Actually things aren't as bad as they were a few years ago. I distinctly remember a stretch of time (I think it was in the 2003-2005 time period, but I really don't remember now), where just about everything coming out at the box office was crap.
Independent movies have actually gained a lot more ground with the mainstream since then (as evidenced by movie studios purchasing up smaller independent studios and giving them more creative control since the cost margins were working for them). They could fund several smaller movies and watch one of them become a breakout success (think movies like Juno, Little Miss Sunshine), and make a healthy profit overall. Plus these films were more likely to garner support from the academy than your typical empty-headed films.
But recently, at least on the studio end, this has been a little problematic since the movie studios started overfunding some of these independent films and then they would take (think In the Valley of Elah). But that's a story for another day.
But the movies say last year that won Oscars were incredibly strong. No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood were by themselves greater than just about anything from the prior year. And the prior year was pretty damn good too, with films like Pan's Labyrinth, The Departed (a bit overrated, but still good), Babel, and The Last King of Scotland.
So my verdict is, if you think the movie industry is bankrupt in the realm of ideas, you are simply going to see the wrong films. I mean even within the last few months I can point to several films which are arthouse dreams for those who love quality movies.
Slumdog Millionaire
Milk
Synechdoche, New York
Traitor
Burn After Reading
Australia (maybe, Baz Luhrman can be on or off depending on the movie and I have yet to see this one)
The Duchess (looks like it actually turned out to be a fairly good movie, but I have also yet to see it)
And even the biggest summer blockbuster, The Dark Knight, was a solid film with artistic merit (thanks to Christopher Nolan and incredibly strong performances from everyone in the cast, except Maggie Gyllenhall and to a lesser degree Bale, who is talented but just didn't have a chance to act).
So I really think what you are experiencing is your own perception.
But I completely agree that your average movie is a mass-produced piece of garbage designed almost exclusively for the purpose of making money. Its essentially a "McMovie." You know what it is going to taste like when you get there, and that is what the average person wants. They don't want to be challenged by the film they are watching, they simply want it to satisfy them in a way they are used to, like a Big Mac would.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
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