Remember when movies were \u201cfun?\u201d\u00a0 They weren\u2019t film, they weren\u2019t cinema.\u00a0 They were movies.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t trying to change your life \u2014 to quote an old movie mogul, Jack Warner, \u201cIf you want to send a message, use Western Union.\u201d\u00a0 Movies were willing to give a shot at changing your moments<\/i>, like about 90 minutes worth of them.\u00a0 And if you happened to see a really good movie, more than likely you walked away with a big, goofy grin on your face.<\/p>\n
For the geekigentsa, the 60s and early 70s were a golden age of \u201cfilm.\u201d\u00a0 The young turks were taking it to the Man and the System.\u00a0 The Godfather<\/em>. \u00a0Bonnie and Clyde<\/em>.\u00a0Midnight Cowboy<\/em>. \u00a0All of them were films that took cinema to new levels of realism in terms of sex and violence (real and emotional).<\/p>\n Then there were \u201cB-movies.\u201d\u00a0 Popular, mass entertainment.\u00a0 Motorcycles, babes, drugs \u2026anything that could be made on the cheap that might turn a buck, and a lot of which was \u00a0shoveled into the Drive-In theatres that still clung to the American landscape.\u00a0 It was \u201cproduct\u201d and any appreciation of it as folk art would only come later.<\/p>\n To keep the product line profitable, the formula was tweaked when sales began to lag or new trends emerged:\u00a0 Harley hogs became American muscle cars, Redneck Sheriffs stood in for \u201cThe Man,\u201d but movie producers kept the core of what made those Drive-In classics work.\u00a0 Explosions.\u00a0 Shootings.\u00a0 Breasts. (Young female breasts, covered and exposed, were very popular and much more important than the acting ability of anyone else on screen)\u00a0 Often a supernatural element gave the plot (such as it was) a reason to feature\u2026 more breasts.<\/p>\nWhy is