The Commentary Magazine Podcast Lights, Camera, Inaction!
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Mar 16, 2026 A lively take on the fading power of movies and the shrinking theater habit. They unpack Oscar night snubs, political moments and celebrity reactions. Conversation moves to nostalgia for communal screenings, home-theater tech, and how cultural discovery has fragmented. The show also shifts to fresh developments in the Iran conflict and tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.
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Moviegoing Lost Its Place In Mass Culture
- Moviegoing is no longer a default American habit, with ticket sales down 37% from 2019 and only 7–9% seeing more than two films a year.
- John Podhoretz links the decline to streaming, better home theaters, and fragmenting cultural attention away from a single mass medium.
Hosts' Stark Differences In Oscar Viewership
- John Podhoretz reports he saw nine of the ten Best Picture nominees while his colleagues saw none or only a few.
- This contrast illustrates how engagement with contemporary cinema varies sharply even among cultural commentators.
Movies No Longer Drive National Conversations
- The collapse of shared film experiences reduced movies' role as water‑cooler cultural drivers, shrinking their ability to frame national conversations.
- Podhoretz compares films' past cultural centrality to TV's rise and today's fragmented streaming and gaming competition.