THE GRADUATE (1967) **1/2 Dull-witted but academically acclaimed Dustin Hoffman is supposed to be prepared for the real world. It must be so strange to be bored all the time. The film's idiosyncracies appear more forced than anything, but this will continue to be praised until the last survivor of that era passes on. Not for what it is, but for what it meant at the time. It's hard to remember what it meant at the time-something about shackles of the ages being broken, something about California, something about the young being a force to be reckoned with. Katharine Ross is better, but her smile is the only great feature of her acting. Norman Fell doesn't want any outside agitators living in Berkeley. "The Sounds of Silence" is one of the greatest pop songs ever written, and this in a time when it was considered entirely radical to put popular music in a film. Buy the soundtrack (again, if necessary) and listen to it with your eyes closed. Repeatedly.