I can't stand people my age.

I won't deny that there seems to have been a general dumbing down of the United States' younger generations as a result of the sharp decline of public education, which has generally failed to inspire or challenge the youth to do more than become obsessed with pop culture. Trust me, even when I was in high school (now 31 yrs old) I would watch "nerd" shows or historical drama like "Sand Pebbles" alone or with a friend who understood.

Majority of the members of many societies, no matter the time period, have no particular tenacity of intelligence and lack a basic curiosity for other cultures, history, language or science. Your particular age group, no offence, is a lover of short term A.D.D. like pleasures, new genre evolving music, vulgar comedy, action based visceral entertainment, no newsflash there, as most of us older folks have been there.

We all progress and mature in various ways at different times. I've had many a high school friend who was a complete idiot in high school mature to become a great friend in college, life is simply about timing: finding friends, lovers and colleagues who can enhance and reinforce who you are and where you both would like to go down the road. Heed some great advice told above.

It's not just the young people. I know several people of my own generation (40s and 50s) who don't like any movie unless it's in color. The audience of today prefers computer generated graphics, impossible car chases, and a lot of loud noises. They need to be wowed by explosions and have blood sprayed across the screen every couple of minutes or they get bored. I don't even bother discussing movies with most people. They just don't get them.

I know what your talking about, my older brother...im 23 and hes five years older than me..ill let you do the math. Anyways, i was watching this last night and he came in and wanted to change it to the disney channel...THE DISNEY CHANNEL!I literally had to yell at him so that i could see the ending of it and the amazing thing is he only does it when im watching an old movie like frank langella's Dracula (which is my favourite movie) or the Force 10 From Navarone which i also love...my brother literally drives me up the wall and over it!

Well, not everyone your (most likely "our") age is like that. There's been people like that for years, and some (like you) can obviously appreciate a good movie. Imo some of that often goes away when you get older, some of it stays. Of the movies that I first watched when I was younger, there are some I appreciate more and some I appreciate less.

You're right though, I can't stand the extremely shallow view some have, where only the very latest thing made in their lifetime is worth appreciating. There's centuries of great literature, a century of great film, and yet some people won't touch anything that was made more than five years ago. Pathetic.

But just to reinforce my point once more, it isn't necessarily just an age thing. There are younger people who will appreciate films from any era, and then there are some who only like certain kinds of films. For example, I have a friend who I know could NEVER watch this, but not just because it's an old movie. I showed him the original War of the Worlds movie (a very fun movie), and he liked it a lot. So I guess it's people of all ages today who are "programmed" to only appreciate certain kinds of films... there are some old classics that most will appreciate (some of the top movies on IMDb are good examples of movies that "withstand the test of time" so to speak), there are movies that are more popular today than when they were released. Unfortunately, there are other classics that are largely ignored because they don't fit "modern standards" (I hate that phrase so much).

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Why do people your age always have to make a big deal when they like an older movie. "OO LOOK AT ME I'M 15 AND MY FAVOURITE MOVIE IS REAR WINDOW."

I've seen so many threads where a teenager tries to pander to the older audience by constantly bragging how they are so different from others of the same age and how they are so much better because they don't like CGI. Its annoying.
Nobody is going to give you a medal or attention. Everywhere I go on these boards I look for interesting debates but instead find either "THIS MOVIE SUX" or "I AM 14 AND LOVE BRESSON, NOW WHICH OLD GUY WANTS TO TAKE ME ON A DATE?"

Simple, people have swallowed the lie that old is bad and new is always better. Only a few people have enough about them to look around and back to see if it's true or not - you are one of the fortunate ones who has done this and then can appreciate what you find. You should thank your lucky stars your not just another one of the mundanes who can't.

Your comment reminds me of an incident I experienced about 15 years ago. I was watching "Odd Man Out" (1947) as part of a James Mason retrospective at the Walter Reade theater in New York. This is the film that brought James Mason to the attention of Hollywood back when.

Seated directly in front of me were two young women in their early 20's as engrossed in the film as I was. At the conclusion of the film, the house lights went up. One of these young ladies turned to the other and said, "They don't make movies like that any more." And she was right.

More to the point, though, is that you can't make movies like that anymore, because the audiences aren't there anymore that would ensure a return on the film makers' efforts.

That isn't to say that there weren't crappy films back then. There were many; most people went to the movies once or twice a week, but there was no television back then, so the movie studios ground out mass entertainment. Now television supplies most of the crap--everything except exploding cars, which remains the province of film.

Many old movies are terrific, and so are some new movies. You already know that you can't follow anybody else's taste but your own. I realized the same thing myself when I was about 12 years old. That was 60 years ago. It gets easier as you get older.