“They just don’t make them like they used to.”

Is there any phrase more annoying? If there is, I haven’t found it.

My fellow BG News columnist Levi Joseph Wonder took that phrase and ran with it in a column yesterday, referring specifically to the state of movies [“What’s happened to movies?”]. Movies today, he argued, just ain’t what they were in yesteryears.

Look at “Transformers,” he cried. Now look at “Casablanca.” “See? See what I mean? Movies then were so much better.”

Well, I say! Humbug, humbug!

Of course they would seem that way when you compare the best a generation has to offer to a generic, by-the-numbers summer blockbuster.

The only difference is the way you’re looking at it. There were plenty of forgettable, garbage movies in the period in which “Casablanca” was made. But that was then, and you have no need to remember every movie that came out that year – you’re only remembering the good ones.

Ten years from now, you’ll be crying that movies just aren’t what they used to be back in good ol’ 2007. Man, that was the year we had it good: “Waitress,” “Ratatouille,” “Grindhouse” – if only we could go back!

If anything, film – like most aspects of society and culture – is progressing. It’s getting better.

Today there’s more room for independent film and creator-driven projects than ever. Especially as technology increases, with digital video becoming more readily available, coupled with easy access to broadband Internet, it’s only a matter of how willing you are to search in order to find great independent film work.

I don’t want to single Wonder out, though, because it’s a trend that goes further than just movies. The idea that “they don’t make them like they used to” – that things were better back in the day – is a common one, and a bogus one.

Just yesterday, two – two! – of my professors in two – two! – different classes went on similar rants about how much easier things were for them “back then.” I should also point out that yesterday I only had two – two!! – classes.

It’s a viewpoint that is also favored in those annoying e-mail chain letters – the ones that go on about how “we’ve built bigger buildings, but we have smaller hearts.” Maybe the only difference is that, nowadays, we’re cornier.

The idea that yesterday was better than today is not only myopic, it’s disgusting and depressing. It suggests that we’re moving backward as a society, that we’ll never be able to achieve what our parents or grandparents did.

Baloney!

Let’s go back to gas-guzzling automobiles without seat belts. Let’s go back to segregation. Let’s go back to a time where women couldn’t vote, much less run for office.

Heck, why stop in the 20th century? Why not go back to the colonial period? Things were so much simpler then! We could work ourselves to the bone just to eat at night and then maybe take a vacation to California. We’ll be back in a decade if we’re lucky, so be sure to check our mail.

Why not, right? Things were so much better back then. They must have been, because it was then and not now.

The thing is, our memories are selective. As we grow older and look back, we don’t remember all of the negative parts.

Times were no simpler or better back then than they are now. You just need to look at it the right way.

In the grand scope of things, we’re progressing. Of course we are. It’s just that since we exist in the “now,” it’s easy to get tripped up by whatever bad things happen – entertainment or otherwise – and remember “then” as a sort of magical, faraway land that can be anything we remember it to be, no matter how untrue or distorted the memory is.

What’s more, wishing for yesterday to happen again prevents society and culture from moving forward. This is something our generation is particularly guilty of. Why was “Transformers” made, after all? Because of our yearning for the past – to experience our childhood again.

You’ve heard the conversations before, maybe even participated in them. They start like, “Remember Stretch Armstrong? Remember NES or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Those were the days.” But it’s only because of your rose-tinted memory that those things are better than what kids today are enjoying.

So embrace the “now,” embrace the future, if only because nobody likes hearing how much “they don’t make them like they used to.”