When I first came to Southern California in 1966, it was with the intention of becoming a college professor specializing in motion picture history and criticism. Now I have to admit that, in the last year, I visited a movie theater to see a current feature only once, and that was a Marvel film that I hated, namely Deadpool and Wolverine.

And yet, over the last seven years, I have seen some 960 films, mostly on television or streamed. I still love the medium, but now I recognize that it is in the act of becoming a dying art form. I don’t think it will disappear altogether. After all, one can still attend operas. There are still examples of hand-carved woodworking, lace-making, hand-written letters, and marquetry. But, as the years pass, so will many art forms.

As much as I love movies, there are fewer American movies I want to see. Part of the problem is that I am on the elderly side, and movies that appeal to the most desired demographic—young males—are, to me, “greasy kid stuff.” Superheroes that wear their colorful Underoos outdoors in public and engage in loads of computer-graphics-enhanced action. Yuck!

Who is to blame? I guess that when an art form is based on a certain technology, it is subject to the prevalence of that technology over time. But old technologies are constantly being replaced. Just in the film world, look at the various delivery systems: nitrate film, safety film, videotape (Betamax and VHS), DVD, and streaming. What’s next? Notched molecules?

I know that many of you reading this are thinking that, no, film is still a viable art form. There are numerous people intent on conserving the medium. Still, I believe it is on the road to nowhere.

All you have to do is look at what was produced in the 1950s, then in the 1960s, then in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and now. Both statistically and artistically, the movies are dying a slow death.