[aggienader08]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

What does that have to do with the actual quality of the films though? If you want to say that the general consciousness of the mainstream is fickle as they come, then sure I'll agree with you. But just as something is not necessarily good or bad because the mainstream ignored it, something is also not necessarily good or bad because the mainstream was obsessed with it for a brief period.

Sure, Inception and the like will be mostly forgotten in a few years, but what does that matter? That will happen with ANY movie - no public fervor is sustainable long-term save a few crazy exceptions (and I'd argue that those exceptions, like Star Wars, are continually refueled by new expansions - books, videogames, tv shows, etc.). Is being popular and then losing the attention somehow worse than never being popular at all? Does that period of popularity forever ruin the film's capability of being discussed or appreciated at any real level?

Ditto. There is no correlation between this and the quality of the film, period.