History can be defined as the continuum of triumphs and tragedies over time. These triumphs include the bold and wonderful creation of film.

The American Film Industry is regarded by many to be the best in the world. Why else would Raiders of the Lost Ark have been translated into dozens of languages worldwide? However, over the past few decades the industry has eroded into the filth we observe today. From this filth comes movies such as The Dark Knight and any number of the repulsing “horror films” to which we have grown accustomed. ‘Why?’ one might ask himself. The answer is a long one and can not be fully dissected within this column; however, the explanation can be simplified to: low quality writing, poor directing, boring dialogue, and idiot prima donna actors whom our culture worships profusely. These all culminate into the state we see our film industry today.

What happened to the Rod Serlings? The Steven Spielbergs? The Martin Scorseses? They are either dead due to destructive habits or no longer producing movies. But the fact remains, our beloved American movie media has declined. No longer is a horror movie built around the mind games that the movie plays with its audience leading them to anxious, legitimate fear. In this era the “horror” movies  are filled with brief, gross, immature images meant to shock the audience into disgust. Action movies have departed from a focus on dialogue, story and quality scripting to the present day special-effect-driven monstrosities that show all kindsof quick-paced, seemingly magical explosions resulting in no benefit for anyone, least of all for the audience that suffers a sharp drop in its collective IQ—without insulting the beloved Dark Knight, of course.

When given the unique opportunity such as the one The Review has given me, I write columns as to dissect and distill  modern movies, mainly so that you as the reader know which ones you should see or those you should blindly ridicule without seeing. The American movie industry is dying. Will you help to save it? Or will you just spend $10 to see the newest, greatest, poorly conceived action movie?

–John Ready

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If there was only one injustice in the world that you could eliminate, what would it be and why?

–Nathan Peereboom

“Injustice can be eliminated, but human conflicts and natural limitations cannot be removed. The conflicts of social life and the limitations of nature cannot be controlled or transcended. They can, however, be endured and survived. It is possible for there to be a dance with life, a creative response to its intrinsic limits and challenges … [A Feminist Ethic of Risk]”

–Dr. Sharon Welch, Associate Professor of Theology and Applied Theology, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Author of Communities of Resistance and Solidarity.

RE:

If I could only eliminate one injustice it would be the flawed egocentric structure of the mind. The Greek philosopher Protagoras, (praised by Plato as a ‘teacher of virtue’) famously exclaimed that “Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not”. That is, man is the standard of all things, even of man himself. One measures another man in relation to another. Because of this, life must exploit itself in order to continue. The tall man is so in relation to the short man. The rich man is so in relation to the poor man. This causes the best consolation of your fellow man to be the reality of those in a plight far worse. ‘Oh, you don’t have X? Well at least you aren’t a starving African living in the Republic of Liberia.’

This applies anywhere from Wall Street to the jungle. A panther must kill just as a man must exploit his own kind. The former case is propelled by a means for survival, and the latter, by unfettered greed and insatiable ambition as a means of alleviating the boredom of life. I would not eliminate life itself, as such a wish is an endeavor of folly, but I would eliminate the design of it, being an injustice unto itself.

–Blake Thomas