He seems to think that Roma sticks to the letter of the law, but not the spirit and thus wants the law changed. Roma, the argument goes, had a limited token theatrical release solely to qualify it for the Oscars, but the intention was always that people where meant to see the movie on 'TV' rather than at the cinema.
A lot of non-US (and even US) films do this as well. The distributors do a limited release to qualify for the awards, and bank on it winning the awards so that they can do a wide release of an "award-winning" film.
Nor would they be able to sit through 2001 A Space Odyssey. The quality of the movie hasn't changed but the audience has.
I love betting people they can't sit through one of the best movies ever. I have yet to see some under 40 make it through.
I don't think it's age. There are plenty of older folk who used to be able to appreciate slower works — be it film, music, literature, or art — but no longer have quite the attention span for it. We appear to have managed to lower the attention span of society as a whole in the past few decades.
I kinda liked Apocalypse Now. I am not rewatching Redux, it's just too long. I have no problem rewatching the 3 extended editions of the Lord of the Ring, even one after the other.