Roger – regarding the Casablanca remake, you are trying way too hard here. Your proposed outline sounds way too forced. Why not let the past remain in the past?
Why not just accept that there were previous golden ages in Hollywood, but at least for now Hollywood simply reflects a larger national blasé.
And on movies – there are good movies made these days, plenty, though I tend to think of movies made outside Hollywood as being more worth watching (especially films from Asia.)
Yes, there a few movies today that might be termed “patriotic”. This year’s Academy award winner is not really my cup of tea (even though I have enjoyed previous Coen brothers’ movies) but I can recognize that it has some real strengths, grim though it can be as a movie. Its portrayal of America is rough and bloody; its not an anti-American movie, though it could be labeled nihilistic.
