If the end of minority report was happy i read it completely wrong.
Your spoiler'd note is a theory I rather liked when I first heard it. I don't believe it to be the intent of the movie, though. But is a much more Dick ending.
(well, and the omission of the Tales of the Black Freighter, but I admit I never really liked that anyway)
It's my understanding that they released that as an animated feature with the DVD. I saw the theatrical release of Watchmen, because it was the thing to do... I still really think I should have just waited for the 5 hour long, full director's cut. I suspect it would have been better for me.
Sorry, but you can't convince me that standards haven't dropped.
In my Greek class in college, we translated an ancient Greek play that had a dick joke. Sure, it was making fun of Socrates, but still. There's high-falutin' stuff in every era, and low brow stuff in every era. Lucky for us, we have Roman graffiti preserved in Pompeii to prove it the universality of low standards.
Besides, there's plenty of brilliant lyrics in the modern day. Anyone can single out any single song that's crap, and say "things ain't what they used to be!" Or, as those arguing against you did, "things ain't any worse!" Or as people above this post argue - lots of mediocre drowns out the good, sometimes - but there is indeed plenty of good to be found.
You can easily see this when you look at art and popular culture from the 20's and 30's. Only the cream is still well known.
Read what Neil Gaiman said about 50 Shades of Grey - in short: yes, it's popular now, but there are tons of books that were popular for a short time, that no one remembers now. The classics endure, and consistently sell forever - they aren't a flash in the pan like many huge money makers are.