Round up the usual tripe - essay

According to the MSM there isn't much of importance going on. Just the horrors of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Things are always slow on the weekends. Here is an essay I wrote some time ago but I don't think it is dated.

I assume this must be the general directions nowadays for anyone making a movie either for the big screen or television. Are there any films made now that do not feature car crashes, explosions, gunfire, sex, brutality and violence? If so, they must be few and far between. What has brought on this situation? Has Hollywood become so creatively and morally bankrupt they can do nothing else? Or is it that they simply don't wish to do anything else. After all, I'm sure they will argue, this is what the American Public wants. Tripe, I say.
Obviously they make these dismal repetitive pieces of garbage because they can make them cheap and make a profit. And it's easy. Especially nowadays what with computers and all. It must be partly the computers that has brought on this spate of utterly mindless explosion driven films. After all, how could anyone have made "Independence Day" or "Twister" or "Jurassic Park" without them? Of course these are considered among the best of contemporary filmaking. Hardly any violence here. But how easy it has become to film spectacular explosions. Ah, technology. Tripe, nonetheless.
Of course there has always been a bit of violence in movies. Cowboys shooting at Indians and vice-versa. Detectives shooting at the bad guys. Even a car crash now and then or a ship sinking, or an airplane crashing. Even occasional explosions like in "The African Queen". Stuff like that. But nothing, absolutely nothing, like the levels of monotonous violence, explosions, shootings, beatings, rapes, car crashes and volcanic explosions that are commonplace today. It does sell. And apparently the more explosions the better. The people making (I can't bring myself to say, creating) this utterly mindless drivel go on reaping their millions making these "tongue in cheek" pieces of trash, picking the pockets and destroying the brains of American children, and arguing all the while there is no connection between what they do and what we see increasingly on the streets of our cities. Tripe.
I realize how "square" this is, but whatever happened to romantic comedy, musicals, comedies that were actually funny? Honest detectives? Real heroes? Patriotism? Apple Pie? Motherhood? Stories with a moral? Where have all these things gone? More importantly, where has creativity and talent gone? Where are the great character actors, the Lorres and Greenstreets and Tamirovs and Sakalls and Brennans and Newtons? Where are the Chaplins and the Laurel and Hardys and the Fields and the Keatons? Is it simply true that all original ideas have long ago been used up? Are there no original scripts? Is that why we're now seeing remakes of past successes like "Cyrano", "Au Cage a Feu," "The Return of Martin Guerre," "Cheaper by the Dozen," a "modern" version of "Romeo and Juliet," etc. Other than these, and a few others, why are we reduced to watching virtually nothing but tripe? But, then, when the measure of success becomes how much money a picture did at the box office that week, or how much an actor receives for each performance, what can we expect? Motion pictures an art form? Don't make me laugh. Television a powerful tool for the arts? Don't make me gag. Give me beefsteak. Roast Pork. Leg of Lamb. Fried chicken. Just don't give me any more tripe.
Oh, there are occasional movies that are quite good and free or relatively free of gratuitous violence. "Il Postino", for example. Or "The English Patient". But these are so rare as to be statistically unimportant. There are even some violent movies that are acceptable, like "The Godfather," for example. But in general, tripe, alas, is "where it's at".