Oftentimes a moment happens early on in a movie that, if you're paying attention, tips the viewer off to what's about to happen. It's called foreshadowing, and it's one of my favorite games to play while watching a movie or reading a book. Or, analyzing the journalism industry.

A few months ago, I warned everyone that what appeared to be a single event in one newspaper market was actually one of those harbingers of things to come. The movie critic got laid off.

Now many movie critics have been laid off. Thanks to Will Hartnett for reminding us all of a trend that is still, I think, in its early stages.

Beats must become more local, less replaceable by wire copy. Or they will be cut.

Movie critic and blogger Rene Rodriguez laments the loss of fellow critics, calling it a mistake that erodes the quality of cultural discourse. Well, that's a bit much for me. Maybe if every movie critic in the world were fired, or if we got down to just those thumbs up and down guys. Maybe then cultural discourse would suffer.

We don't need hundreds of paid movie critics, especially when every Joe Schmoe has an opinion and doesn't mind sharing it via community-driven Web sites.

Criticism in general is going away, if all it attempts to do is tell the masses whether something on a national scale is worth watching. That job-to-be-done can be replaced with crowdsourcing in the form of a Netflix-like ratings system.

Or, let's go in the opposite direction. The movies I like are often hated by the guy next to me. So having one movie critic for both of us just doesn't work in today's ever personalized world of content. That's why Netflix has a recommendation engine.

All hope is not lost, though. An expert movie critic who does contribute to "cultural discourse" will remain. The highbrow critics - the few who are a real authority on what makes good acting, filming, screenwriting and editing - will outlast the others because they play to a niche market.