by Ann Donahue:
On Friday, the megawatt-star-powered “Lions for Lambs” opens. Will it be the one to break the box office curse and give credence to early Oscar buzz? “If Robert Redford, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep can’t get it over $100 million, I don’t know what can,” Hartigan said. But reports that the film is too preachy could sink its chances. “Americans are extremely unhappy about this war…you’ve got to be awfully clever to get them to buy it as entertainment,” Thomson said.
And therein lies Hollywood’s debasement. Such “awful cleverness” doesn’t deserve to work. People don’t see the war as entertainment, of course, thus they don’t want to be clevered awfully into having it turned into entertainment. Most people’s view is partisan, and rightly so, thus it follows that they would respond to partisan movies, even polemic movies, not entertainments. But “entertainment” is about all that corporate dollars are willing to fund, advertise, allow. The corporate censorship of and over American culture continues.
A Practical Policy 