ROSS DOUTHAT WRITES that movies have gotten small. I agree.

Last night, my sister-in-law and I watched The Stunt Man, a Peter O’Toole / Barbara Hershey film from 1980 that I’ve heard O’Toole call the best work of his career. The funniest line in the film (which isn’t at all the slapstick comedy that its title suggests, but which has its funny moments) is when a stunt man complains about all the runaway-horse scenes and explosions that won’t be in the film “Those people,” he sneers, “only care about the story.” Well, that’s not a problem with filmmaking these days. . . .

UPDATE: Hey, Max Boot is writing about Hollywood, too, though in a different vein. And yet, I think these criticisms are connected, somehow.