
Spielberg to push for new Oscars rules that exclude streaming movies - occamschainsaw
https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/04/spielberg-to-ask-academy-for-anti-streaming-rules/
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imgabe
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.

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iask
I was saying this to someone just a few days ago. And, if I might add, many of
the films from Netflix and Amazon are way better.

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curiousgal
I honestly can't think of a single Netflix movie that isn't, to me, shallow or
half-assed. I'm curious to know which movies you found way better, as I might
have missed them.

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Freak_NL
_Roma_ seems to have been received well to critical acclaim.

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gamblor956
Other than the critics, I don't know anyone who was actually able to force
themselves to finish watching that slow, pretentious film. Like most of the
films on the ballot this year it did not deserve to be nominated.

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baldfat
Old Man Here.

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.

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Freak_NL
38 here. I love that film, and many others with similar pacing.

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.

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wink
Not sure that has anything to do with slowness or appreciation. It has to do
if you enjoy the material and then if it's worth your time.

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.

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pavlov
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.

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HenryBemis
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.

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/netflix/status/854100194098520064](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 :)

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mprev
I'm not sure you'll find a receptive audience on HN for cinemas as a job
creation exercise.

There's something to be said for movie theatres as an experience or an event,
but it's a stretch to argue that overcharging for popcorn and hot dogs are a
public good.

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gamblor956
Startups exist as job creation exercise for programmers. Or do you really
think we need 100 tiktok clones?

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cooperadymas
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.

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turc1656
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.

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Kaiyou
Length is a poor criterion. Movies used to be shorter than they are nowadays.
Forty to fifty minutes wasn't unusual in the 1940s for cinema.

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jl6
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.

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dave7
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!

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gamblor956
Most films are actually watched at specially arranged viewings in theaters in
LA and NY. The studios cut back on mailers several years ago because they were
the biggest difference of pirated movies.

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cobbzilla
Please do this, in 20 years there will be no more Oscars, this would be an
improvement.

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Tsubasachan
Old man yells at cloud.

By the way Hollywood almost died before when TV happened in the 60s and they
survived that.

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gumby
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.

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tablethnuser
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.

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decoyworker
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.

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Kaiyou
The only things I found not reproducable at home were loudness levels that
hurt my ears, sticky floors and inconsiderate people talking during the movie
and leaving before the credits stopped rolling.

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dagw
Yea, this is another thing I've been thinking about. Of course Spielberg would
prefer the 'cinema' experience since the only way he experiences cinema is
private viewings or gala premiers at state of the art luxury theaters,
surrounded by film connoisseurs and with people serving you vintage champagne.
I wonder when he last had a 'genuine' cinema experience like the one your
average middle class family experiences.

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philshem
Not defending Spielberg, but I would have spent $$$ to see Roma in the cinema.
Off the charts cinematography.

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alexheikel
Not because he is good a something he is good at understanding the evolution.

