How do we determine good movies from bad?

There is an undeniable correlation between the level of one's exposure to various filmic modes, genres and categories of experience and one's ability to decide very quickly whether or not one will enjoy a particular movie. If one were asked in the process of watching what makes the movie good or bad, the difficulty of articulating the criteria according to which the movie is judged will become accentuated. Mostly, we (the viewers) know that certain genres, categories and movements within film appeal to us, and that others do not.

I, for one, struggle with science fiction and fantasy and but take rather easily to foreign language films. The reason is not that I consider sci-fi to be for computer geeks, and fantasy for juveniles or children. The problems that I experience with these genres lie within.

The bounds that are transcended by sci-fi and fantasy filmmakers, which are imposed in the first instance by a governing prejudice of what is real and what is not, reveal a level of creativity that I cannot seem to acquire and assimilate. Perhaps if I were to force myself to watch Blade Runner (again), Battlestar Gallactica, Star Wars, Star Trek and all the seminal sci-fi works I would, with time, be able to judge at an instant what constitutes good sci-fi and what would be bad?

Is the need to determine the good from the bad a problem within itself? I think not. We simply need, desire and thirst for good movies. This is an imperative we demand of those who seek to entertain us. With such little time in life people generally do not like wasting it unnecessarily. This is one of the reasons we go out of our way to avoid Banks, Home-Affairs Offices, and Police Stations. We simply do not like waiting in unpleasant locations without good reason. We tolerate bad movies even less.

I walked out of my first movie a couple of months ago after years of buying tickets and waiting patiently through-out for the end credits. And I owe this "first" to the opening moments of Resident Evil 3. I walked out and decided to go banking...