Mark Harris writes about the disappointing start to the summer blockbuster season in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly:

As TV has surged, the risk-averse souls atop the movie studios have stopped pretending that their job is anything other than to find and greenlight renewable, easily marketed franchises for undemanding audiences on big weekends. Making movies because you belive in the script, the director, the idea, the creative possibilities? That’s 1970’s nostalgia, if not rank sentimentality–leave it to the indies.

…The rest of this summer will certainly provide some big hits, because that’s what summers do. And–who knows?–maybe we’ll even see some really good mainstream films; perhaps some combination of Pixar, Christopher Nolan, vampires, Julia Roberts, 3-D, and Michael Cera will save the season. But a few clean wins aren’t likely to change the fact that in 2010, the Hollywood studios and those who run them are behaving like irresponsible custodians of the great tradition of mainstream moviemaking. Their choices are lazy and defensive; their creative ambitions are hidden even from themselves; they look to marketers rather than filmmakers for inspiration; and their product just isn’t very good. When the grosses go back up, all this will doubtless be airbrushed away like a starlet’s worry line. But what if they stay bad? The result will be, at last, a crisis. Perhaps exactly the crisis Hollywood needs.

Well put from a guy who is the only reason to ever glance at EW.

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