Five pretty unassailable points to explain the lacklustre performance of movies lately are found at Marginal Revolution. They can be paraphrased as follows:

• Costs of marketing and stars' salaries
• Better stuff on TV
• Internet
• Better TVs, providing an experience every bit as good as the big screen but without scores of people jabbering throughout the séance explaining the plot or punctuating every bit of a comedy with their own practiced girlish whoop of joy
• Everyone has all the DVDs they want.

I thought the last point was the most interesting. I've never thought of going out and buying a DVD or the other thing we used to have, because why would you want to see a movie more than once every couple years? And who knows how much time you have? You could spend all kinds of money on movies and then die before you had a chance to watch them, then you'd look like a chump. And then there are so many movies to watch, how would you settle on a handful or so that you would watch over and over again? But apparently there are people who do this.