Simply put, Hollywood quit making movies people wanted to see and started making sermons. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
In the past, the film industry was perhaps the only industry (besides politics) in which abject failure has been met with consumer empathy and largesse. Ever since the days of the Great Depression, the American public has wanted Hollywood to succeed; to continue to entertain us with tales of adventure and drama. For if Hollywood survived, so did people’s hopes for American culture.
There was an era when Hollywood celebrities and film creators were treated as a kind of modern royalty, a representation of the heights to which the average person could strive and “make it big.” The glitz and the glamour were viewed as the culmination of the American dream. But as with all fantasies, the story must end and reality must return. Was the movie business always a farce? Yes. However, it was a farce that the public held up even in the worst of times as something of value; something more than frivolity.
In the spans of around 7 years Hollywood has lost every ounce of social capital they had gained in the past century. That takes an epic level of ignorance and arrogance. It takes criminal levels of malicious intent and an unprecedented display of stupidity. The populace was willing to put up with almost any level of degeneracy from Tinsel Town as long as they could make compelling movies, and yet, they couldn’t even do that.
I stopped going to theatres decades ago, primarily because the sound volume was excrutiating (and I intensely dislike crowds) and the content of the films shown wasn’t worth the ever excalating price of admission.
I’d rather watch the 1951 version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol ” with its stellar British cast than most of what passes for films today.
Alastair Sim’s performance is a classic.
Since childhood, a must watch at Christmas and it isn’t only the acting but also the extraordinary use of light and shadow, the excellent film score by Richard Addinsell, the pacing, etc. Truly a classic film depicting the transmutation of a man’s heart.
Also of note in the same genre, is “The Browning Version”, a play by Terrence Rattigan starring Sir Michael Redgrave and Jean Kent.