There were a lot of crappy movies before the current generation. For each of the good ones you remember, there were ten that did nothing to challenge or entertain the viewer. And I'll take entertaining over challenging anytime. Most of the times when people try to be artistic it just comes across as pretentious and annoying. It's just as hard to make an entertaining movie that works as it is to make a thinking man's movie that works. If you can pull off both at the same time, then, well, you're a miracle worker. PT Anderson and Darren Aronofsky fall short of that for me, but I don't really have anyone else to offer up in their place. Also, count me in the group of people who don't appreciate Hitchcock. Blame my short attention span, but I've never been absorbed into one of his movies.
