I really don't get it. I go to movies all the time, but I'm nearly always going to one of the non-Hollywood theaters in the area. I read the Dallas Observer, and decide what looks good each week. I'm amazed and impressed that the Dallas are is blessed with two Angelikas, the Magnolia and the Inwood, plus sometimes they show good movies at the Highland Park Regent and elsewhere. I go during the day, so that I can afford it. It's one of my favorite things to do. I have few problems with the audiences, or commercials, and I almost never buy any snacks. Last year, I particularly liked Brick, Hard Candy, and The Fountain.

I have almost no interest in Hollywood movies. I'm 25. My parents are both pushing 60, and they see Hollywood movies fairly frequently, though they make a point of seeking out films with slightly older audiences.

Is Hollywood doing well, or isn't it? Why do I feel so frustrated, confused, and isolated? I remember that when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, I saw a lot of movies that I would shun now... or can we compare them? I saw Jurassic Park, and thought that it had a sense of humor that the book lacked. I saw Dumb and Dumber and Tommy Boy, those crappy Bruckheimer Batman movies, Mission Impossible, Independence Day (which makes me cringe now,) and so much more. At some point, though, something changed.

I saw Grosse Pointe Blank in the theater, and it remains one of my favorite films. It was smart and funny and weirdly touching, with genuinely meaningful action sequences. I saw the Big Lebowski in the theater and it changed my ideas about comedy. All the time, I also think I knew in the back of my mind that there was no reason to pay for knockoffs of Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark or Jaws or Die Hard, when the originals were readily available and quite good.

So if there are so many of us who hate the present state of affairs, why do I often find myself talking about movies that nobody else seems to notice? Are we really just superior to the unwashed masses? Is Hollywood headed for another great crash, and perhaps another 1970s-style revolution?

There are quite a few schools around the world that were founded centuries before this supposed invention of childhood as we know it today.

I also detect some creepy cultural relativism among the responders here. Why should anyone respect superstition, anywhere in the world?

Don't breed them if you can't feed them. Apparently, half of the pregnancies in this country are unintentional.

I like her already.

Other First World governments support AIDS prevention programs that don't make matters worse. Or at least they're not as blatantly destructive as the Bush Administration's initiatives.

"AIDS is killing the entire African nation [not "nation" as in a single country, obviously]/and a vaccine is supposedly under preparation/but these governments, they don't mind their procrastination/they say 'we'll kill them off, take their land, and go there for vacation.'" - Zack De La Rocha of Rage Against the Machine

Besides, for every dollar rich governemnts donate in so-called "aid," they take two due to unfair trade.

I find all the asterisks rather funny. If you type "fuck," or "cunt," or "whore," [somebody edited that one earlier,] nothing bad will happen. There's no such thing as profanity.

According to the statistics I found, China's population is projected to stabilize around the middle of this century. That's also the time that the world's population is projected to peak and then start to shrink. Over the years, all these projections have underestimated the decline in birth rates. In other words, it seems likely that the peak, in both China and the world, will occur even sooner.

Why would science not exist without superstition? What's so hard about supposedly-common sense?