About halfway through the previews, I wondered why none of the movies being promoted looked like something I wanted to see. This happens a lot, really. It all looks like a bunch of crap. The hope is, I guess, that by the time these movies hit the screen, all the crap will be strung together into something better than crap.

I wouldn't say it's been a banner year for movies. Now, it has been the highest-grossing year ever (this seems to happen almost every year, by the way--probably because no matter how good the movies are, the admission prices keep going up), so something out there must be good. But I hear nothing or very little about most of the stuff in the theaters.

I know people go. You can't have six movies coming out every week if no one goes. You can't have profitable 18-30 screen theaters if no one is going. But maybe it doesn't matter what the movie is. Pay the $9-$12 and do what you want. If you want to rent the seats to make out, fine. Just sit in the back. If you want to pay for "cheap" baby-sitting, well, keep the kid quiet. If you're just passing time until someone really important calls your cell phone...what the hell are you all going to the movies for? Shouldn't we be entertained for our hard-earned money?

1999 was the last banner year for movies. A short list of great movies from 1999: Fight Club, The Matrix, South Park, Being John Malkovich, American Beauty and The Sixth Sense. Of course, it's also the year Star Wars: Episode 1 (The Gungan Menace) came out. So you can't ever escape the crap.

This year we got Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Were there any other great movies this year?

Fahrenheit 9/11 was certainly a phenomenon. Tons of people flocked to see Michael Moore eviscerate the President. It was very entertaining in that way. It was also a lot of fun being in a theater with a lot of people who were very pissed off at the current administration. But is this Michael Moore movie better than Bowling for Columbine (which one the Academy Award for Best Documentary) or Roger & Me? No.

The Village was a disaster. A fourth attempt by the director to milk the same formula he used (superbly) in The Sixth Sense. Monsters in the woods? Nope, scared village elders scaring their even more infantile citizens into submission. And they somehow outdo the Amish by convincing most of the village they are living in the 19th century instead of the 21st. Considering how many planes and roads and other obvious indications of the modern world are inescapable--even in the woods’ how is any of this plausible? Well, it doesn't matter. The twist of the movie was how many people paid to see it the first weekend before word could get out about how shitty the movie was.

And this week, bolstered by reviews that said "Certainly the funniest and maybe the best film of the year," I went to see Team America: World Police. The creators of "South Park" made a movie about puppets blowing up the world as they tried to keep terrorists from blowing up the world. To be honest, it was very funny. Lots of laugh out loud moments. But it also seemed half-finished. The songs (which elevated the "South Park" movie above and beyond what anyone was prepared for) are over in the blink of an eye, and the puppet sex was very much like those Barbie and Ken moments everyone had when they were kids and figured out dolls aren't actually lifelike at all. They almost got an NC-17 for this?

"South Park" was a much better movie. Much more realized, and it works better as a story. Team America is basically a string of action movie cliches that some have suggested add up to more than the sum of its parts. But really, it's just a funny movie with puppets. Not a great movie with social implications beyond imagination.

And it probably wasn't supposed to be the answer to all the world's problems. But who is paying off the reviewers? And why is it that the reviewers--who see almost movie that comes out--can't seem to differentiate between a good movie and a great movie?

And why can't anyone make a great movie anymore?

We've been tricked into thinking an acceptable movie is astounding, just so we don't feel so bad when we watch real piece of crap.

Matt Worley does recognize there was a great epic of a movie released in three parts between 2001 and 2003, but that doesn't let everyone else off the hook.