There is a distinction between art and fun. And there’s nothing wrong with having that distinction. Godfather isn’t really at the level of art film I’m thinking of. It’s really those oddball foreign movies and ones similar. Stuff that winds up on the second “page” at Rotten Tomatoes, Sundance favorites and such, critics tend to LOVE those movies while the majority of the general populace doesn’t even know where to find the theaters that show them. Meanwhile most critics, except Ebert, won’t even watch Russ Meyer or Roger Corman movies, movies that can be a hell of a lot of fun, but no one will ever mistake them for art.
To a lot of people something like Antonioni IS fun and the latest mass produced comic book sequel is difficult to sit though. Meyer and Corman have their defenders amonst serious critics. ‘The Immoral Mister Tease’ is something of a classic as are Corman’s best Poe adaptations.