It's been the summer of our discontent at the movies, and if the box office has been in a slump for much of the summer season, the American film industry has no one to blame but itself. Once, movie theaters were magic kingdoms often designed to evoke literal and mythical palaces, and spending an afternoon or an evening inside one was a quasi-religious experience. Now, they are little more than automated slums, mall-like spaces with concession stands selling ludicrously overpriced junk food and soft drinks and a wilderness of corridors leading to individual ``screens,'' some almost as big as the...