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Movies used to be made by people who had lived real lives before they got into the movie business.

When was this? 1910? Sounds like you're idealizing history, and in particular Hollywood, just a tad.

It's just as likely that those old films you love starred vapid bed-hopping screwed-up people who Moved To Hollywood To Make It Big, as it is now. Did Alfred Hitchcock or Orson Welles, or Norma Jean Baker (oh, sorry, "Marilyn Monroe"...) really ever "live real lives" as adults? I guess I just wonder who you think you're talking about here.

The people who make movies today grew up watching movies.

This was also true in 1970, 1950, and probably even 1935. Movies've been around, and popular with the young people, a wee bit longer than you seem to think.

Well, let's see. Kubrick started out as a photojournalist, if I remember correctly. I also recall a number of Hollywood people who served in WWII, Jimmy Stewart comes to mind as a good example. There are others. Not to "idealize" Hollywood, mind you. I'm no big fan of that place, either then or now, and yes, there were people there even then who had lived nothing but a "Hollywood" life. There's just a whole lot more of them now, that's all. I still stand by my original premise.

I am a professional comedy writer myself, and I can assure you that there is a difference between the people making movies now and the ones making movies over 20 years ago. People used to come to Hollywood and try to break into the industry after growing up elsewhere and living in real places. My favorite example, Ronald Reagan: grew up in the Midwest, worked in radio, finally made it to Hollywood. And the Marx Brothers spent decades in vaudeville, learning how to entertain audiences, before they ever made a movie (I believe Groucho was about 38 when he made his first movie, and today, a movie comic who's 35 is generally considered over the hill, since most comedies are aimed at 12-year-olds).

Unfortunately, Hollywood is now pretty firmly in the hands of twentysomething brats who are third-generation Beverly Hills residents, and they learn how to make movies by going to the UCLA film school and watching other movies. I'm convinced that film school is what is responsible for us getting so many tired copies of copies of copies of movies that bear no relation to the lives of real human beings.

Writers, too, used to learn the craft by writing for newspapers and magazines or writing plays and putting them in front of live audiences, then going to Hollywood (look at the original "A Star is Born," and you'll see the name Dorothy Parker in the credits. There is certainly no trace of Dorothy Parker's wit in any of the recent remakes). Now they take screenwriting classes and learn the same stupid formulas ("Your script must be structured like a roller coaster...") This same inbreeding is the reason that most modern novels suck pond water: instead of going off to fight fascism in Spain, today's novelists go off to Bennington College and attend "writer's workshops" where they learn how to write novels about novelists trying to write a novel. I call them "novel-gazers."

All that said, I have actually seen some good movies this summer, but none of them were special effects-laden blockbusters. One that comes to mind is "The Emperor's New Clothes," a beautifully-made and well-written "what-if" fantasy about Napoleon. It's so good, I'm amazed that it got made at all.