You wouldn’t know that our economy is in crisis, our culture at a pivotal moment in history and our government in unprecedented overdrive by watching television. Having watched a lot of television and film over the extended New Year’s weekend, all I saw was an alarming amount of the status quo. It’s not that I expect the world to change overnight with the passage of the presidential torch (more on that tomorrow), but if nothing else you’d think a corporate America facing economic disaster and gargantuan challenges, not to mention huge monetary losses, would be making a bigger and better effort to show the American public and the world they’re teally trying to break out of the box.

The times we’re in and the situation we face demands nothing less. But all I saw over the course of the past four days were the same old bloated beer commercials, automakers still pushing monster trucks while bragging about getting a paltry 20 MPG (the Chrysler Hemi truck ad is one of the most pathetic displays of runaway American testosterone I have ever seen), and energy company commercial campaigns that subtly cast consumers as the problem and the oil companies as our victims! No “thank you American taxpayers for your faith in us.” No “we’re working hard to repay that trust by taking a whole new approach to building cars, etc, etc.” No “we’ve got to rethink our approach to energy.” Nope, all I saw was the same old stuff.

Even the NFL Playoffs on NBC Saturday were an example of the same old thing. Granted, there are only so many ways to broadcast and cover a football game. But NBC’s horribly matched studio talent, featuring the usual crowded set of uncomfortable looking commentators thrown together as if more were better, including an embarrassed-to-be-there Keith Olbermann and the cliché chirping Bob Costas, once the toast of NBC Sports, was just plain sad to watch. And the completely uninspired play-by-play of Tom Harmon and Chris Collingsworth, whose scratchy, nasally voice is not well suited to calling an entire game, made a barnburner between the San Diego Chargers and Indianapolis Colts sound like it was a meaningless pre-season contest.

Even the first batch of films released on DVD in the New Year are little more than tired retreads of long ago vintage. Take director Jon Avnet’s much anticipated pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, which tries to ignore the fact that these two acting icons are 68 and 64-years old respectively and way past the point where they can play macho action characters. Worse, while it’s a pairing made 15 years too late, the story they’re saddled with is a miserably under-baked cop vigilante tale done before and done better. It’s no less true of Nicholas Cage’s sullen and mechanical “Bangkok Dangerous,” a cookie-cutter Hong Kong action flick that’s more reproduced than produced; also true of “Babylon A.D.,” a French import actioner shot in English with Vin Diesel that’s a textbook for the countless ways in which computer generated filmmaking is being overdone. All three movies come out Tuesday.

It’s often said that each new century doesn’t really start to show itself until nearer its second decade. I sure hope that turns out to be true.

Screeners courtesy of PREMIERE VIDEO -- La Crosse