You Don't Say

Sometimes I wonder if polls are just an easy way to write a news story.
For example...

Most Americans think movie stars are poor role models and almost half say movies generally aren't as good as they used to be, an AP-AOL poll found.

Australian star Russell Crowe's recent arrest for throwing a phone at a hotel employee is the latest in a long line of unflattering incidents involving major movie stars. Christian Slater faces charges he grabbed a woman's buttocks in a New York City grocery; Winona Ryder was convicted of shoplifting in 2002; and Hugh Grant was caught in a car with a prostitute in the mid-1990s.

Those occurrences, combined with most Americans' preference for watching movies at home, suggest the industry faces challenges if it is to reverse a recent drop in attendance at movie theaters.

Movie stars don't set a good example, said Earl Ledbetter, a movie fan who lives in Ventura, Calif.

"They just don't have the morals," he said. "They marry and divorce, sleep around a lot."

Really?

Because when I'm looking for someone to lead by example, I want the person whose greatest talent in life is doing and saying what someone else says.

And you didn't need a poll to prove that contemporary movies suck. I understand that are probably a limited number of stories about the human condition, but that doesn't excuse such cinema as "Starsky & Hutch", another Batman and a Dukes of Hazzard movie.

Give us new characters! Not the same tired ones.

F*ck. There's even a new Willy Wonka coming out. Yawn.

Posted by AlexC at June 16, 2005 9:00 PM