Letters to the Editor
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Say what?
As movies have gotten more sophisticated...
Have they? Which ones are you referring to, Ms. Zacharek? SAW III? HOSTEL? THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2?
Or perhaps you're thinking of such high-minded fare as ARE WE DONE YET? and BLADES OF GLORY.
I'm not sure there's ever been a period in the history of movies that's turned out more mindless claptrap than the one we're currently enduring. That sort of self-congratulatory view of the past -- "We've evolved so far beyond those dim bulbs of decades past. How quaint their entertainments were!" -- is revisionist at best.
Cinematic gold and dross -- and everything in between -- have always coexisted. The truly low-end pictures today go directly to video rather than to 42nd Street, but little else has changed -- certainly not the overall quality of motion pictures.