The thing with art and music is that the appreciation of both is a mix of subjective and objective. When I look at art or listen to music, several questions arise.
What is the maker trying to do? What are they communicating? Do I understand what they are saying? Are they saying anything? Does it matter? (And yes, I have known 'artists' who were like 'yeah, abstracts with lots of cobalt blue are selling well this season, fits the decorating trends, I'll paint that. Next year it might be kittens on black velvet.' Also artists who spend months getting the curve of a fallen leaf right.
Are they using craft or skill to express what they are saying? Are they breaking rules to make a point, or did they not bother to learn the rules in the first place? Are there rules for what they are doing, or is it a new idea? Are they just shouting random words and calling it poetry, or vomiting on the canvas and calling it art? If they think it's art, then is it? Has someone made art by accident while trying to do something else? (If you've never heard of the Ern Malley/Angry Penguins controversy, look it up and be greatly entertained.)
Is it beautiful? Note that I didn't say 'pretty', it's not the same thing at all. It's possible to create beauty from the most unlikely material and subjects. Look at Rodin's 'La Belle qui fut Heaulmière' and have your heart broken. Or read the Villon poem that inspired Rodin. Look at cave paintings. New Guinea penis carvings. Kid's kindergarten paintings. They all touch us for different reasons, and in different ways.
Do I understand it? Not necessarily intellectually understand. I have a clay Shela-na-gigue that an Irish friend made for me, and a fernwood carving of the goddess messily giving birth which was given to me in New Guinea by the old woman who carved it, and a virgin-and-child painted icon given to me by a christian friend, and to me all those works of different art say the same thing.
Ok, most important question: does it answer me? Do I listen to it/watch it/read it/look at it and think 'yes, that!'? Does it express some idea well enough to make me understand it/believe it/get it for the first time? Does it show me something new, or explain something I knew but couldn't express? If so, for me, that makes it high art rather than decoration. Not that the two are mutually exclusive.
Gaaahh! Words! Why is everything so hard to explain?
And films and actors, yeah. Different periods of time and styles of film-making affect what is expected from the actors. A lot of what we see as hammy overacting in early films is because those were stage actors still getting used to a new medium, and they were still emoting hard enough to make it obvious to the audience at the back of the hall. Fashions in acting come and go. But there will always be actors who can communicate across any barrier. And playing just one character with variations (think John Wayne Paul Hogan or Johnny Depp) doesn't necessarily make a bad actor, just one with a limited range.
