Yes, I also get that feeling of Nostalgia very often. With music, it happens instanteniously, but with films there's also plenty of it if i dig deeper. When I was re-making my best lists the last couple of hours I was not only getting a tremendous urge to watch hundreds of classics (or discover new ones) but also the feeling that I had to watch some recent films again. When I put in Orson Welles' Macbeth into my Laptop yesterday, I wanted to let it play as a backdrop to the great sunny weather we have right now in Germany; I didn't watch it but the use of it as a kind of video installation was very tempting. I also like "sampling" films from time to time, putting in dozens of DVDs and watching bits and pieces out of them. That's quite similar to music.

I also had a phase of film snobbery, when I discovered that I didn't like my childhood favorites anymore (e.g. Conan, Batman, Predator), and I didn't like Hollywood, but the last two or three years I began to rediscover the greatness of some of those films again. I think the most interesting thing, and what makes me want to see a film again, is not re-living the moment in time when I first (or last) saw them, but finding new and different meaning under different circumstances, the wish for a film to constantly change and never stop doing so (similar like you wish for people you love). To kind of add to your experience and understanding of the film from a different position/place in time.

The analysing is of course from time to time very frustrating to some fellow viewers , but when i see a film, I always notice the editing, acting, cinematography, directing, set-design, etc. etc. This has increased over the years, and while it made me more critical towards certain films it has also made me appreciate others. I think what you describe is a normal process, like a musician who is more and more into music, and over the years sharpens his hearing and learns to appreciate different things in music. As a cineaste you kind of "advance" over the years through studying the art of cinema in a way that widens your appreciation for all kinds of things. Anyone who isn't moving into a wider field of diversity imo isn't really "watching" films. I believe if you do everything in life with a sense of awarness it leads to spiritual growth. That's what i expect from movies (or anything else).

I love it when I see that I can nowadays appreciate such different films as Yu Wang's "One-Armed Boxer" (1971), Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Climates" (2006) or Jonas Mekas' "Zefiro Torna..." (1992), and even consider them quality-wise to be at approximately the same level (I know some people would disagree, but those are the people I want to talk with, and not somebody who doesn't (want to) know neither of those ).

I have the feeling that this has become quite rare among movie enthusiasts (or what is considered as such), so I'm glad that I'm part of such an open-minded community here. Usually you either have the "arthouse" crowd who watch Godard all the time, or the trash fanatics who only watch the obscure genre flics (I won't speak of the people who are interested in films in the "normal" way - there are thousands of those). Both are elitists, and somehow I think neither really appreciate certain films but rather see what they want to see.

But I'm not as optimistic as you when I think of our generation "taking over". I think people like us are rather the exception...