That’s not true, of course; this country produces a few great movies. For instance, recently I praised the films Waitress and Stardust. And my wife and I watched Enchanted on DVD a couple of days ago and loved it. It’s the story of a cartoon princess who falls into the real world and has to cope with New York while she waits for her prince to rescue her. It’s Disney winking; what is superficially self-parody is actually a defense of fairy tales.
We also watched No Country for Old Men. Yes, the acting is great, though I thought Tommy Lee Jones’s performance was the more memorable one. Artistically the film is amazing. But the story is terrible. The theme, if there is one, is that there are vicious, brutal people in the world who do vicious, brutal things — and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. Yet that’s one of the movies that got the Oscar attention. I guess it’s just not culturally sophisticated to praise movies with a decent theme or a bright spirit.
I’ll take the fairy tales.