Only for fifty plus? I will be back in a bit.

I agree with JMich on this one, the little sea of artistic cinematography (along with its inevitable low-lights) stepped up to an ocean-sized business deal once the internet hit us and digital media started going crazy. There's truth behind the numbers.

Good movies are still being made of course and, as long as you're not expecting the good ones to get the most publicity and the biggest budgets, you can still dig them up from underneath all the marketing noise.

Oh, and about my age... well, I've only turned 50 Venusian years a couple of Earth months ago :). Hey, you didn't say on what planet!

P.S.: As you can see, I occasionally still have the general attitude of a 3 year-old, but you could call me a fan of older movies, shot when cinematography, as we know it today (not really talking about silent films here), was still emerging from its infancy. I'll take an Akira Kurosawa movie over any of the latest cinema-shown flicks any day.

I'm lurking for the first time in over a year and just wanted to throw my two cents in the conversation, despite me being a little more than 6 years to young. I've had a really tough time having the will to see new movies. Most new movies are usually Marvel movies, which for some are great, but haven't there been enough of them. How many more Spiderman, Xmen, or Batman movies can there be? Batman is probably the only comic book hero I enjoy, but I do not want to see anymore Batman movies.

The few movies I have seen, I usually fall asleep during the movie. Look at Arrival, everyone said it was a great movie including my girlfriend, but I fell asleep shortly after the actress placed her hand on the glass and the alien did the same. I woke up when the credits were rolling. One day I will watch it again and see if it was just a sugar induced coma.

I just rented Passengers and that had to be the biggest waste of money I have spent, and I'm not sure how I stayed awake for it. Perhaps I was just waiting for something to happen, anything, but nothing.

The last movie I watched in theater was either Star Wars: TFA or The Revenant. I enjoyed both of them, but nothing has drawn my interest to pay $20 for 2 tickets and another $20 for popcorn and drinks. Even the new Star Wars I decided to wait for the rental.

Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi :| - what can I say, I'm at a loss for words. I could think of about a dozen better choices... and I don't usually do movie castings. Probably one of the movies that would have done better as a low-budget story-driven thing shot by unknown enthusiasts/fans of the series.

I'm also a tad younger (35), yet I do find that the better new movies are rarely more than re-hashes of older ones. Luckily there is enough stuff around to be picky. And sometimes nostalgia also kicks in. For example right now I'm rewatching Sledge Hmmer with the wife. She hasn't seen it yet :). Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

I'm quite some way from 50 still, but no, I don't think it's just your age. Popular culture in Western countries just gets ever more stupid and degenerate.

I'll only be turning 22 soon, but I concur about movies' quality deteriorating considerably, and would even add games to that list. However, I do hear independent films are the place to look if you want something of quality, Europe has a lot of festivals where you can watch such creations (don't know about North America), but the problem is that they don't get much exposure and most are left relatively unknown unless someone who's into the spheres where such films are celebrated recommends you one, or Jupiter aligns with Mercury and you stumble upon a list of good independent films on Reddit or Imgur. (Hey, that sounds like indie gaming...)

Music may have become dumber and simpler over time, though.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/07/27/pop_music_is_getting_louder_and_dumber_says_one_study_here_s_what_they_miss_.html

It's not just because of your age. Today, most people are brainwashed and told what to think and like. Some even beleive we came from rocks billions of years ago and 1 extra CO2 partical per 10,000 will cause thew earth to catch on fire. They get there smarts from Comedy Central, late night talk shows, celebrities, etc... The CIA calls them zombies and laughs at shows, games and movies that include zombies.

That said, Dying Light is a really good game.

Say what you will about 1987, at least it had RoboCop. I think it's safe to say that from among all the summer blockbusters coming out this year, none of them will be as witty or as fondly remembered in 30 years as that film.

I guess that's the problem OP is referring to. Yeah, we had good movies and bad movies in the past, but we had some GREAT movies as well. Movies these days, regardless of them being blockbuster or indie, US or non-US productions, they're not bad, but they're not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although they seem all right, they're actually just shite.

From the perspective of TV executives - If swine (the public) chose to eat garbage, well, hey, garbage is cheap!

The problem I find is that the more movies watched, the harder it is for me to not accurately predict the rest of the movie. Which means that if it's a poorly done movie, or even mediocre, I find myself not really interested because I have seen it done better or I just know that it's going to get dumber. So I turn off or stop watching a lot of movies now. I am more tolerant of the movies that I watch with the kids because I do not expect much and it is a different experience.

Well I'm three years on the young side... but...

A lot of it comes down to the "Save the Cat" formula that everyone thinks they need to follow (Google the book). It makes everything seem the same.

But, I must say the level of acting ability these days is really, really good. Sometimes it's obscured by bad movies or scripts, but many of the stars of today could easily hold their own if they were flung back to the 50s and 60s. They might even outshine the classic actors. And I don't say that easily, I like my classics.

I'm not quite dead...I mean 50 yet, but I agree with the OP.
I think the overrelicance of CGI, and movies looking so sterile and "perfect" nowadays, has much to do with it. They don't make movies like Die Hard anymore.

I've mostly given up TV also (I actually threw my TV away); it's like having 99 channels of shit on the TV to choose from, and most of it is reality shows with tattoed rednecks.

Consequently I've read lots of books the past 5 years, which I haven't done since I was a child.

That is a great series! I have it around too, so I can rewatch it one of these days.