Personally, I think the most interesting Hollywood movies in terms of
social critique are classy B-graders - The Matrix, Total Recall, &c.
Possibly Minority Report, which I saw in bits on a 10 inch screen on
the plane, so can't really comment on. I can't bear Tom Cruise but
he might have been ok in this one. I think because it's SF they let
them have a bit of freedom (it's not real, guys, so it's ok).
Maybe you can put kid's movies there too. It's true of kid's
cartoons. Because they're not "important".
The thing with movies is, you can't forget how deeply controlled the
film industry is by the producers, who won't risk anything if they
think it will make the film controversial (look at the deal with The
Quiet American). It happens everywhere, but even with a relatively
uncompromising film like Three Kings, which I liked very much, the
Americans had to be the triumphant good guys in the end, putting a
bit of goo on the end of a movie which otherwise had none: you can't
tell me it's not because some producer said, hey guys, this is too
bleak, we gotta have a happy ending.... and the end of that sentence
is, you can't have any money to make the movie unless you do what we
say. The American film industry bears a huge responsibility for the
illusions of many Americans that nowhere else really exists, in its
rewriting of history, its dubbing out of accents not American, its
triumphalism, &c &c &c.
Best
A
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Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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