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Why is America so infatuated with bad movies? Why do all those crappy movies you see trailers for make $100 million, while true films like The Darjeeling Limited or City Of Lost Children get lost in cinematic obscurity? Do people actually enjoy these sort of movies? Do people go out, buy a ticket for say Shrek 4 or The Last Mimzy and exit the theater satisfied in any way? The answer, disturbingly enough, seems to be yes...

To begin, we must first determine what defines a “bad movie.” There are, in my distinguished opinion, four types of bad movies: “Badass mindless” bad movies, “hilariously cheesy” bad movies, “why did I just watch that?” bad movies and “holy crap, that looks like the worst movie ever and I never want to see it” bad movies. My criticism focuses on the latter two, for the others are actually entertaining. They are movies that are so bad that they are good (ie, Schwarzenegger flicks).

Unfortunately, most bad movies just plain suck. They either look good and disappoint or look awful and you never see them. They’re the sequels to you’re favorite movies and the sequels to the sequels. As they get progressively worse and worse, you eventually learn your lesson and stop paying to watch them.

Or at least that’s how it SHOULD work...alas, SOMEONE is watching these movies. Someone is willing to pay to see them because they are making studios money. But who?

Who do you know that raves “OH MY GOD, BEOWOLF WAS AMAAAAZING” or that says “dude, did you see Resident Evil: Extinction? It was awesome.”

The answer is likely no one. At least not if you have friends in college. No, we “intellectuals” prefer “bad” movies like Shooter and The Running Man. Hell, I’ll even take Die Hard 4.

So the question is “who is seeing these movies?” Who is giving Lionsgate more money to make Saw sequels?

I can’t honestly classify these mindless drones into a specific category. They are “outsiders” dispersed randomly and intermittently between various demographics that independently cannot be identified but somehow rally together in a collusive conspiratory effort to keep our cinemas filled with crap.

However, I can generalize and identify one group of people who are to blame. A key demographic that studio heads figure into the “should we green light this” equation: high school kids.

I personally hate them for many reasons and this just adds fuel to the fire. Those wanna-bes you see walking around in college apparel, sipping latte mocha’s like they’re double mocha espresso’s and driving mommy’s car to their friend Amber’s house so that they can watch the OC together. Yeah, those high schoolers who wish they were you and are the reason I have to see a green band trailer for “National Treasurer 2” before I see “American Gangster.”

Studios have become misguided and lost, assuming lost revenue from Generation X will translate the same for Generation Y (that’s us, people). They think that it’s perpetually the NEXT generation that they need to focus on. The people who don’t realize it’s outrageous to pay $6.00 for a medium popcorn. They don’t realize that that “next” generation they used to focus (again, I’m referring to “us”) is still watching movies and would still be watching movies if the studios would stop disillusioning them with fluff.

Just stop the PG-13 and give us back the R.