The movie industry is a wooly mammoth, waist deep in a tar pit. It's basically dead, it just doesn't know it yet.

The only thing that can save movies is smaller budgets and a releasing schedule that looks beyond the first 48 hours at the box office. Nothing and no one can live up to those expectations on a regular basis; it is completely unfair to single out actresses as the problem. If you look at the box office receipts each week, one or two films grab 80 percent of all the bucks, everything else is born chin deep in the tar. That's not a good way to run a business.

Those high grossing movies shouldn't even be compared to hard hitting dramas with big names. The masses want movies the same way they will all line up for a McDonald's drive through. It's fast, easy to digest, and just as easy to forget. As much as people love fast food burgers we all know it isn't gourmet. Saw 4 has been one of the biggest money makers but critically it is a piece of blood and guts trash. Animated flicks for the whole family will almost always rake it in because it will be the 1 or 2 films at the box office that the whole family can see together.

The box-office top getters are devoid of big-name stars but they are also targeted at an audience ranging from preteens to young adults, who are the only one still going to the theater.

There's simply no incentive for older, time-deprived demographics to go to the theater. There are many other things to do. So movies targeted to those audiences are flopping at the box-office, no surprise.

People just wait for the DVD. And that natural tendency is much, much worsened by the relatively new habit studios have to release the movies on DVD and TV barely a few weeks after opening on screen so the DVD can also ride the coattails of the still-fresh promo tour.

So, why bother going to the theater? There's not even the penalty of missing the novelty and having to wait for a year or two. You miss it on screen? No problem, you'll get it at home a month later.

Hollywood and TV admits this. They can't tell a story because their audience can't follow it anymore. TV and movies have become background noise to doing something else. Evidence the almost complete preponderance of movies that take place in near total darkness and/or 100% handheld camera shots. Basically unwatchable but they're not intended to be watchable. And I bet if you plunk a 100 people ages 16-26 in front of a new movie and ask them 10 simple questions about the movie you just showed them, 90 of them couldn't answer more than 3 or 4 correctly.

And gave up.

Dear Joan Walsh and Stephanie Zacharek:

What is going on here? I have been a Salon regular for nearly 10 years now, and I don't understand what I am seeing.

Please disclose the deal that was made for these videos. Who directed them, and what is their purpose? Are you trying to serve an audience, or are you trying to serve advertisemers?

Stephanie: You are a writer and critic, are you not? A professional evaluator of art. What are your intentions while appearing in these videos? Self-promotion?

One thing that is not happening is this: The audience's mind is not being stimulated. I suspected it in earlier videos, but in this one it is clear -- there is a sell-out occurring here. I can't put my finger on it, but something is editorially wrong.

Having an art critic discuss matters of commerce and marketing is a degradation of the critic's purpose. Stephanie Zacharek, if we are to continue taking her seriously, should not be investing her performance as a critic in such matters as the horse race of (1) Who's gonna win an Oscar, an award that has a proven track record of not in any way measuring of artistic quality, or (2) Whose movie has the bigger box-office receipts.

Some of this problem might be mitigated if there were more substance and depth to the discussion in the videos. Instead they are these clipped, cutesified bites that barely even scratch the surface. Why do they exist? Are they "test runs" for more substantial output later on?

The format of the videos is such that they remind me of the little time-filler bits that are shown before an actual movie. Is that what they're designed for? Please -- make it clear to us what the intentions are.

I keep clicking on these videos hoping to see something that really challenges my mind, communicates compelling ideas, demonstrates some wit. Instead I have just enough time to be simultaneously fascinated and perplexed by Stephanie Zacharek's appearance and facial expressions.

This Stephanie's her haircut resembles a redheaded Bettie Page, and she seems to have been made-up by a professional (rather than the just-rolled-out-of-bed look that Joan Walsh occasionally sports....much more charmingly). Stephanie's expressions seem less and less genuine with each episode, ranging from "Aren't I just the cutest little movie-reviewing thing?" to "I just popped a handful of uppers!" That said, I think she's kind of weirdly hot, in a strangely mannered literary-chick kind of way (P.S. can I have your phone number?).

But what is going on with the discourse in these videos? The Jewish maybe-gay, maybe-not-gay kid with the Elvis Costello glasses is pitching these various "movie debate" topics, setting them up for Stephanie, and then she blurts out some sort of lovable yet brief wisdom rooted in the latest crop of movies.

Yet it's bullshit. I mean, "Can an actor still carry a movie?" That's such a bogus, fluff question. It's meaningless. Why are you playing into it, Stephanie? Why are you selling us this? It's not genuine. Aren't you a movie critic? You're not a marketing ploy. You're a writer. Why are you doing this? Who are you?

There is possibly a discussion to be had here, but not in 30 seconds, and not with the assumptions pre-loaded for a faux controversy based on silly parallels where you're trying to compare Joan Crawford to Nicole "forehead" Kidman. Was there really ever an actor who could "carry" a movie that didn't have a decent story? I mean, really? Is there really any debate here?

What is this crap?

Here's why I'd like to see: Instead of Stephanie Zacharek bobbing her head and giving pert little 15-second blips of info-taining opinion, how about making a real video where Zacharek and O'Hehir actually TALK and DISCUSS things for more than a minute-and-a-half? How about a five-minute conversation.....something with substance. You saw "My Dinner With Andre," didn't you Stephanie? A good converation is not boring. This -- this wafer-thing mini-snack thing you're doing -- IT is boring. It's a tease, a piss-off, a big Italian F-U to an audience that wants to see you kick ass, not kiss ass.

This video doesn't even have a beginning, a middle and an end. Its beginning has barely started before it's scooting itself toward the ending.

I want to see a critic get critical and really sift through the subject of film art. I don't want to see a critic talk about box-office numbers. Obviously the biggest box-office draws are going to be lowest-common-denominator, not-very-artful things. Why do you need to weigh in on this? Don't you care about film art, Stephanie?

I'm sorry.....I just keep waiting for something good, and instead each time it's: Wahp-wahhhh.