The Oscars are speeding headlong towards irrelevance. It seems like every year the "Best Picture" winner is more and more of a complete joke driven by politics and marketing rather than the actual quality of the film. This policy will just be the another nail in the coffin.
This would be a good opportunity for Netflix and Amazon and other streaming services to team up and start their own awards show.
Hollywood has a long history of trying to control distribution. In fact they did, until a 1948 Supreme Court ruling forced the studios to sell their ownership in movie theater chains.
Netflix irritates the old studio heavyweights because they basically started as a lowest-rung distributor (they used to ship rental DVDs around by mail — how entirely devoid of film business glamour!), then slowly and cleverly built themselves up into an immensely wealthy studio, thus reconstructing the tight production-distribution bond that was forbidden to the old studios. Admitting Netflix productions to Oscars is like salt in their wounds.
Having watched some/plenty of Netflix movies (imho) they are flat, lack substance. Just as a point of reference/to make a comparison, one of my favourite movies is The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky). Maybe some of the Netflix movies got the big names (e.g. Ed Harris - Kodachrome), but they feel like one-dimensional.
Cinematography and cinemas keep people give people jobs, not only while MAKING the movie (cast and crews), but for people to watch it as well. Cinemas (the actual venues) give people jobs, the crews that work there, make pop-corn, sell tickets, cleaning crews, etc.
Netflix wants us to sit on our couches and binge/rot-away [1]. The two experiences (cinema vs netflix) are not even close.
Edit: I am not negating the usefulness of Netflix, HBO, and other online/serving platforms. But if you want to play the movies-game, you have to win it on THEIR rules. Otherwise make your own 'oscarZ' and go wild :)
I think he's taking the wrong approach in his argument. Convincing people that a streaming movie should not be considered a movie seems like an impossible task. This apple is green, so it should be considered a pear.
The easier route would appear to be changing the rules for the Oscars to require a wide, long, exclusive theatrical release, or some other nomenclature which will preclude streaming services, or at least cost them a significant amount of money.
If that's what he wants for the Oscars then whatever, but trying to convince people that streaming movies are technically TV sounds ridiculous. Anyway, have at it, lest it quicken the Oscar's inevitable demise.
I think you're on the right track with this. The issue, apparently, for Spielberg is the definition of a movie. From the article it seems that his definition includes the requirement that a film must be shown in theaters to be a movie. I don't think the average person thinks of movies that way. Especially not in today's world with Redbox and streaming services.
Personally, I never really thought about the definition right now, but I think a crude definition would include something regarding runtimes since I think part of what defines a movie is its length. You can do more with additional time than a 30 or 60 minute TV episode can do. However, you can do more with a miniseries or episodic TV over the long term with regards to character development, story arcs, etc. I think the definition of a movie has to be somewhere between the individual episode and the miniseries.
Spielberg’s definition of what a movie is seems to include “must be offered for viewing in a theatre”. I think that’s at odds with the general public’s conception of what a movie is.
Even more ridiculous when you consider all those voting for Oscar winners will have watched the contender movies on their home TV setups from specially provided BluRay screeners!
However, it's not at odds with the general public's conception of what a cinema film and when I think Oscar, I always think cinema film. I also think irrelevant, but that's another story.
I find this hilarious. Streaming has much greater reach than theatre, so if Canute/Spielberg has his way, over time the Oscar nominees will become increasingly obscure to most people, diminishing the whole point of the award, which is publicity and money-making.
If getting people together in a room to watch is somehow important, the Oscars, Tonys, and the Opera awards should combine.
I think this is likely to go in the other direction where more and more movies find a way to release directly into our homes on streaming services. A single movie theater ticket costs more than a month of Netflix.
The theater experience is going to have to figure out what its USP is in the digital era. It's no longer enough to provide access to the movie.
Anecdote: my gf and her friends were gonna watch Roma on the couch until they found out it was playing at the nearest theater. They then had to devise a plan to sneak alcohol and candy into the theater, coordinate ticket purchasing using venmo, and actually head out into the rain to get there. There was a lot of buyer's remorse. Good luck, theaters.
Movie theaters will lose popularity but the theater experience cannot be reproduced in the home at least for the foreseeable future.
I don't see many films in theaters because many films gain nothing by being viewed at the theater. I often see films in like Interstellar, Dunkirk, Blade Runner, etc that are an assault on the senses and have a lot to gain through theater viewing.
The question to me is- will people care? There are plenty of examples of people shirking quality for convenience.
On a different tangent: Why should a movie have to be released in cinemas to be considered eligible for an academy award? A film is a film, so unless the Oscars are owned by the cinema industry (instead of the film industry, which was forcefully separated at some point as a commenter indicated), IMO streaming, direct-to-video and direct-to-TV movies should be eligible to be included as well.
I mean most Netflix (and direct-to-video) films are hit and miss, but there's some good ones there.
As for your comment on voting, don't complain about how people up / downvote your stuff (I mean why do you even care?), instead, write a better comment.
They're already giving their movies a limited theater release to comply with existing Oscar eligibility rules.
What's the exact point where something is more TV than cinema ? Does it have to be earnestly made hoping it's not seen by more people than those in the 10 limited release theaters ? Also, none of the Netflix productions was ever TV broadcast, so why call them TV ?
If you screen a “Netflix Original” in one theater, for one night, as a launch, and then make it available on demand the next day, does that make it a movie?
If not, how many theaters and days must it be? It’s a media version of the abortion debate.
What makes a movie a movie? Does it matter where a movie is watched? Most movies are watched on monitors/tv. If I watch Infinity War on netflix, is it not a movie? If my local theater runs a weeklong viewing of Seinfeld or Friends, does it make Seinfeld or Friends a movie?
To me it is clear that Roma, Annihilation, Birdbox, etc are movies whether they run in the theaters or not.
This seems like Spielberg is using his influence to help the old hollywood studio system maintain it's monopoly on movies and especially the major advertising day known as the Oscars.
Clearly the cinema awards should only be for films - if it's shot digitally, it's not using film, so it's not cinema. The Oscars should be restricted to those works that were shot on film and projected on film without ever going through a fully digital stage.
Counterpoint, maybe only films should be eligible for Oscars, as Oscars are for "film makers". Digital cameras would not qualify, right?
Seriously, there was a huge gulf in quality when the best home TV was 19" NTSC 4/3. Nowadays, my picture quality exceeds that of most movie screens (except for imax). I don't see any reason to differentiate.
A movie is intended to be watched as a single episode of 1.5-3 hours. TV shows are at least a few episodes long, generally an hour or less per episode but usually much longer in total. Seems a better differentiation than distribution method. Ask someone if they can guess if what you watched was a movie vs a TV show based on your description. Tell some people "I watched it via the internet", and some people "I binge watched 5 episodes" and see who gets the correct answer more often.
At your edit. As per the guidelines lines, if we don't have something constructive to say (re:other replies), we are expected to downvote anything we disgaree with.
It's not Reddit and it's generally not snap votes, it's either agreeing or disagreeing with a point of view. In this case, it seems mostly disagreeing.
[+] [-] imgabe|7 years ago|reply
This would be a good opportunity for Netflix and Amazon and other streaming services to team up and start their own awards show.
[+] [-] iask|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavlov|7 years ago|reply
Netflix irritates the old studio heavyweights because they basically started as a lowest-rung distributor (they used to ship rental DVDs around by mail — how entirely devoid of film business glamour!), then slowly and cleverly built themselves up into an immensely wealthy studio, thus reconstructing the tight production-distribution bond that was forbidden to the old studios. Admitting Netflix productions to Oscars is like salt in their wounds.
[+] [-] HenryBemis|7 years ago|reply
Cinematography and cinemas keep people give people jobs, not only while MAKING the movie (cast and crews), but for people to watch it as well. Cinemas (the actual venues) give people jobs, the crews that work there, make pop-corn, sell tickets, cleaning crews, etc.
Netflix wants us to sit on our couches and binge/rot-away [1]. The two experiences (cinema vs netflix) are not even close.
[1]: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/854100194098520064
Edit: I am not negating the usefulness of Netflix, HBO, and other online/serving platforms. But if you want to play the movies-game, you have to win it on THEIR rules. Otherwise make your own 'oscarZ' and go wild :)
[+] [-] cooperadymas|7 years ago|reply
The easier route would appear to be changing the rules for the Oscars to require a wide, long, exclusive theatrical release, or some other nomenclature which will preclude streaming services, or at least cost them a significant amount of money.
If that's what he wants for the Oscars then whatever, but trying to convince people that streaming movies are technically TV sounds ridiculous. Anyway, have at it, lest it quicken the Oscar's inevitable demise.
[+] [-] turc1656|7 years ago|reply
Personally, I never really thought about the definition right now, but I think a crude definition would include something regarding runtimes since I think part of what defines a movie is its length. You can do more with additional time than a 30 or 60 minute TV episode can do. However, you can do more with a miniseries or episodic TV over the long term with regards to character development, story arcs, etc. I think the definition of a movie has to be somewhere between the individual episode and the miniseries.
[+] [-] jl6|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dave7|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kaiyou|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fjord_|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cobbzilla|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tsubasachan|7 years ago|reply
By the way Hollywood almost died before when TV happened in the 60s and they survived that.
[+] [-] gumby|7 years ago|reply
If getting people together in a room to watch is somehow important, the Oscars, Tonys, and the Opera awards should combine.
[+] [-] tablethnuser|7 years ago|reply
The theater experience is going to have to figure out what its USP is in the digital era. It's no longer enough to provide access to the movie.
Anecdote: my gf and her friends were gonna watch Roma on the couch until they found out it was playing at the nearest theater. They then had to devise a plan to sneak alcohol and candy into the theater, coordinate ticket purchasing using venmo, and actually head out into the rain to get there. There was a lot of buyer's remorse. Good luck, theaters.
[+] [-] decoyworker|7 years ago|reply
I don't see many films in theaters because many films gain nothing by being viewed at the theater. I often see films in like Interstellar, Dunkirk, Blade Runner, etc that are an assault on the senses and have a lot to gain through theater viewing.
The question to me is- will people care? There are plenty of examples of people shirking quality for convenience.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] philshem|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexheikel|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] b0bby_tabl3s|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] downer52|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Dahoon|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|7 years ago|reply
I mean most Netflix (and direct-to-video) films are hit and miss, but there's some good ones there.
As for your comment on voting, don't complain about how people up / downvote your stuff (I mean why do you even care?), instead, write a better comment.
[+] [-] ovi256|7 years ago|reply
What's the exact point where something is more TV than cinema ? Does it have to be earnestly made hoping it's not seen by more people than those in the 10 limited release theaters ? Also, none of the Netflix productions was ever TV broadcast, so why call them TV ?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/business/netflix-theater-...
[+] [-] koolba|7 years ago|reply
If not, how many theaters and days must it be? It’s a media version of the abortion debate.
[+] [-] tha_nose|7 years ago|reply
What makes a movie a movie? Does it matter where a movie is watched? Most movies are watched on monitors/tv. If I watch Infinity War on netflix, is it not a movie? If my local theater runs a weeklong viewing of Seinfeld or Friends, does it make Seinfeld or Friends a movie?
To me it is clear that Roma, Annihilation, Birdbox, etc are movies whether they run in the theaters or not.
This seems like Spielberg is using his influence to help the old hollywood studio system maintain it's monopoly on movies and especially the major advertising day known as the Oscars.
[+] [-] pjc50|7 years ago|reply
/s
[+] [-] wellpast|7 years ago|reply
If we limit movies to non-streaming aren’t we going to get slim pickings and mostly infantile superhero flicks?
[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheLoneAdmin|7 years ago|reply
Seriously, there was a huge gulf in quality when the best home TV was 19" NTSC 4/3. Nowadays, my picture quality exceeds that of most movie screens (except for imax). I don't see any reason to differentiate.
[+] [-] mcphage|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroFries|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mercer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chapium|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hereiskkb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marak830|7 years ago|reply
It's not Reddit and it's generally not snap votes, it's either agreeing or disagreeing with a point of view. In this case, it seems mostly disagreeing.