Hollywood may be giving conservatives fits these days, but the new energy amongst filmmakers is downright inspiring to critics, who haven’t seen such a sense of commitment to the importance of the medium since the Vietnam era. “With rare exceptions, movies in the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate era have been dominated by the ‘me’ ethic, concerned more about individual struggles than global ones. When filmmakers have dared to tackle broader social concerns, outside of straight documentaries, they more often than not have done so through the use of symbols or allegory or other distancing devices. God forbid you should actually say what you mean, or wave a fist in somebody’s face.”