'Looking at an X-men comic from the early 70s is enough to cause nauseau.'
I LOVE the early X-Men comics, in part at least because they differed so radically from that which preceded them. But more of this later ...
'The same is true of movies. Go back and watch a "classic" movie from the 50s or 60s. Better yet, go and watch one of the movies that won "best picture" in the 50s. Poor acting, plot holes, and melodrama galore.'
Nakor cites some excellent 'old' films above. My personal contributions to such a list might include the obvious but brilliant nonetheless 'Citizen Kane' (1941) ), 'Nosferatu' (1922), Aleksandr Nevsky (1938), Bringing Up Baby (1938), It's A Wonderful Life (1946), My Favourite Brunette (1947) ... and I haven't even REACHED the 1950s yet! Don't get me wrong - I like many contemporary films too. But if 'poor acting, plot holes and melodrama galore' get your goat, I put it to you that a good 50% of the current output of Hollywood's sausage machine gives you these in spades.
'But I can't name a single movie that would stand up in today's competition, especially in terms of acting.'
If you want good acting, try Charles Laughton in 'Henry VIII', 'Mutiny on the Bounty' or 'The Hunchback Of Notre Dame'. Watch Marlon Brando in 'The Wild One' or 'On The Waterfront', or Orson Welles in 'Touch Of Evil'. Now try and convince me that Denzel Washington, Leonardo Di Caprio or either of the Toms cuts the mustard.
'Today's popular science fiction is also much better done.'
If, by 'better done', you mean more sophisticated, better FX, more convincing (pseudo-)science - sure. But how often do you walk out of a science fiction film saying, 'Well, I suppose it LOOKED good, but ...'? Personally, I love those great leaps into the unknown that I think science fiction took with 'Forbidden Planet', '2001: A Space Odyssey' and (you guessed it) Star Trek TOS. I see precious few such leaps occurring these days, despite the small armies of IT worker ants toiling away within such factories as Industrial Light & Magic. (And, despite such technological advancement, no animation to my mind has yet come within spitting distance of the glory of the very first full-length feature animation, Disney's 'Snow White And The Seven Dwarves'.)
I loved 'Dr. Who' as a kid and still do, but when I watch its long, static scenes of unhurried dialogue now, it emphasises to me how film and TV has been tailored to accommodate the oft-reported shrinking attention span. The point being that while the technology and technique employed has doubtless improved, is it really better 'art'? Today's entertainment products are intended to sell to those who live in today's world, so how can we compare them objectively with those produced within and for another, very different era? Is today's X-Men better than the X-Men of the 1970s? Is 'World of Warcraft' better than 'Space Invaders'? Is it even meaningful to ask these questions, given the very different circumstances of their respective origins?
Ultimately of course, it's all a matter of personal preference. Still, I note some gaps in your discussion of 'entertainment' - notably, music. Do you also believe that any music produced before the 1980s is by definition inferior? I suspect that, for example, Vivaldi or the Beatles will still be listened to and enjoyed at the end of the century, while I would not put money on the same being true of Justin Timberlake or Christina Aguilera. An unfair comparison? Perhaps. But it serves my point, which is that blanket statements, such as 'entertainment has gotten better', don't necessarily tell us much - except perhaps that you prefer modern 'stuff'. Which is, of course, just as the manufacturers of such 'stuff' would want it.
