My favorite commentaries are the movies where there are mixed feelings, and everybody has a slightly different view to bring to the table. Getting as off topic as the commentary did, I loved the conversation about the original studio system, but I wonder, why can't the new digital filmmaking wave be just like those early days of cinema? Someone has an idea for a movie, gets a camera, gets some actors, maybe a tortilla factory, and makes a movie. Then they can put it on youtube for the world to see. Nobody has to give them permission.
Also, you left out one of the biggest reasons Hollywood chooses movies the way it does. Sure, there's development people middling around, executives who think "Die Hard in a building" is a fresh idea, and there's the conservative choices anyone would make when putting a hundred million dollars on the line, but there's also exhibition contracts:
Maybe this isn't true across the board, but what I heard during the time I worked at a theater was that studios get the highest cut of the opening weekend grosses. The second weekend, they get a smaller percentage, and it diminishes after that.
Think about how this ruins everything. To maximize profits, studios actually want a movie that's going to open huge based on the title alone, or the fact that it's 3-d, and then bomb when people realize how terrible it actually is. That way, people will forget about each one in time for the next blockbuster. They don't want word of mouth to spread so the numbers can peak later in the release, when those ticket sales are going to the theater owners instead. There's financial incentives against making good movies, except to save appearances when awards are on the line. It's better business for the studio to have one absurd flashy and forgettable train wreck for every week of the year.
As a side effect of this practice in filmmaking, movie profits bottom out before theaters can make their profits, so the only way they're able to stay open is on concessions. That, boys and girls, is why they charge us seven dollars for a box of Red Vines.