New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (8 page)

Not Another Teen Movie

 

NEW RULE

 

S
omebody make a movie I want to go see. If you’re asking why movies have gotten so bad, I’ll tell you why: It’s because Hollywood studios now get 60 percent of their money from DVDs, all of which are bought by the young, dumb male demographic, the same one that’s given us Maxim magazine, attention deficit disorder, and George Bush.

When I was a teenager, Hollywood didn’t give a damn about me—and that was good! Good for the movies and good for me because I was challenged—to smarten up instead of dumbing down. Besides ruining movies, we’ve also managed to ruin our kids by making everything be about them. And now if I want to see a movie, I had better like loud noises, things blowing up, and Colin Farrell.

Movies suck because Hollywood has figured out that Mom and Dad don’t spend their money on movies anymore; they give their money to their kids and
they
spend it on movies—to break up their shopping sprees at the mall. It’s like American parents are on one long date with their kids—no, it’s even worse; it’s like Robert DeNiro in
Casino,
helplessly trying to buy the love of a shopaholic hooker with no heart, played, of course, by Sharon Stone.

Before I die, could someone please make one more movie I want to go see? I’m not asking for the moon here, and I’m not some film snob with a ponytail who only likes subtitled Albanian documentaries. But to middle-aged people like me, a good movie is like good sex—you don’t have to put one out every day, but when whole seasons go by without getting one, you do start to get a little horny for entertainment.