The Age is reprinting an interesting editorial piece on the recent releases from Hollywood. There's an interesting mention of Star Wars in the discussion about the trend of escapism. Here's the last few paragraphs of the article, head over there for the complete story:

Second, these movies "aestheticise death", they prettify it. Woolf's biographer, Hermione Lee, has already pointed out that the author's suicide was not the sun-dappled, slow baptism in a gentle stream shown in The Hours but a messy, muddy drowning "on a cold day in March in a dangerous, ugly river". Gangs of New York and The Pianist are equally guilty, says Dodd, of turning horror into art. The result is that death in these movies is not cold and real and painful, but neatly packaged. It brings resolution and closure. We come out of the cinema with a middle-brow sense of loss, rather than a feeling so tough it demands we change.

This may be too harsh. It's true, and striking, that the cinema has yet to step into the great debates of our time - where are the movies on terrorism? - and of course films do soft-focus the hardest experiences to make sure we keep buying tickets. But the sceptics should take a look at the alternative. The four biggest-grossing movies in the US last year were Spiderman, The Lord of the Rings, the latest Star Wars and Harry Potter - escapist fantasy, every one. Now that's avoiding reality.

So maybe Oscar's batch is not perfect and not quite serious enough. But the academy is surely brave to elevate films that may not have broken box-office records but which are telling us something about our current, anxious mood. If that's there in the collective subconscious, trust Hollywood to bring it out.

It's not called the dream factory for nothing.