I totally get what you mean. I wonder wheter writing a decent plot/characters/dialogues is really that impossible or whether there’s some other issues at play.
I mean, book authors routinely manage to do pretty good writing, why can’t we have that for film as well?
Try watching movies/shows from around the world, you’ll be amazed. I gave up on USA shows some time ago and never looked back.
Best-sellers tend to be shite, though. And most of what you’re talking about as “mainstream stuff” is the movie-making equivalent of best-seller books.
Don’t look at the heavily-marketed stuff. That’s like the “best-sellers” rack at the bookstore (or the “Recommended for you” section of book-selling websites, equivalently). Look for the stuff that doesn’t have billion-dollar budgets, big-name stars and advertising campaigns that cost more than many small countries produce in a year.
