For many years I hardly ever went to the movies. As a teenager I went to the Star Theater in Westbrook for social reasons. As an adult in the age of DVD, I found it rather pointless to sit in the dark with a bunch of strangers just to see a movie I could watch at home on my own time. Now, as a senior citizen, movies are a regular part of my entertainment, but more often than not I am disappointed in what I see.

Freelance journalist Edgar Allen Beem lives in Brunswick. The Universal Notebook is his personal, weekly look at the world around him.

For one thing, I object to paying good money to see a film only to be forced to watch the same commercials I see nightly on television. And then there’s the matter of film quality. They don’t make movies like they used to.

My favorite films are mostly 20th-century films, among them “Casablanca,” “The Graduate,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Desperately Seeking Susan,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “As Good As It Gets.” I like naturalistic films with structure and resolution. In recent years, I have become something of an old softie. I’ve never cared for sci-fi or horror films and I’m tired of gratuitous sex and violence. So that makes me a sucker for romantic comedies.

My favorite 21st-century films tend to be chick flicks like “Juno,” “Tallulah” and “Lady Bird.” Ellen Page, star of “Juno” and “Tallulah,” is my favorite actor. I also love Saoirse Ronan and Greta Gerwig, star and director, respectively, of “Lady Bird,” so naturally I was greatly disappointed that “Little Women,” again starring Ronan and directed by Gerwig, didn’t win anything at the Academy Awards this year except Best Costumes. Gerwig wasn’t even nominated for Best Director, but for my money she should have won that category easily.

The big winner at the Oscars this year was “Parasite,” the first foreign language film to ever win Best Picture. The South Korean film also won Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Bong Joon-ho. I went to see “Parasite” based on its Oscar accolades, but I’m afraid I have no idea why it won anything at all.

Bong Joon-ho had a fairly interesting class struggle film going until about halfway through the movie when he lost control, introducing incredible situations and unnecessary violence. Bong Joon-ho won awards that should have gone to Greta Gerwig.

Fortunately, much was made at the Oscars of the fact that no women were nominated for Best Director. Not only was Gerwig left out, so were Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”), Marielle Heller (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”), Lorene Scarfaria (“Hustlers”) and Alma Har’el (“Honey Boy”).

One of the most subtle criticisms of the Oscars’ sexism was a Dior cape worn by actress Natalie Portman that had the names of eight female directors who were not nominated embroidered on its lining.

Comics Steve Martin and Chris Rock, the opening presenters, called less subtle attention to the lack of female director nominees. Martin noted there was “something missing from the list this year,” to which Rock added crudely, “Vaginas.”

Ironically, Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”) both directed films nominated for Best Picture, but neither was nominated for Best Director. The men who were – Bong Joon-ho, Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”), Todd Phillips (“Joker”) and Sam Mendes (“1917”) – all directed over-long, overly violent films. As far as I’m concerned, they were all losers, as were women who make movies and those of us who pay to see them.