We have ended up with formulaic, simple, cheesy, sex-infused CGI-flooded schlock because that's what the average unwashed dimwit out there is buying. Heck, look what they have done with almost every movie to come out these last several years.
When we buy junk, we get more junk.
Any time the academy takes over a specific artistic form, that form starts to die a little death. Every wonder why acting is often so bad? Look at those stupid Master’s Degrees in Theater Arts.
This week I’m going to see a Louise Brooks/William Wellman silent film at Film Forum in NYC - neither of whom had any academic training outside of Louise’s dance classes. Wellman was a World War I vet.
A sort of a problem that has affected movies to comic books to all sorts of things in the whole post-modern era of the past few decades. People who grow up as ultra-fans and whose influences only come from the medium itself, all jump into their favored field, and it leads to a sort of culturally distilled product.
Instead of drawing on real life experiences, like earlier creators, who lived on farms, fought in wars, struggled through economic Depression, and such, you have swaths of modern folks whose motivating influences arise from childhood viewings of tv-reruns and comic-themed movies. It eats on itself. It compounds the geeky, self-conscious artiface of the medium’s language.
Real weird people were depicted as being brave people who rebelled against the strict conformity of the regular American family and values. The children/young adults in the new movies were drug-taking, sexually promiscuous "rebels" who showed their straitlaced brethren how out of touch they were. Weird was good, normal was bad. Average Americans, especially whites, were mostly racist, mysogynistic types who needed to be shown the errors of their ways. Republicans and conservatives were regularly bashed.
A few years ago my wife and I were looking for a movie to watch on the weekend. We decided to watch some flick on HBO with Leonard DiCrapio. He was some sort of business exec. One of the opening scenes had him working late one night. At one point he goes outside his office and runs into some other worker he'd never met before also taking a break. They introduce themselves, and then one or the other pulls out a joint and they start toking.
I thought to myself how often does someone offer a complete stranger a toke of marijuana inside the office building? Am I that far out of it that complete strangers share pot with each other like chewing gum? I just didn't ring true, and we turned that movie off.
A few years ago, I used a movie encyclopedia to make a list of my favorite movies and directors. I found that all of my favorite directors had started their craft in the silent era, when you had to tell a story without dialog.
Regarding the point that good movies don't seem to come from people who got degrees in film-making, it's also true that great novelists didn't get degrees in literature.
Taking courses in the mechanics of film-making, or of writing, may help someone who already has talent, but they'll do nothing for someone who lacks talent.
You disappoint.