"Nearly every military-related film to reach theaters this year has been a box-office disappointment, leaving some in Hollywood to question how much the 24-hour news coverage of the Iraq invasion has dimmed the public appetite for images of combat," and "some critics suggest that moviegoers are staying away because they have plenty of real-time war action already on cable and network news programs. 'When television came on with 24-hour news channels, it changed what we needed,' said Jeanine Basinger, chairman of film studies at Wesleyan University and author of The World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre. 'During World War II you needed movies to help people see and understand events they were hearing about.' Now, she said, 'we are kind of inured; we have seen a lot of blood and combat.' "