Jet Li movie devoted to the glorification of violence (which I always enjoy a lot), it is also a provocative look at the soul of a killer. You would probably assume that it is twisted beyond love itself, but in fact, the tenderness of a blind man and his 17-year-old daughter are enough to show that even the most hardened killer has a tender side. Some further extrapolation leads us to the conclusion that there is also a sadistic mass murderer in all of us just waiting to be let out. 

In addition to the poor dialogue, mind-numbing propaganda, and rotten morals coming from the everyday movie, the movie industry is running out of ideas. Not just running out of good ideas, but ideas in general. This summer it seemed like we had been transported back to the 1970s. Apparently the Monkey Typewriters Union had a strike, and humanity was forced to see The Dukes of Hazard and Bewitched roam the earth again like some exhumed corpse. 

But perhaps this trend towards reusing ideas is better than the alternative of coming up with new, crappy ones. Consider the case of Snakes on a Plane which is set to come out in 2006. You will never guess what the plot is. Nope, I was wrong, you did guess it. An assassin lets a crate full of deadly snakes loose on a plane while it is in the air. What an absolutely worthless idea. 

You know what; I hope Hollywood sticks to repeats because with genius like the above idea, I worry for society. You would think that since America has supposedly entered into an age when the 'Creative Class' runs the U.S., we would be able to have some creative movies. What am I saying? I would settle for a decent one.

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