Listen to today's actors and producers and directors, and you hear a common message: to do good and important work, you have to be edgy, push the envelope, raise the bar. They can't just be clever, creative, professional, tell a good story well. They have to do something new, edgy. They have to push the envelope. The problem is: not everyone in the industry is pushing the envelope in a good direction.

But let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. There are a lot of very talented people in the entertainment business that continually improve their own art as well as the state of the art. There are a lot of just plain great actors, comedians, musicians, editors, special effects designers, producers, directors. There are also a lot of entertainers who appear to be just "acting out," comedians using the "f" word more than anyone else, directors torturing and killing more people than anyone else, actors getting more naked and nasty than anyone else.

I like a good sci-fi monster movie every once in a while. But mostly, my wife and I like movies that tell us something good about life, stories about love, courage, compassion, sacrifice, invention, art, humor. There is so much failure and violence in the news every day. We don't find that very entertaining. Why should we choose more of it to watch when we want to relax? But when we head to the local video store or check the PPV channels on the dish, what we get to choose from is violent.

If people in the entertainment business are so dedicated to pushing the envelope, doing something edgy, why don't they stop trying to give us what they think we want and try giving us what they think we need? That would be very risky and very edgy.