Movies. Bah! They’re just millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of special effects and high-speed chases … and boobs, yes.  We can’t forget the boobs. And television! Television, long referred to as a public wasteland, has earned that nickname in the last several years.  And then there’s the internet.  If TV is a wasteland, the ‘net is a series of tubes filled with toxic waste, covered in liver and onions.  And as disgusting as it all is, I love it.

Maybe it’s because I’m a sign of my own times, a living zeitgeist of the 2000s (or the twenty-aughts, as I like to call them).  I celebrate my own depravity by engaging in the depravity of others.  Who else watches Jerry Springer, feeling a little better about his life after watching Uncle Chuck revel in his incestuous love of his niece and their beloved, three-eared cousin-daughter?  Or laughs as perfectly rational human beings go mental over simulated danger in a controlled environment that people refer to as “reality” television?  I do so adore it, though.  And scripted television – the sitcoms, the action-dramas, everything – is basically recycling premises we first were exposed to by The Honeymooners and Barney Miller.  Oh, and Magnum, P.I.  We must never forget Tom Selleck. NEVER.

The degenerate wretchedness in which the world finds itself is, with a few exceptions, a reflection of our deepest wish of what we want to see our neighbors go through.  Personally, I am glad to be a part of it.  Yes, it lets me feel that maybe I’m not the worst that humanity has to offer, so I don’t have to try as hard to live up to any ideal.  It may just be me giving an excuse as to why I haven’t achieved my decades-long ambition and lured Alyssa Milano into my arms yet, but mostly I think I just miss the good ol’ days of white knights (no racial undertone is meant) like the Lone Ranger and Sheriff Matt Dillon (not the guy that starred in There’s Something About Mary and Drugstore Cowboy).

Oddly enough, if you look at the summer’s movies, the closest characters to that paragon of Tinseltown virtue come from the pages of what my grandmother referred to as “funny books.”  Hellboy, Batman, even the recovering-alcoholic womanizer, Iron Man: they all have a moral principle they refuse to defy.  Sure, for each, it took a big impact on his life to choose that path.  For one, it was seeing his work used to destroy the innocent and almost himself.  For another, the loss of his parents to a cowardly and superstitious lot of criminals. For the last, it was being born looking like a big, red demon.  I’ll let you figure out which is which.

I guess I’m holding out for a hero.

Movies are the best form of entertainment for America.  Sure, a lot of people enjoy the snobbishness of live theatre.  As a matter of fact, it is the only remaining realm for which they award Tonys. The movie is the quickest and most pervasive shared experience we have now as far as entertainment goes.  Yes, big news stories can unite us, but most of those are real events. When it comes to made-up stuff, nothing gets people together, talking around the water cooler, chatting in the backyard, like a motion picture.  Hell, even bad motion pictures do it, as sometimes it’s even more gratifying to ridicule actors and directors and rail against how they made you waste your money.

Do me a favor.  I know some of you have been to a midnight showing at one of our local cinema establishments.  Whenever I go to one that’s close to the new mall and has a four-letter name, there’s usually a guy that makes an announcement or two.  Usually, those are something along the lines of “put away your cell phone,” “thank you for coming,” or “a good horse is like a member of the family.”  Well, he knows that everyone there has an investment in seeing this movie.

What you should do after a crowded movie-watching event (it doesn’t necessarily have to be a midnight showing, but that would work great) is gather everyone on the steps and talk about the movie.  Encourage everyone to write the studio with a review.  Better yet, bring your digital camera to record the discussion and put it on YouTube.  Even better, use that camera to record the movie so I don’t have to waste $8 going out to see every movie at midnight.  I can wait until 3 a.m., when you put it on the internet.  Thanks!

That’s all until next month, when fall sets in full force.  Faux has gotta go!