Sounds Like a Bomb

I was looking forward to the Interpreter, but this review makes it sound pretty horrible.

I have a prediction - Hollywood will swing right - not Christian right, but Goldwater right in the next 10-15 years.

The generation of Leftist directors, Pollack, Nichols, there must be others...are passe. They are old. During Vietnam and Watergate, they had the moral edge, the courage to make bold movies with Points of View. Now, they make confusing films that aspire to be ambiguous and "grey." The movies that sell - F 9/11, Passion of the Christ are not grey at all - they come from a very specific moral point of view. It's not that people want to see films that are politically one way or the other, I saw both Passion and F 9/11, didn't even like either one very much. BUT, what they did have going for them was a fearlessness by both directors to tell a specific story in their own voice. These other films are attempting to appeal to everyone, and end up appealing to no one. These guys have the skills, but not the backbone.

Hollywood was born of conservative masculine American values, John Ford, John Wayne, Howard Hawks. These are the filmmakers that the world loved. Hollywood turned left only after the McCarthy hearings, feeling betrayed by the government - this was reinforced through Vietnam and Watergate. But the some of the newer, more interesting filmmakers, Trey Parker/Matt Stone, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Vincent Gallo, have a right wing feel to their films. We will see hardcore Leftist movies like the Day After Tomorrow and F 9/11, and these will have an audience, but they are relying on their political voice and not their creative voice to propel the stories...and in the world of Vincent Gallo, "they are chasing after ghosts."

The right wing shift will not be pre-planned by the producers or studios, but will be because of market forces. America is more right wing after 9/11. We re-understand black and white, right and wrong, in a new way. We are not the morally grey or morally relative country that supports giving Yasir Arafat the nobel peace prize. We want sharpness, boldness, fearless creativity. We want films with heart and with balls. These films will not come from the John Kerry Left. They will come from the Goldwater right - there are already examples - Million Dollar Baby, Collateral of last year. Black Hawk Down, South Park, Fight Club of years before...