What's happening is not the end of everything, it's the end of a form of "adolescent capitalism" that was born out of a vast inheritance we stole from its inhabitants and bilked for all it was worth. Americans had it all fall into their laps, and the best of the competition (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan) squandered much of what they had in fratricidal wars that left America virtually unscathed.

We had it all, and we ran through it in two-plus generations of getting and spending. We reached a point where we consumed much more than we produced and leveraged our asses off. Massive investments in things that kill other people, and the inability fo the rest of the world to figure out how to ween themselves from the copious dollars Uncle Sam distributes willy-nilly may buy us some time to weather the cape and learn to live within our means. But that will take a lot of guts and an ability for us to walk away from the adolescent economy we built in the 20th century. I'm not expecting it all to turn out well.

and the ones you like best. I would never miss an opportunity to watch Spartacus, A Bridge Too Far, Forbidden Planet, Godzilla (1956), or The Magnificent Seven. I really like those films, but they are not great films. The best overall films I've seen are, in no particular order:

Citizen Kane (and yes, I really like it)

Lawrence of Arabia

8 1/2

The Grand Illusion

Double Indemnity

Duck Soup

Blazing Saddles

Network

Wild Strawberries

The Seventh Seal

2001

The Long Day Closes

The Last Wave

Barry Lyndon

I feel that Reservoir Dogs is a ripoff of Kubrick's The Killing, and The Killing is better. Honorable mention goes to Paths of Glory, Ikiru, The Sand Pebbles (totally overlooked excellent film), Kind Hearts and Coronets, I'm All Right Jack, Dr. Stangelove, Persona, Smiles of a Summer Night, Orlando, and Parsifal.

I can testify that I have seen these films, and am not adding any to look smarter or "better read" than I am (which I think plenty of cinephiles do).

I always find that falling back on "subjectivity" as the reason for something gives away the farm and begs too many questions. How much I enjoy watching a film is a subjective judgment call. However, if I have any brains and integrity I should be able to make a cogent argument for way a movie is great or not so great, or for that matter lousy. If you check my list, I too am a big fan of Ikiru and Dr. Strangelove and Paths of Glory. Is this an accident of our subjectivities, or a possible indication that these movies are superior? I think the latter. What we all, I hope, want to get away from is the infantile notion (made sacrosanct by Kael) that our gut reactions to things are a good measure of their worth as art. I love Caddyshack, but I'd be a fool to think it is a great film.

I think we can only understand this crap in terms of a power elite that really does fear and hate the outside world and see foreigners as a bunch of jackels about to pounce on our throats. It may be pure projection on the elite's part, but they are scared shitless of minor league players like al Qaeda and North Korea and Iran and can see no reason why "the gloves should not come off" and that "we need to break a few eggs to make an omlette" and "it's a dangerous world out there" and every other idiot Tom Clancy cliche you care to dredge up. They want their asses protected at any cost to law and humanity, and that's a shameless and gutless position they should and must be explicitly attacked on.

We've got to attack these asses and expose them for the cowards and moral cretins they are. Their worldview has to be assailed, not each and every individual act of bad faith or unreason that they utter or commit (as important as documenting these individual cases is). We'vew got to project a vision of America that makes these people look as small and frightened as they are. This is the challenge.

plenty of people around the world would have every right to shoot Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Rumsfeld, and a whole load of other Americans who have killed more people in the last decade or so than al Qaeda ever will. Should the families of people whose relatives were bombed at Afghani weddings or tortured in CIA secret prisons have the right to set off bombs here in the US to take out the men who kidnapped them, or dropped those bombs, or ordered them dropped? And how many collateral casualties are they entitled to inflict?

If the basic moral injunction against murder, the pre-meditated killing of another outside of law and justice, is lost on you then you are so lost that I can't help you.

We are not talking here about executing people who have been found guilty of a crime. We are talking about murdering people on a whim and saying fuck-all to the collateral killings and injuries that go along with setting up individuals as judge, jury, and executioner. If you can find these people and murder them, you can find these people, grab them, and bring them in for trial and execution of sentence. But that would be the action of a nation of laws that stood for something, not an exercise in revenge and getting ones vicarious rocks off by a bunch of biggots swimming in blood lust.