I watch a lot of television. Probably too much television. One thing television has plenty of? Commercials. I've been watching these commercials and noticed several movie trailers as the summer movie season changes to autumn to winter. The one thing all of these movies seem to have in common? Not a single trailer is for a good R-rated action movie. What is happening?

When I was a kid, security at the movies was a joke. They'd let just about anybody in, and if you had an older friend with you it was a piece of cake. I remember going to see movies like "Robocop 2," "Terminator 2," and a hundred other sequels to movies I was too young to see in the theater. They all had some things in common. The star was a monster. Whether it was AGHnold picking up a car, Jean-Claude pretending to know karate, or Steven Segal shooting somebody in the biscuits with a shotgun, you knew the hero would always dominate. There were tons of cheesy explosions. I'm not sure, but I think I remember a tree blowing up in "Rambo: First Blood." There was nudity, and plenty of it. It wouldn't matter if the movie didn't even have a woman in the script; there would be breasts. These movies didn't have a statement, or a social agenda, or often times any kind of morally redeeming content, but they were fun, exciting, entertaining, and finally, R-rated.

Today, unfortunately, is a different story. Movie theater security has been tightened up immensely. Nobody is allowed in without proof of age, identity, residence, a fingerprint scan, retinal scan, DNA scan-- get it? The problem is, we have nothing to protect kids from. Everything that comes out is either family oriented, comedic, artistically dramatic and bad, or a watered down version of the genre I so fondly remember. Stars today all have "characters." They have families that play into the story in a way other than a kidnapping. They have memories that depress them. They cry, and think, and do a hundred other things that make them weak. Action stars today have character? I remember a day when the star was the character. "Arnold Schwarzenegger is Arnold Schwarzenegger in 'Arnold Schwarzenegger Blows Stuff Up!'" Now that is a movie.

I just found out that "Ballistic: Ecks Versus Sever" is going to be R-rated, so you can bet the farm I'll be first in line. I'll probably get disappointed, but one of these days the classics will come back.