I took in a movie at Fox Regal Tower recently and their film projectors are apparently in complete disrepair. There was an extreme amount of strobing, juddering, and poor focus. This kind of thing is not unusual in my experience. If theaters are not going to maintain their film projectors, discussions of the qualities of film are moot, and even people who appreciate celluloid may end up favoring digital if it means they can expect a stable, sharp image.

Also, that's a total straw-man argument from Seitz. No one in their right mind would claim that _none_ of the basic elements of cinema (story, cuts, etc.) can survive the death of celluloid. And "storytelling with shots and cuts" is not THE essence of it. Look at all the earliest films which had neither story nor cuts, and many of the nonnarrative films of the past century in which physical properties of film and projection are part of the experience.
His whole argument rests on what technology may be able to achieve decades in the future. But technology very often doesn't fulfill the promises that many so blithely make for it. Brakhage's (non-storytelling) "Mothlight," below the article, underscores the weakness of this argument. It's certainly not at all the same in digital form compared to a projected print.
It's sad when an experience that people could take for granted for generations is swept away because something cheaper and thus more profitable came along.