I guess I just have a completely different approach to movie watching than others (hey, might as well turn this thread into a debate on why we watch movies).
To put it simply, I can't be entertained by dumb movies. Plot holes will distract me unless the movie is really captivating (which sometimes happens). Bad acting will turn me off unless the movie doesn't take itself seriously (as in The Mummy but not in The Mummy Returns. Some parts of the sequel actually tried to be serious). Poorly written dialogue may elicit a laugh from me, but more often than not, it just makes me dislike the movie.
At one point, I was entertained by non-stop action and neat special effects, but not any more. I've seen plenty of violence and good special effects by now. Comedy is a different thing, but good comedies are pretty rare.
My approach to movies now is somewhat akin to (but not exactly like) art. I'm not talking about just sculptures and paintings here. I'm talking about any art including dance, literature, songs and some pieces of architecture. Like any good work of art, a good movie requires skill to be made. Good acting is not easy to do. Neither is good script-writing. Directing a movie is probably the hardest thing of all. When all these things and more are done right, the movie is good, and it withstands the test of time. How many movies can you actually remember from 1992? Or even 1997? We watch an awful lot of movies and forget most of them. There must have been something about Wayne's World, Pinocchio, Aladdin and Fried Green Tomatoes that I remember (I looked at a list of 1992 movies, and those were the only movies that I could remember multiple scenes, the plot and more than two or three lines of dialogue from). They didn't necessarily have great acting (especially in the case of Wayne's World) or even a very deep story (as in Aladdin), but something about them was well done. So I remember them.
Look, I'm not telling anybody to stop going to movies for thrills and entertainment. That's a perfectly good reason to see a movie. I'm not even saying that we should learn from movies or even think very much while watching them. But to say that movies are supposed to be entertaining and nothing else is equivalent to saying that music is only supposed to have catchy tunes and infectious beats.
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