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In 1967, Jean-Luc Godard declared with the closing credits of “Weekend”: End of Film. End of Cinema. He was right, but a few decades off. Cinema is currently suffering a slow and painful death; weekly box office returns bear this out if that’s the way you measure things, diminishing quality bears this out if you prefer to look at things that way …

Movies have changed and they haven’t changed for the better. Films have become lazy imitations of what they once used to be, whether it’s the cookie-cutter predictability of the latest romantic comedy with Jessica Alba and that guy you saw in that thing once, or the unnecessary reliance on CGI monsters in “I Am Legend” or whatever the latest scare-your-pants-off haunted house film is at the moment.

Just look at any of the great films from the 1960’s and 1970’s that the majority of films today cannot even begin to hold a candle to: “Bonnie and Clyde”, “The French Connection”, “The Last Picture Show”, “Paper Moon”, “Taxi Driver”, “Dog Day Afternoon”, “The Godfather” (parts 1 and 2), “The China Syndrome”, “Planet of the Apes”, “Network”, “The Exorcist”, “The Wild Bunch”, “All the President’s Men”, “Chinatown”, “Easy Rider”, “Harold and Maude”, “Catch 22″, “Deliverance”, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “Rocky”, “Rosemary’s Baby”, “Jaws” … it’s a list that’s almost impossible to finish. I can alternately, count on one hand (well, maybe two), the great films that have emerged in the last couple of decades.

There have been exceptions, there have been some really great films, even in the last couple of years, but they are released, then largely forgotten, or completely ignored altogether because the studio’s marketing department doesn’t know how to make it look like something else that’s already out there. “Babel” should have changed the world. In my opinion, it’s the best film that anyone has made in a long time, but it got a few awards, and a few Blockbuster rentals because Brad Pitt was on the cover, and then it disappeared.

Maybe people have gotten stupid. That’s the easy answer, but I know there are still smart people out there. I know there are people like me who too complain about the state of affairs and the fact that we have to go to the prolific output of some foreign country to find quality stuff to watch. I think it’s more like North American cinema’s career is over. It’s old and getting tired. It just can’t churn ‘em out like it used to.

No, it’s not gonna happen like the studio pundits say: it’s not television that’s killing it, it’s not DVD’s or video games that’s killing it, it’s not the internet and it’s not Al Qaeda (that should put me on some interesting Google search pages). Cinema is killing itself. It’s not changing with the times and the needs of its supporters, so it’s going to suffer for it. It’s straight evolution, plain and simple.

There are reports every week that video sharing sites, like YouTube, and enjoying massive surges in people checking content, once, twice, several times a day. While I’m not about to expound the virtues of “Two Girls, One Cup” here, I do have to say that it successfully found an interested worldwide audience, which is more than I can say for anything else I have seen in a long time. It even managed to provoke filmed reactions (of filmed reactions), many spoofs and endless discussion. But beyond shock content like this, it’s re-mixed and mashed-up content YouTube’s viewers are looking at and it’s not the quality of the content that matters to these viewers (YouTube still being a very low-rent, low-bandwidth solution to a larger technical need), but the content itself; and I don’t think there’s an easy way of putting a label on what this content is, at least not yet.

While I truly look forward to seeing and aging Harrison Ford lurching around the screen in a fedora and leather jacket, I don’t think the new Indiana Jones movie is going to generate the excitement that everyone is expecting. I’m just starting to get the same feeling I had when “Star Wars Episode I” was beginning to hype-up. It’s not re-inventing anything. There’s nothing to get excited about.

What I’m hearing about “Cloverfield” on the other hand (from people who have actually seen it), actually has me excited. Sure, I should be dubious, because I’ve been stung by internet hype way too many times in the past, but a re-imagining of the giant-monster-movie, sounds just like what cinema is looking for. Re-imagining is the key. I can’t stress that enough. No big stars, no “from the director of” hanging over the title … sure it’s got CGI coming out of its ears, but from what I can see and from what I’ve heard, it’s glimpsed horror and destruction, as the mostly hand-held camera swishes past it. It’s the story and the characters, and they’re not the most revolutionary story and characters either, it’s the content, and too some degree, the package.

Then the world will settle down, and then there will be the expected pale imitations, and then things will snap right back to the way they were B.C. (before Cloverfield), until the next re-imagining comes along (who knows, maybe it will be J.J. Abram’s “Star Trek” re-imagining). Then everything will get shaken up again, until major studios and the creative community at large finally get the picture that change is good.

I dunno, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe a new and improved Jessica Alba romantic comedy will come out, co-starring the guy from “Cloverfield” and people will start going to the movies for real again. Maybe people will start being frightened by full-on, clear-as-day CGI creatures that they just know can’t exist in the real world, and a new Hitchcock will be born.

Well, here’s to “Cloverfield” and hoping that it’s all that it’s cracked-up to be, and thanks for allowing me this time to rant.

That is all.

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