Television as we have it isn't an art form - it's a piece of furniture that is good for a few things.

Movies, far more than the traditional arts, are tied to big money. Without a few independent critics, there's nothing between the public and the advertisers.

There seems to be an assumption that if you're offended by movie brutality, you are somehow playing into the hands of the people who want censorship. But this would deny those of us who don't believe in censorship the use of the only counter-balance: the freedom of the press to say that there's anything conceivably damaging in these films - the freedom to analyze their implications. How can people go on talking about the dazzling brilliance of movies and not notice that the directors are sucking up to the thugs in the audience?

The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new

We will never know the extent of the damage movies are doing to us, but movie art, it appears, thrives on moral chaos. When the country is paralyzed, the popular culture may tell us why. After innocence, winners become losers. Movies are probably inuring us to corruption; the sellout is the hero-survivor for our times.

For a while in the twenties and thirties, art was talked about as a substitute for religion; now B movies are a substitute for religion.

Kevin Costner has feathers in his hair and feathers in his head. The Indians should have called him 'Plays with Camera.