Dear all American subscribers. For a few years now I have been steadily more interested in the view of your fair nation posited in the cinema. I am but of tender years (18 of them to be pedantic) and so I do not possess the greatest library of cinematic knowledge, but after watching films such as JFK, Blue Collar, Mississippi Burning, Salvador, Taxi Driver, the recent spate of 'hood' films and even Forrest Gump,(perhaps one of the finest anti-American films of recent times) to name but a few, I find that the popularized cinematic view of your nation is far from kind. We in the U.K exist in a strange paradox, whilst lapping up a million-fold American culture and product, we have a general mentality of somehow being superior, and a feeling of smugness when we look at your supposed shortcomings. What we fail to see is that the shortcomings of America today are Britain's tomorrow. We are fast placing capitalism ahead of heritage, and the now legalized mass homophobia present in the corridors of power in America is seeping through to us. Yet why do we still possess this ridiculous attitude? Purely through the cinema. Nobody loves America more than the Americans, yet it seems that nobody hates America like the Americans. What is going on? America is without a doubt the most powerful nation in the world, and yet it makes one anxious to say the least when we are shown its problems again and again. Everyone has their problems, the British one has been in power for the last seventeen years, but America's come across as a tad prominent. Please, ease my anxiety! Defend yourself ! Chris Taylor. Sheffield, U.K. ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]