I was watching an interview with Pete Jackson, and he was talking about how the SFX/stories have an arc that swings back and forth. Right now, the arc is swinging back more towards the story side, as having these huge FX doesn't really make a good movie, and audiences can see through it (IE, Alexander). Right now we're seeing a lot more dialogue intensive films becoming more mainstream, such as Sideways and Finding Neverland. Just my two cents.

On another point, I rather enjoy mindless summer blockbusters. They're a lot of fun, and some of them are actually fairly well done.