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After a brief hiatus and a new baby in the house, Brian and James return to tackle a big question: Is Hollywood dying? 

From the golden age of the studio system to the Marvel era, the American film industry has shaped global culture for more than a century. Movies didn’t just entertain us — they exported American imagination around the world. But between streaming, shrinking theater audiences, corporate risk-aversion, and the rise of AI-generated visual production, something feels different. 

In this episode, Brian and James explore: 

• How COVID and streaming permanently altered movie-going habits
• Whether AI will democratize filmmaking — or cheapen it
• The decline of scarcity and what that means for artistic value
• Why superhero fatigue might be more than just franchise burnout
• Whether this is technological evolution — or cultural decay

Is this just another industry shift, like silent films giving way to talkies? Or are we witnessing the collapse of something irreplaceable — a form of art that once commanded global attention?
 
And deeper still: is the real problem technology… or us?
 
A conversation about spectacle, virtue, attention spans, and whether we still know how to value what is good.