Does anyone severely hate entertainment nowadays?

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To find good entertainment, it helps to find critics with interesting tastes. This is actually a good time to be into any kind of music, film, games and anything. You just have to do some work to find what's good.

What are you talking about? Is your complaint seriously that directors don't write their own films? I mean, yeah, I agree that James Cameron's strengths aren't in screenwriting and 'Avatar' was pretty lacking, but I'm not going to fault a director simply because he doesn't write scripts. To me that's like faulting the lead singer of a band for not being able to play guitar, bass AND drums.

I also vehemently disagree with your insultingly stupid "plumber" analogy. Saying a filmmaker "uses" someone to write their scripts is one thing, but your implication makes it seem like people like Jackson and Nolan just went around asking random people with no experience in the field to artistically collaborate with them. Peter Jackson's wife Fran Walsh was a television writer before she met him (from working in the same industry) and the Nolans are just another example of sibling filmmakers; I mean, the Coen Brothers write and direct their movies, does that mean they suck as filmmakers now, too? It's never been uncommon for directors to work in regular collaboration with another person, whether writer/editor/producer/actor/etc., and I don't see how being related invalidates any of that, especially if said relatives are both English majors who work in the film industry. It's one thing if you simply have problems with their scripts, but that analogy makes some absurd insinuations.

The film director is the creative artist responsible for what you see up there on the screen, so yeah, if the creative artist uses a sibling to write the film and that person isn't up to it, then yeah, the film director takes responsibility for the result. In Nolan's case, Intersteller would have been a much better film if he had used a reputable science fiction writer to write the script. What you see on the screen is a mixture of nonsense science and ideas borrowed from numerous other science fiction films (Contact, 2001). In Jackson's case, being a television script writer doesn't disqualify you from writing feature films, but being married to the film director doesn't make you that person a great writer. Hickcock's wife was a script doctor and writer, but Hitckcock always used renowned screen writers to write his scripts. In The case of the Coen brothers they happen to be great screen writers, as much as they are great film directors. They would be equally good writing material for other film directors.

I think that nearly every kind of entertainment has gotten really terrible since the 21st century - TV, movies, animation, music, maybe even video games and books. I'm worried that there will be another video game crash because I saw a review the other night about what a horrible year 2014 was for games. I think the entertainment businesses just don't care any more, all they want to do is make money. You'd think that they would care since they must lose a lot of money when they crank out epic failures, but it doesn't appear that they do. I think that it's a sign that the world will end soon because people are getting more and more stupid. Maybe it's a disease or something because I can't think of a more explainable reason for TLC to make a new show about a wife who thinks her husband might be gay, or for there to be a Christmas special based on the Elf Bowling flash game, where Santa was originally a pirate who stole toys and then later calls children brats.

Directors can't always write screenplays and screenwriters can't always direct movies; they're two very different fields. Lots of filmmakers work in teams and have long-standing collaborations with people whom they've developed a creative repartee with (do I really have to give examples of directors who continually work with the same producers, writers, actors or editors? You don't have to look far). That's true of a lot of mediums of entertainment. I mean, Bernie Taupin writes all of Elton John's lyrics, does that somehow discredit Elton John's composing and performing?

Both the Jacksons and the Nolans have literally been working together on their films for the entirety of their careers; they formed their own creative bonds and as such, I see their films as both their own, rather than just who's directing. Whether or not one likes their films is a different issue, but the fact that they're related seems completely irrelevant. There's nepotism in Hollywood for sure, but there's a difference between, say, Will Smith casting his inexperienced son in the lead role for a major film he produced and two brothers having collaborated on every single film they've ever made since they started out in the film industry. The Nolans are no different than the Coens, except Christopher does the directing and Jonathan sticks with the writing (including projects independent of his brother's).

Honestly, I can't really comment on either's most recent work; the only Christopher Nolan films I've ever seen are 'Following', 'Memento' and 'Insomnia' (none of which Jonathan co-wrote), but I've always adored Jackson's pre-Tolkien films, from 'Bad Taste' to 'The Frighteners'. When he started writing with Fran Walsh on his second film, the brilliant 'Meet the Feebles', his films got progressively stronger and found their own unique voice and aesthetic. Regardless of whether or not they were married, the two undeniably found a groove with each other, and I'll gladly stick behind 'Heavenly Creatures' as a great film, 'Dead-Alive' as one of the greatest horror-comedies ever made and 'The Frighteners' (Director's Cut) as a solidly clever popcorn flick.

There was one study where a research team took a look at popular music from the 1950s to the 2010s and found that it's been getting more and more repetitive over the years.

Granted it is only a single study but than it is some evidence in support of the idea that modern entertainment sucks.

They keyword there is popular music. If you're studying only the very top of the charts, you're only going to be studying trends of the record industry and general public instead of the overall quality of the music, as well as ignoring the other 98% of independent/underground music which doesn't receive any mainstream airplay whatsoever.

I agree with bits of what you say but disagree with some of your major assertions. I would ague strongly that Peter Jackson got worse as a film maker after he left the horror medium. As for who is the creative visionary in any artistic medium it is usually one solitary individual, even though you can argue a strong case that film as an art form is a collaborative effort, without the vision of the major artist involved (ie the film director), it founders. That is why the film director's guild had trouble forming into a union in the 1930's because the studio heads argued that as creative artists, film directors were more employers than employees and couldn't rightly form themselves into a union. In your music example, Bernie Taupin is the secondary partner. If it wasn't for Elton John none of us would know who he is. Take a band like Led Zepplin. Jimmy Page formed the band and hired the musicians to play in the band. While you might enjoy the drums and the base that makes up the music of Led Zepplin, it is Jimmy Page's vision you are listening to, without which there is no Led Zepplin. You may as well argue that the supplier of Leonardo Da Vinci's painting brushes, oil paints and canvas should receive co-credit for the Mona Lisa.

I only ever saw 'The Fellowship of the Ring', so I can't comment on Peter Jackson's most recent work. 'The Lovely Bones' got a severe gnashing, but the rest of it seems to be relatively critically acclaimed, so it's not like he took the objective downfall that Sam Raimi did after leaving the horror genre. To me, I'll remember Peter Jackson AND Fran Walsh first and foremost for their horror films, as well as for 'Heavenly Creatures'.

I very much disagree with your "visionary" consensus, though it depends on the specific person or group. Musically, there are a lot of bands where the frontman is instrumental in handling every aspect of composing, recording and production. Like, the Smashing Pumpkins are undeniably Billy Corgan's vision: he's the only remaining original member, he records nearly all the instruments and 95% of all songs are credited solely to him. It's rare, but that does happen, and I'll agree with you in those cases.

In Zeppelin's case, Page may have formed the band and produced their work, but it's clearly a collaborative effort because - well, first of all, the vast majority of their songs have Page co-credited with the other members - but because the others bring dynamics which quintessentially define them as a band. The Smashing Pumpkins can still be the Smashing Pumpkins regardless of who's playing what as long as Billy Corgan's there, but Led Zeppelin could not be Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant's vocals or John Bonham's drumming. They would be an entirely different band. Admittedly, I'm not an expert on Zep, but I can apply the same to Rush: bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson formed the band and write all the music. Drummer Neil Peart joined on the second album and took over lyrical duties. Even people who don't listen to Rush know that if there's two things the band is known for, it's the drumming and their lyrics. Neil added a new dynamic to their band that ultimately made them who they are. It'd be wrong to say that Rush belongs only to the "visions" of Geddy and Alex, because without Neil, they would not be Rush. Likewise, without Robert and the Johns, they would not be Zeppelin. Same thing with Elton and Bernie.

As far as film is concerned, it's even rarer to have a Billy Corgan-like visionary. You really only see that in low-budget independent films...this is going back a ways, but since my expertise lies in the '70s/'80s, I can think of 'Pink Flamingos', which John Waters wrote, produced, directed, shot and edited entirely by himself. You don't see that much anymore. Regardless of the size of the film, there are still so many different roles of equal importance. To use an absurd analogy, the director is Jimmy Page: he may have the ideas, but he depends on the other band members (the cinematographer, the editor) to help fully realize them, and they'll bring their own dynamic to the project, as well. That's why directors usually work with the same cinematographers, editors, composers, actors, screenwriters, etc. as opposed to working with the same grips, gaffers, boom operators, etc., because the former are the ones who are instrumental in bringing the film to life; they're people who understand each other's visions and have developed a creative bond. For me, a director is the thread that ties together most of the film's dynamics, but the parts are more than the sum.