How about any of these films from the past:
Shane; Maltese Falcon; Lord of the Rings (three movies); A Man for All Seasons; Remains of the Day; Bridge on the River Kwai; On the Waterfront; The Searchers; Grapes of Wrath; and so on and so on -- there are hundreds of similar examples...
Not a cartoon in the bunch. My point was not "make children's movies" -- my point was this: a director/producer can make a moving, memorable film without the gratuitous elements, IF HE CHOOSES TO. Today's Hollywood elites choose NOT to; they use the gratuitous elements to (A) hide their lack of talent and (B) promote "the Hollywood agenda." And then they moan and whine when no one goes to the movies any more.
I don't think it's that blanket a statement. LOTR, Spidey and Incredibles shows they're willing to make those kind of movies, and none of them are children's movies (don't let the fact that Incredibles is animated fool you, the constant references to golden age comics makes the intended audience obviously adult, it's kid friendly to be sure but they were mostly gunning for the over 30 crowd). And that's 6 movies just off the top of my head in the last 5 years, the others in your list came out over a span of DECADES.
Most movies aren't intended to be memorable, even back to the early days of Hollywood, most are intended to make some money and then get out of the way for the next batch. This is why you get a lot of sex and violence, sex and violence sell.
I don't hear a lot of whining coming out of Hollywood, I hear a lot of crowing coming from the anti-Hollywood crowd but from inside Hollywood they seem to be taking a slump in stride. I think everybody knew late last year when this year's movie schedule started coming together this was going to be kind of a weak year. They just didn't have the blockbuster festival going this year. I'm a summer blockbuster movie kind of guy, most Julys I'm in the theater every weekend sometimes both Saturday and Sunday, this July I've seen two movies and there isn't anything opening this weekend I intend to go see. They just didn't put together a blockbuster summer and the gate is showing it (in a normal summer there's no way a movie like Bewitched would have opened in July, that was a May or September movie... which seems to be the real problem they're having this summer, LOTS of spring and fall movies, too many for spring and fall to handle actually, and very few true summer movies). Shouldn't come as a suprise to anyone and there shouldn't be a lot of reading into it. Next year X-Men 3 comes out and the year after that comes Spiderman 3, now that's not enough to make either of the next two summers go back to normal but it does mean they'll both have solid cornerstones to build from.