----------------------------Original message---------------------------- From: Tony Williams English SIUC Dear Errol, There are several reasons for Monday night's fiasco which many correspondents will supply. But, the paramount reason for Gump's success is the new wave of conservatism sweeping America and Hollywood's whorish tendencies to jump on any contemporary bandwagon. As one panelist at the Popular Culture Association mentioned years ago, Hollywood would produce Nazi films if there was a market for them. It would even stoop into making romantic comedies and musicals about concentration camps. British television went part of the wayten years ago by turning an original series about the French Resistance into a stupid comedy ("Allo, Allo"). Hollywood and the Oscars are merely arenas to be regarded with the utmost contempt. As one correspondent has pointed out, PULP FICTION was not much of an alternative but it had some complexity and acknowledgement of the dark side of American existence that scared away those tuxedoed clowns and dumb smiling femmes populating a night which is really Cinema's Annual celebration of Visual Manure. The advantage of this network having international input is certainly valuable in providing a dose of reality to a cinema falling rapidly into decline. Definitely, "Down Under" has more critical acumen as long as its directors stay there and not fall into the malaise as New Wave exponents such as Miller, Beresford, Schepsisi etc have done. Tony Williams