While a culture of celebrity candidacy threatens to turn the election race for the office of the leader of the free world, the US presidency, into performance (low) art; while the travesties of religious fundamental extremists promote more internecine hatred; and while wars are fought over control of the Earth's finite fossil fuel resources, contemporary cinema audiences, like the rest of the community, are offered few reasons to be optimistic. Movie makers seem to frequently delight in depicting our irredeemable present and apparently bleak future.
