And all of that is so simply because you say it is. Or maybe because most critics also said it's shit? But then again you said most critics are idiots so it again comes down to 'the movie is shit because I say it's shit'. And that's all you're saying here really. It's not as if the movie can speak for itself but it has to be interpreted, analysed, criticised, etc. While people may respect your personal opinion on the movie I hope you do realise that the position you're taking here is that of a stubborn child. Or a confused middle/aged man, for that matter.
Another load of Shyamalan
- Thread starter Grinner
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And all of that is so simply because you say it is. Or maybe because most critics also said it's shit? But then again you said most critics are idiots so it again comes down to 'the movie is shit because I say it's shit'. And that's all you're saying here really. It's not as if the movie can speak for itself but it has to be interpreted, analysed, criticised, etc. While people may respect your personal opinion on the movie I hope you do realise that the position you're taking here is that of a stubborn child. Or a confused middle/aged man, for that matter.
Rubbish. It is an out and out comic book origins plot. And not a very good one at that. I think you have been going to to many film appreciation classes. Sometime a turd is just a turd and not a post modern zeitgeist.
The acting was terrible. Willis can't act anyway and only ever manages slightly varied versions of himself. And I wanted to escape long before the stupid ending annoyed me even more. It was one of those really annoying films - dumb pretending to be deep.
I don't care if Tarantino thinks it is the cinematic equivalent of the return of Jesus from the dead. He likes some terrible films anyway even if he does use them to produce something far more than the material that inspired him.
It had a plot twist? Which was?
It was just an incredibly dumb plot that made no sense whatsoever for many reason some of which I posted before.[/b]
You have to be kidding me. He needed piss poor aliens to arrive and die (by breaking the laws of Chemistry) to find God again? That is even more incoherent gobbledygook than the "surface" alien rubbish.
The flaw is that it is laughable rubbish. You are going to tell me that the 6th Sense was more than a simple suspense/horror film with a twist next.
You're wrong. Even Avatar has more depth then first appears, it's clumsily handled and plays to the save-earth, protect the environment schtick, but it's there. To simply dismiss it as not being there doesn't make you seem clever. To say it's just entertainment doesn't make you a more astute film student, it just proves you're not watching these movies with an open mind.
You know, it's possible to watch a movie, hate it and still take it apart piece by piece. You can opt to take a sledgehammer to every movie you don't like and paste it with one word labels, but anybody who appreciates cinema will just avoid that opinion.
This is why people who are paid to critique movies write more then a few sentences. Cause nobody is convinced if you just go...Crap movie. Crap. Shit plot. Die Movie. Die....oh, this one is pretty good. Classic. Quality. Go Watch.
That works if you're 12. The rest of us realize even the classic movies have their flaws, and not every flawed movie is complete shit. There are redeeming qualities to almost all movies because truth is most of the movies that are made fall in the middle of shit and genius.
Nobody said it was a classic. You are the only one who seems to swing between the polar extremes. It's either Raging Bull, or a complete turd. No middle ground huh?
"Sometimes a turd is just a turd."
That may be true for you. But you've said nothing to convince me it's a turd, besides offering up far too many cliched IMDB responses...so perhaps you should rephrase that mantra as "Sometimes it's not quality...so it's just a turd". I'm comfortable in recognizing that most films aren't successful on every level. But that doesn't mean they are complete garbage either.
By the by...You don't need to go to film appreciation class to know there is wide range between Instant classic, and utter crap. Maybe if you consider the possibility of such a range you might enjoy more movies instead of coming away feeling 'annoyed'.
The horrific death of his wife caused him to lose faith. A similarly tense situation is presented when the aliens arrive, placing his family in peril. It is at this point that he finds faith (or at least questions why he lost it). There's nothing incoherent about it. Once again, you focus on the aliens when i contend they are merely used as a plot devise to explore a real, more pertinent existential crisis.
I'm not saying the movie succeeds in it's exploration of regaining faith, only that it seeks to question how people during the course of their lives lose it, and then find it again.
You seemed to have missed that point completely and instead focus simply on the surface of the movie. Hence, you appreciate it far less then others have. That's fine. But, it also makes your opinion of it far less relevant as far as i'm concerned.
This form of simplistic analysis can be applied to every movie (even the classics), and can be used to discredit its artistic merit. It basically proves nothing except that you watched a movie, and didn't like it.
That's not an argument. That's your opinion.
Apocalypse Now. Utter bollox. An old, fat fart goes mental, creates his own disneyland in a jungle and gets some primitives to worship him. Another mental case is sent on a mission to go meet the fat king. In the end there's just explosions all over the bush and lots of people die. Wow, genious.
Inglorious Basterds. Annoying five hours of Tarantino crap. Brad Pitt 'wants his skalps'. Yea right pretty boy. All scenes too long. Shit dialogue. The nazi general thinks what he's got to say is so important he can't stop talking. Pretentious garbage shit.
Inglorious Basterds. Annoying five hours of Tarantino crap. Brad Pitt 'wants his skalps'. Yea right pretty boy. All scenes too long. Shit dialogue. The nazi general thinks what he's got to say is so important he can't stop talking. Pretentious garbage shit.
Apocalypse now is one of the greatest movies committed to celluloid.
You don't do yourself any favors by panning it so egregiously.
You don't do yourself any favors by panning it so egregiously.
That isn't depth, it is simply a plot device to hand the plot on.
I watch all films with an open mind. That doesn't mean I have to find invented depth where it doesn't exist.
I agree. But some things aren't even worth the effort. His films are so appalingly bad that this is the first time I have ever encountered anyone who thinks they are worth of discussing at all. I am frankly amazed.
Of course every flawed film isn't unadulterated shit. Who has ever said that? I just think his films barring the first one are unadulterated shit with no redeeming features whatsoever (The Village aside which was dumb, obvious and pointless but nowhere near as bad as the rest)
If I was being paid to review films I would take far longer to say that his films are pointless stupid excrement. I'm not so why not be efficient?
And there are far more films towards the bottom end of your genius to shit scale these days. So many made so quickly I suppose. And so many just vaguely watchable (and forgeteable films) get made these days that it gets harder to find anything of real quality. Kids films are an exception because top end animated features have got better and better assuming you like kids films.
If you meant that you would be insane. Of course just because you aren't serious .......
'Apocalypse Now' is one of the most overrated films on celluloid, it completely collapses under the weight of the ill-judged parallels to 'Heart of Darkness'.
Nothing in the film can distract from the comedically bad aliens (an episode of the x-Files would be more believable) and the really stupid plot, a few of the massive flaws with I pointed out earlier. If you create a fiction it needs to be at least believable enough within it's own fiction for you to suspend your disbelief sufficiently to enjoy the film. Signs fails because nobody could possibly believe any aspect of the alien invasion. I mean - WATER. Kinell.
Fair enough. Of course, what you consider invented might actually be there and you simply missed it. You do leave out the possibility that you might be fallible right? If that's the case, then I wholeheartedly agree with the general tenor of your comment.
This where we disagree. I don't think his first few films were appallingly bad. They have certainly become progressively worse, but the two films I choose to discuss in depth to me have plenty of redeeming features. They are certainly nowhere close to being the worst films made that year. (not by a long shot). If you take his last few films, you can certainly make a strong case that he's heading down shit creek, but there were certainly flashes of a promising director in his first few major releases, so for me, he's certainly worth discussing. (and i'm not alone, even most critics and film students don't consider him a complete waste of space. )
Labeling a film crap isn't being efficient. It's being lazy. You aren't payed to post here, but if you chose to enter a discussion then chances are you will be judged on what you say. To give one word answers in most cases only points to laziness, immaturity or both (in the case of internet forums, both are likely tied together).
I agree with you. The bell curve is statistical measure which points to where the best, worst and average are found in most human achievement. Greatness, and abject failure resides on either side. On the edges. In the case of movies, the trend has seen the curve shift towards the crap side and that in many ways makes sense. It's far harder to produce works of greatness then it is to churn out mediocrity.
That said, it's become a cliche for people to render hasty verdicts on films without really giving them due consideration. I'm not saying every film needs to be watched 10 times to be fully appreciated. But we can't just have a binary outlook when it comes to judging art. It's can't just be a true, or false because of the subjective nature of medium itself.
Devilton just curious, are you into cinematography on an academic level?
Regardless, whats your opinion on Lady in the Water, I mean why was it so bad and could it have been so much better if done differently (or is the material itself actually unworkable). I remember reading Shyamalan thought it a children's movie, or a movie he did for his children, something like that. I cannot see how this possibly could have been for children, even if it does have classic fairy tale elements. Something was just very wrong with that film.
Regardless, whats your opinion on Lady in the Water, I mean why was it so bad and could it have been so much better if done differently (or is the material itself actually unworkable). I remember reading Shyamalan thought it a children's movie, or a movie he did for his children, something like that. I cannot see how this possibly could have been for children, even if it does have classic fairy tale elements. Something was just very wrong with that film.
This is almost as predictable as the movies you hate...
What a gip...
Any list of good movies is predictable. Just like any list of shit ones.
That's because there's a consensus out there on good movies, just like there is on shit ones.
This consensus comes from people who are discerning enough to spot a film that has a well-written script, an interesting and compelling story-line, solid acting performances and competent direction. It's not like cracking a frigging code. It's really not that difficult to tell the difference between a good movie and a bad one, even if your personal taste may differ.
I'm a sucker for an occasionally trashy film, particularly when it comes to sci-fi but I never find it difficult to work out the difference between trashy yet enjoyable, brain-off shite (e.g. Avatar, or Predator) and a film from the same genre that really is a fantastic film in it's own right (e.g. Alien, or Blade-runner) even though I may have enjoyed watching all of these films (albeit to varying degrees). Of course, some films from this genre are so fecking lame, that even someone who enjoys sci-fi like me couldn't get any enjoyment out of watching them (e.g. Battleship Earth) You don't need to be a "pretentious old fart" to be able to correctly place movies along this spectrum of great to awful, just someone who knows the qualities you should expect from a competent piece of film-making.
Your reductionist bullshit about all films that do well in the box office being, by definition, good movies - because everything else boils down to personal taste - shows an almost total inability to recognise or appreciate the art of making a good film. Otherwise, I can only assume you're huge fan of boy bands and think that X-Factor or Dancing on Ice are the best shows on TV because, well, they're popular, right?
Moving back to this Shymalan gimp. I'm not his greatest fan but I would appreciate that The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable have some merit as films. They ticked most of the boxes I listed above, which can be used to define a good movie. Conversely, he's also been involved in producing The Lady in The Water, The Happening and The Last Airbender, a trio of movies which anyone who possesses even the vaguest clue about what makes a good film could spot as being absolute turkeys, with almost no redeeming qualities at all.
The fact this bloke seems to attract a type of geeky sci-fi/fantasy fanboi who is desperate to try and twist his lamest output in being more than they actually were, doesn't change the fact he's made some really bad movies. I mean, that's not even up for debate. Or at least it shouldn't be. A bad movie is a bad movie. Are you really so incapable of identifying a bad movie when you sit in front of it?
Because movies are a universal mass medium people are supposed to watch/have an opinion on everything in a way that's quite different to books or other arts. Even popular music is more stratified these days.
This liberal nonsense that every opinion is subjective and therefore no piece of art (novel or film) can ever truly be considered bad because there will always be someone out there who admires it makes me want to take an axe to someone's head. It's absolute nonsense.
I remember Stephen Fry on an episode of QI berating the panellists because someone had dared mock some froth literary bestseller (I have a feeling it was Barbara Cartland). His supporting argument was that anyone who is able to consign to paper something that compels just one person to read ever page must be considered a success. However, that's just tosh.
MNS has been going downhill with increasing rapidity and that can't be debated. All that can be debated is just where the line between good and bad can be drawn. I know a lot of people slate Signs but I actually attended a screenwriting lecture where the teacher used Signs as an example of the perfect script. So, go figure.
Box office isn't something that can be used as a barometer of artistic merit because audience demographics are skewed towards the popcorn theatre-goer (the most lucrative demographic being the 15-34 year olds). The Happening was a box office success but that is roundly considered a horrible failure. MNS just happens to have a strong audience and his name puts bums on seats - I still go to his movies for crying out loud, even though I know I'm going to be disappointed! How long that will continue is another question entirely.
I remember Stephen Fry on an episode of QI berating the panellists because someone had dared mock some froth literary bestseller (I have a feeling it was Barbara Cartland). His supporting argument was that anyone who is able to consign to paper something that compels just one person to read ever page must be considered a success. However, that's just tosh.
MNS has been going downhill with increasing rapidity and that can't be debated. All that can be debated is just where the line between good and bad can be drawn. I know a lot of people slate Signs but I actually attended a screenwriting lecture where the teacher used Signs as an example of the perfect script. So, go figure.
Box office isn't something that can be used as a barometer of artistic merit because audience demographics are skewed towards the popcorn theatre-goer (the most lucrative demographic being the 15-34 year olds). The Happening was a box office success but that is roundly considered a horrible failure. MNS just happens to have a strong audience and his name puts bums on seats - I still go to his movies for crying out loud, even though I know I'm going to be disappointed! How long that will continue is another question entirely.
The aliens who are allergic to water may be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen in a film, ever. A close second may be Shyamalan casting himself as a Messianic writer in Lady in the Water. He's a gimp.
But as you noticed everyone here is discussing The Happening, and not Lady in the Water. It becomes obvious that even people who usually like Shyamalan's movies absolutely do not like Lady in the Water and every single person here has agreed that Lady in the Water was bad. However, some people did see something good/better/interesting in The Happening and they have explained what it was. It's got nothing to do with being pretentious, it's just simple, subjective opinion. I cannot see what could possibly be wrong with that. Especially considering that all criticism was narrowed down to declaring the movie shit, utter bollox, garbage, rubbish, and excrement.
So basically your opinion is formed via consensus. Ok, good. And how is this consensus formed? How many people does it take to form this consensus? Where do you find these 'discerning individuals', what exactly are their qualifications? Does it take a few top rated critics to form a consensus like RottenTomatoes? How about a few million people who watch the movie and spend money on it (like the Boxoffice)? Or do we go to IMDB and check the rating and determine consensus that way? Just wondering...since you seem to suggest subjective opinion is formed by way of consensus I'd like to know where to go to get my next opinion.
I never said the box office hit by definition is a good movie. Once again, reading comprehension seems to have failed you. I said it forms a valuable metric that is used to gauge the market. This is simple economics - I expect you to understand it. Movies are a commodity. Buying the product, results in studios making sequels and more movies of the same ilk. They go by numbers, not the opinion of critics. Studios greenlight very few movies as vanity and experimental projects. Most of them look at the box office as their primary way of determining success and decreasing risks. If a movie is successful, then it's a quality movie (to them). You can think otherwise, but don't tell me your opinion counts for more then a million others who paid to watch the movie.
My claim that box office is a valuable measurement to gauge 'consensus' of the movie going public was in direct response to your claim that Box office is meaningless. You SAID it was meaningless, and then didn't bother to offer any other alternative to judge a film. I didn't.
I recognize like most film buffs that a box office is critical not only to a films success, but also to future films of it's ilk being made. Whether you agree or disagree with it means feck all. You're one lonely voice in a million, perhaps tens of millions. You're what a statistician would call an insignificant percentile. If a supposed 'crap, shit film' like Avatar makes more then a billion dollars, bet your life they will make a sequel. You can get on your soap box and try to convince the world they are watching shit, but nobody will give you the time of day.
Basically, your entire argument boils down to a bunch of self aggrandizing babble. Without realizing it you have made yourself, and the opinions you hold (no doubt influenced by other pretentious people) the consensus. You watch a film. You don't like it. You find others who don't like it, and viola there's your consensus. That makes everyone who does like it, stupid and ignorant and enable to identify what you constitutes a 'good movie'. The arrogance you display is galling. It really is, and that's coming from someone who's been around more film students then i'll care to admit.
I recognize that there are a multitude of consensuses when it comes the movies. There is the critical consensus, there is an economic consensus, and there is the general consensus. All three can, and often do tell a different story about a movie.
I'm not actually. I've never watched X-Factor. But there is obviously something about the show which makes it popular. I'm not vain enough to believe that those who watch it are stupid or don't know any better. That seems to be your domain. I'm comfortable in the knowledge that I spend my leisure time enjoying what I find interesting. I don't need to convince others that I have good taste, or knock those who watch something else to validate my choices.
I suspect we might be different in that regard.
You sound upset. Take a deep breath...in, out, in, out..relax. Serenity now...
I never said I was his biggest fan, and if you bothered to read what I wrote, you'd recognize that I have never defended his last three movies. In fact, we are in agreement that they are pretty bad. The movie you do find redeemable qualities in, was one of the movies I did defend in depth in my discussion with Wibble.
So, thanks for wasting my time and yours, we've gone around in a circle and achieved the square root of feck all. Probably best that we both shove off in different direction. Don't think there is much else we can gain from carrying this discussion forward.
He's heavily influenced by Hitchcock...and as such, he's doomed to come off second best.
Really can't be arsed un-picking all that waffle, so let's focus in on that bit in bold.
Who are you to say those movies are bad?
They did ok in the box office, didn't they?
Why should your opinion count for more than all those people who paid to see the movie?
Have you allowed yourself to be influenced by 'pretentious' people?
What makes those three films "bad" anyway?
Are they "bad" by consensus?
Who created that consensus? Critics?
etc. etc. et fecking cetera
I honestly have no idea what point you're making, so I'm more than happy to agree to disagree, especially since you haven't actually managed to make a single coherent point which I can agree or disagree with. Well done.
You're just embarrassing yourself now, Pogue.
Advice I might take more seriously if it came from anyone else but you, of all people.
Apart from the fact that I couldn't care less about what kind of personal problem you have with me, the fact remains that you countered Devilton's well argued post by simply saying that you "can't be arsed un-picking all that waffle" and by posting a list of questions which don't make any sense at all for anyone who has made the basic effort to follow what's actually being said in the debate. You give the impression of someone whose ego was hurt. I find this quite weird. And embarrassing.
I have only taken one course on cinema in university and it was an elective (film appreciation), and that was just so I could watch some of the classic and discuss them in an academic setting. My GF all four years in college was a film student though, so I did absorb some of the technical aspect of filmi and cinema through conversation with her and her friends. I also enjoy films, always have done but by no means do i consider myself educated in any academic sense.
To be honest, I don't remember the film that well. I remember renting it because I am a big fan of Paul Giamatti, but it didn't hold my interest. I can't seem to recall anything about it that lends itself well to discussion. I either didn't finish it, or it was just one of those films on which I didn't have any particular opinion.
There are very few directors I follow (and most of the ones i make very few films a year). I usually go by actors who I enjoy, or based on the suggestion of someone close to me. I may not even have known it was a Shyamalan movie till i saw him make his custom cameo in the film (it amuses me how closely many of his early films were to the great Masters work).
And yet you felt compelled to have the final say...true to character.
Go on, I expect a retort, so don't disappoint your audience.
It wasn't a well-argued post, or anything like it. Hence my frustrated response.
He basically crapped on at length about how "self-aggrandizing" I was to dare to consider myself worthy of having an objective opinion about whether any film was good or bad, before closing by listing three films that he himself definitively considered bad. Which renders all the rest of that incredibly lengthy post redundant.
That kind of pish doesn't hurt my ego in the slightest but it bugs the shit out of me, as does anyone incapable of holding a coherent, logical debate on any particular issue. Completely pointless posters IMO. Which is where my "personal problem" with you comes in. It's not personal at all, it's got nothing to do with you as a person and everything to do with the way you present your case in discussions like this.
I consider them bad. It's my personal opinion, which I don't arrogantly push onto anyone else. Like you seem only too casually happy to do (and not just when it comes to films either). You're the one who said "A bad movie is a bad movie". With such authority as if to suggest that any movie you declare is a bad movie can't possibly have any different.
You're a perfect caricature of yourself...even when you want to hide it, the blithe arrogance just seems out your pores (and makes it way into your posts).
Well done though. I didn't expect much. Glad I wasn't disappointed.
You argue your point well, but generally the movies that do very well at the box office are blockbusters that are marketed to shit, and are generally based on a TV show or videogame that people can relate to. Doesn't make them quality movies, not to the purist anyway.
I watched 2012 the other day, despite already knowing I'd hate it. It did incredibly well at the box office, and if you suspend disbelief entirely its not completely unentertaining, but to all intents it was complete dross.
Most of my favourite films of the last ten years did poorly at the box office. The ratio of 'reasonably intelligent movie fans' is very small compared to the rest of the population that simply watch what the television has told them to watch.
It's pointless. He's one of those forum warriors who thinks they know everything that's good and right, and anyone who dares to suggest otherwise is deserving of contempt.
A quick look at his activity here should tell you the mans ego is entrenched in how he comes across so i wouldn't expect humility from him. Sure he's a nice enough fellow in real life though...but on the interweb. He is GOD.
fecking hell. You're unbelievable.
Did you even read the post you responded to with all that waffle? I very clearly differentiated between my personal opinions on a movie and whether a movie is objectively good or bad.
It's not about me declaring whether or not I like a movie. It's about whether a movie is good or bad, in it's own right. Like I said, there's a spectrum and there are loads of movies in the middle ground which could not be definitively identified as either. But you'd want to be a total fecking idiot - or a child - to be unable to identify the movies at the two extremes.
Citizen Kane is a good movie.
The Happening is a bad movie.
These statements are not my personal opinion. They are close as it is possible to get - when discussing the merit of something as subjective as films - to a simple statement of fact. That's really all there is to it. Keep up with the childish insults if you want. They really don't bother me half as much as your wooly-thinking, which really does piss me right off.
I wasn't the one who started expressing my views by using toilet vocabulary. It just so happened that I found a movie interesting on a deeper level. You responded in an unnecessary provocative way saying "the internet is full of dweebs looking for subtle meanings in shit films that never existed in the first place". And it kinda all kicked off a bit since then. You don't seem to be capable of making a point without sounding like a chav or talking down to someone.
If you're going to get distressed by "toilet vocabulary" you're probably better off discussing shit films on forums that aren't primarily frequented by football fans. Heaven forfend you ever go to a game, your ears would be mortally offended.
My point was that there seems to be a swing on here towards a belief that a film cannot ever be considered bad. Ever. That if the world slated it but one poster on here enjoyed it, then it was a success. Which is a nonsense.
In terms of Lady in the Water v The Happening. Personally, the former was simply a premise that I could never buy into. It was Splash! turned into a supernatural thriller. And a slow, unsurprising one at that. In my view it possessed the sophistication of an episode of The Outer Limits.
The Happening surprises me. I thought it was daft, mindless tosh, the kind of thing someone who enjoys Armageddon or Deep Impact might enjoy - silly sci-fi which aspired to be more. I hated it, but even as I watched it thought that the afore-mentioned demographic might have enjoyed it. What surprises me is that it seems to be the more discerning MNS demographic who have defended it far more vigorously.
I believe there's a time and place for everything. When I go watch a match I don't expect football fans to recite poetry, obviously. When we're discussing movies, something that is so subjective, something that is fun and open to interpretation, I try to exchange my views with others because I'm interested in what they have to say about it. To me it's not helpful if someone seemingly just bumps and kills the thread by stating "this film is shit, garbage, crap- end of discussion". What kind of contribution to a discussion is that? If you want to type shit and crap and garbage, just open a Word Document and type it in there. It difficult for me to believe I'm arguing this point with a mature, intelligent person. Is there a hidden pleasure in throwing insults at people you disagree with?
Being influenced by someone else doesn't mean he has to be awful.
Agreed. Movie studios actively dumb down scripts to sell to a mass audience, they dilute artistic endeavor to make the final product more palatable. There is no doubt about this. By the same token though, just because a movie is accepted by the masses, doesn't automatically qualify it as being shit, and that seems to be the opinion of more then a few movie snobs. If it's a box office hit, it's got to be derivative and cliched, it's got to be shit. Well, hang on a second. It may well be flawed, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have redeemable qualities to it. Take Avatar, or Titanic. Films that had their flaws, but also huge hits which captivated and thrilled audiences (ranging across the spectrum). And yet, some too cool for school kids here who don't know a lick about cinema will encapsulate those efforts as being 'shite'. I'm sorry...but feck off with that 12 year old response. Very few films are complete shit, and it's this need to self validate which I find irritating. For me to be cool, I have to label a whole bunch of work as shite. Why, cause having a negative opinion makes me special.
As a purist, I think one can only take greater pleasure in appreciating the works of Werner Herzog, Kubrick, Terrence Malik, Sorcesse, etc when you watch mainstream cinema. You don't need to pan a blockbuster to appreciate "Raging Bull". I think as adults you can understand that the medium of Cinema allows for all different demographics to appreciate the work on different levels.
It's this childish mentality which i find hard to ignore. (and if you've ever discussed a movie on IMDB you'll know there are plenty of kids running around with their opinions on what's shit, and what's not).
That's a shame. I think there has definitely been a trend in the last few decades of a dumbing down of films in the mainstream US market. But, on occasion you will get movies that do well, and also have cross generational appeal. I think Dark Knight and Iron Man were 2 excellent examples of movies that appealed to a wide spectrum of viewers. I'm not sure how many purists (and I don't count myself as one of them) would love them, but I certainly enjoyed both of them for what they were.
Movies like Mulholand Drive, Eastern Promise, Motorcycle Diaries, Wall-E, Hotel Rwanda, The Departed, Chicago, Sideways, Children of Men, Little miss shineshine all did well (or at least recovered their money)...and to me, were all examples of good cinema.
So yeah, I don't expect the BO to always tell which film is good. It never will. But it's one of the indicators that I use to tell me that there is something about a movie that is pulling in the audiences (that could be the movie itself, the type, the marketing, a bunch of other factors).