Speaking of directors, I’ve been noticing those so called steady cam shots. What a joke! If you’ve seen the movies “Mission Impossible III” or “The Borne Supremacy” then you know what I’m taking about. Surely these young directors know a movie frame rate is thirty frames per second which is hard enough on the eyes. A constantly shaking film or TV show is even harder on them. That’s one reason why I can’t watch the TV show “Boston Legal”. The camera is shaking and it’s zooming in and out, in and out, in and out! What’s with that? For crying out loud, why don’t the directors stick to the basics! I wish they would bring back the dolly tracks and camera cranes? These new Hollywood directors handle cameras like a bunch of amateurs.

I grew up watching amazing Science Fiction movie and TV shows like the “Star Wars”, “Star Trek”, “Voyagers”, “Battlestar Galactic”, “Buck Rogers”, “The Twilight Zone”, “The Outer Limits”, “X-Men – The Animated Series”, and of course “Space: Above and Beyond”. I guess you could say that these movies and TV shows raised me since I was a child. If it wasn’t for these shows, I wouldn’t know what honor was. I wonder if the kids of today even know what honor is.

Unfortunately, the Science Fiction genre has taken a huge hit from a lack of imagination. I enjoyed and supported shows like “Firefly”, “Miracles”, and “Invasion”, they are exceptions, but they didn’t last very long. I guess knowing this makes me cherish them and “Space: Above and Beyond” even more. At least the fans have one season. It’s better than nothing.

Oh, I miss those days. Art has taken such a hit! TV has more commercials than ever and networks don't even grant time for an opening music theme. Remember the theme from “The A - Team”, “Battlestar Galactica”, “LA Law”, “Hillstreet Blues”, “Sea Quest”, “Scarecrow and Mrs. King”, “21 Jumpstreet”, and “Melrose Place”. Can you name one original theme from this decade? I can't. There's only a flash of the TV series title, which maybe lasts three seconds; then, a commercial airs. It won’t be long before the title flashes for a second or not at all.

If the public doesn't act, the entertainment industry will continue to take audiences nowhere. It seems like the present TV network managers are working for themselves. They do not seem to care about art, entertainment, or you and me.

Though the trickster in me wants to play Devil's Advocate here & there with what you said.

I have a friend who was so blown away when he saw Star Wars in 1977. He said he loved movies before but never knew just what they could do until he saw this. He said "I felt like I could go out in space."

I also know a lawyer who considers Anatomy of a Murder his favorite film. But Doctors get real picky watching doctor shows: "If I did that, he'd be dead."

But many people who choose professions often say they saw so & so act it out on some TV show and that's what made them want to go into that line of work. Though I'll never forget the jerk who came back from watching Wall Street and told me it would be cool to be an inside trader!

As for TV using the same plots and sets, that's how it works. I mean some shows over the years put money into production values. I Spy shot around the world. Route 66 shot around the country. Amazing Stories episodes had a $1 million dollar budget per episode. But spending the cash doesn't equal artistic results and some shows like sitcoms on a single set or two are often the greatest things TV ever produced.

Also, part of how TV works is the familiar. You tune in each week to see your friends, familiar characters living in the same sets, being who they are week after week.

Law & Order has been on so long that you just got worn out on it.

As for style, I'm with you & Camille Paglia that modern films have become too active: 30 cuts a minute like TV commercials only this is in 2 hour movies in a theater, constantly moving camera, etc. You need seasick pills just to get through one. However, there are examples of this kind of cinema going back to the silent era so it's nothing new, but for the most part a pre-Star Wars, pre-MTV video media was slower-paced, less camera movement, less cutting, just point & shoot & look. Dull by today's acellerated standards but at least you could tell what was going on in a movie.

As for moral concepts like personal honor, I'm sure they still find their way into modern media. I just saw The Devil Wears Prada where a yound woman is tempted by the glamour of her job to turn her back on her friends and lover, but Hollywood is still "old-fashioned" enough to let her see the error of her ways in the 3rd act rather than let her fall into the abyss.

That said, I don't like to prescribe codes of what media should do & not do. A critic like Michael Medved who critizes media for not being family values enough is a buttinski not a godsend. A number of politicians talk about making changes in Hollywood and they scare the crap out of me.

There was a topic about TV themes where I brought this point up. The TV theme is gone because of channel surfing and because the show wants to go straight to the teaser to hook the viewer before he moves on. No time for 30 seconds or a minute of credits & music today. You'd lose 10 million in advertising & 2 points in the Neilsen ratings. So the feeling you used to get of settling into your favorite show by seeing familiar credits and music, it belongs to the less competitive past I'm afraid.

In the topic about Zimmer calling film music shallow, Peter K mentioned another quote about today's culture being disposible. In a way, what matters to media makers is the now, the current films in the theater or just out on cable & DVD, the hit tunes on the radio, the TV shows on now. The past doesn't exist & only a few old-timer old fogeys like myself seem to feel nostalgic for it. This attitude doesn't completely condition youth, but many young people don't respond to older media because it isn't current and if it isn't current it just is dead & buried, not on anyone's lips. The fallout from this is a disposible culture. They make cars to rust out after so many years so you have to buy new ones. Well, everything is like that, movies, music, TV, relationships, everything. You enjoy it for a little while then it wears out and you discard it and move on to the next thing. Nothing is made to last. Subsequently, why put any effort into making things good and lasting if they go into the trash next week anyway?

So this is something those of us older folks who grew up in a less disposible culture feel pity about. We feel things were better made before. Of course, our parents thought the same too. Maybe it's just a feeling we get that the past is better than the present and its more feeling than fact. But before I say something like, there has always been good & bad in every period and things are no different today than they were before, I think a simple comparison shows things are in decline or atleast very different between now & then.