A Genuine Lack of Taste and Education

As Americans, we truly deserve our corrupt, incompetent leadership, and last I took note, it was, without a doubt, a sick joke. Funny, only if it weren't so much to our detriment. The same theorem is true for the movies. We, as Americans, deserve our movies, bankrupt of quality and easy to digest. So insatiable for cheap, empty entertainment, we can't help but consume. All those cut corners and empty calories. I blame great salesmanship, with which you knowingly put a shady committee in a position to spin crap into capital, and the quality education Americans in sum, particularly in the arts, sadly lack. Again, I will defer to the leaders we put into power under the exact same circumstances: Great salesmanship (Bush was sold as honest and trustworthy, don't forget. Talk about deadpan irony.), our sorely incomplete knowledge about the real issues (the authenticity of Barack Obama's blackness is not a real issue, people) and general lack of common sense. That's one angle.

Or ... is the movies now, as much as I loathe to suggest, a market that exploits the American teenager, a favorite demographic bloc with extremely low standards and discretionary income?

Either way, the multiplex trough brims with sloppy standards because, as Americans, we spend more on sloppy standards. Yes, the world in sum consumes a lot of the waste, but we, in Hollywood, produce it. As evidence (below), the last six No. 1 debuts (in no particular order) in the United States.

"Wild Hogs"
$38 million opening
Metacritic Average: 27 out of 100 (Unfavorable)
Yahoo! Movies Average: D+

"Stomp the Yard"
$21.8 million opening
$60.6 million in total receipts
Metacritic Average: 44 out of 100 (Mixed)
Yahoo! Movies Average: C+

"Epic Movie"
$18.6 million opening
$39 million in total receipts
Metacritic Average: 17 out of 100 (Unfavorable)
Yahoo! Movies Average: D+

"Norbit"
$34.1 million opening
$82.9 million in total receipts
Metacritic Average: 27 out of 100 (Unfavorable)
Yahoo! Movies Average: D+

"The Messengers"
$14.7 million opening
$34.49 million in total receipts
Metacritic Average: 34 out of 100 (Unfavorable)
Yahoo! Movies Average: C-

"Ghost Rider"
$51.5 million opening
$94.75 million in total receipts
Metacritic Average: 35 out of 100 (Unfavorable)
Yahoo! Movies Average: C-

I digress.