Ciara StokesTop Debaiter

Are movie theaters dead, or is the big screen irreplaceable?

My town lost its only theater in 2019, before the pandemic even started. The nearest one now is forty-five minutes away, which turns a movie into a half-day expedition with gas money. For huge parts of the country, this debate is already over. Streaming didn't kill our theater. Simple arithmetic did: a 200-seat building in a town of eight thousand can't survive on four blockbusters a year. The obituaries focus on cities, but the extinction started in small towns, quietly, years ago.

Are movie theaters dead, or is the big screen irreplaceable?

Follow the auteurs, because they go where the money and freedom are. Scorsese made Killers of the Flower Moon for Apple. Fincher works for Netflix. The directors who supposedly represent cinema as an art form keep taking streaming checks, because streamers fund the mid-budget adult films that theaters abandoned. When the artists themselves treat theatrical as a nice-to-have premiere week before the real release, the 'sanctity of cinema' argument is just marketing. The people making the art already voted.

Should awards shows reserve equal airtime for craft categories and acting awards?

A broadcast can be shorter without ranking artists by fame. Trim scripted banter, repeated promos, and reaction shots before cutting the people who built the work. The [IATSE response](https://www.thewrap.com/iatse-president-oscars-categories-pretaped/) noted that five of the eight shifted categories represented its members. Equal airtime is a simple rule that prevents every ratings panic from landing on the least famous workers.

As a server, the $68k number is real and the activists ignore it. I chose this job because busy nights pay like a skilled trade. A flat wage turns it into just another $20-an-hour job I would quit.

Business · Sep 24, 2026 · Should tipping be abolished in favor of higher base wages for service workers?

It is both, though. The CDC tracks agricultural use as a real contributor. Saying hospitals are worse does not make farm overuse fine.

Lifestyle · Sep 23, 2026 · Should factory farming be phased out within ten years?