Desperate Times Call for Desperate Filmmaking

Are Times really as bad as we claim? Hollywood doesn't seem to think so. The gritty realness of the 70's has been replaced with dark comedies and depressing subject matter. When our children's children watch the films of the great recession era, they'll know we were bummed, but they won't have a clue as to why. Comic book flicks and stoner comedies fail to sum up the collective emotion of our nation the way "Mean Streets" or "Dog Day Afternoon" did in the 1970's. Ambiguous but well portrayed anti-heroes will never capture the human condition the way Travis Bickle or even Reg Dunlap did. Watching films from that era, you understand how people felt as the economy tanked, factories closed and the Bronx Burned. You get a sense of the uneasy feeling as progress turned to violent civil unrest. ...