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Steven Spielberg to act like big baby and lobby Academy Awards to not allow nominations of Netflix movies


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https://ew.com/movies/2019/03/01/steven-spielberg-netflix-oscars-2/

 

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After Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, distributed and campaigned for by Netflix, won three Oscars, Steven Spielberg is upping his disapproval of Netflix films at the Oscars by addressing it directly with the Board of Governors at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, trade publication Indiewire reported on Friday.

 

Spielberg has spoken openly about how films debuting on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu should only be considered in the TV movie space at the Emmy Awards, and not in the film categories at the Oscars. “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie. The good show deserves an Emmy, but not an Oscar,” he said last year.

 

Indiewire wrote that the veteran blockbuster filmmaker, who is a board member of the directing branch of the Academy, will propose rule changes that will prevent Netflix titles from qualifying for Oscar contention. Representatives for Spielberg had no comment when reached by EW on Friday, and spokespeople for the Academy and Netflix did not immediately return EW’s requests for comment.

 

Basically he thinks that the screen it is viewed on matters more than the format of the media itself. 

 

Not everyone is happy with him lobbying, however:

 

 

Maybe he's mad because limited-run "TV" series are now superior to most movies in both content and quality.

 

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I'm sympathetic to the idea that watching something like like Gravity on your phone isn't getting the full experience, but if you're making a Netflix movie then presumably you're accounting for the fact that most people aren't going to even watch it on a TV.

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22 hours ago, Jason said:

I'm sympathetic to the idea that watching something like like Gravity on your phone isn't getting the full experience, but if you're making a Netflix movie then presumably you're accounting for the fact that most people aren't going to even watch it on a TV.

I mean, if your movies are so shitty that "small-screen" experiences are kicking the shit out of it, the problem isn't the awards.

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11 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

Breaking News: Grammy Awards say that albums not released on vinyl and played in speakeasies not eligible for awards!

 Don’t they disallow streaming only albums from competing?

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39 minutes ago, sexy_shapiro said:

He’s asking for a four week exclusive theatrical window for a movie to be considered. That’s it. What’s so crazy about that?

“Limiting Academy eligibility to films with a four-week exclusive theatrical window is effectively limiting eligibility to films that the folks who control distribution believe have a viable financial model released that way,” 

 

-Franklin Leonard, founder of The Black List

 

 

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37 minutes ago, sexy_shapiro said:

He’s asking for a four week exclusive theatrical window for a movie to be considered. That’s it. What’s so crazy about that?

 

I guarantee you that this board’s darling, Christopher Nolan, supports this idea.

 

I love this notion that because we love a certain director (who like everyone in the world loves because he makes awesome fucking movies), we would side with him if he took a stupid and antiquated side of an argument. Um, no.

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15 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I mean, if your movies are so shitty that "small-screen" experiences are kicking the shit out of it, the problem isn't the awards.

 

Some movies are just made to seen on a big screen. Just like Wizard of Oz had to be watched on a color television back in the day to get the full impact.

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4 minutes ago, Jose said:

 

I love this notion that because we love a certain director (who like everyone in the world loves because he makes awesome fucking movies), we would side with him if he took a stupid and antiquated side of an argument. Um, no.

 

Would you call him a big baby?

 

You’re allowed to disagree with Spielberg but do it respectfully because he deserves more for what he’s done for cinema.

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I mean I'd argue that screen size can be dramatically different, having your phone 3 inches from your face makes the screen bigger from all practical purposes than being 30 feet away from a much larger screen in a theater, especially theaters with much smaller screens. I see how you freaks all have your TVs set up, like 19 miles from your couch. Fuckin' TVs look like postage stamps when you guys take pictures! Sit closer you fucks!

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17 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I mean I'd argue that screen size can be dramatically different, having your phone 3 inches from your face makes the screen bigger from all practical purposes than being 30 feet away from a much larger screen in a theater, especially theaters with much smaller screens. I see how you freaks all have your TVs set up, like 19 miles from your couch. Fuckin' TVs look like postage stamps when you guys take pictures! Sit closer you fucks!

 

That’s almost like saying that holding a phostcard of a famous work of art close to your face will give you the same or even more of an impact than seeing the full sized version in a mueseum.

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5 minutes ago, sexy_shapiro said:

 

That’s almost like saying that holding a phostcard of a famous work of art close to your face will give you the same or even more of an impact than seeing the full sized version in a mueseum.

It would, if your museum experience was looking at it from across the room through a crowd of people rather than up close. Hell, without all the riffraff you might actually be able to appreciate the detail.

 

But that's a shitty analogy anyway because you could make the same argument about seeing a replica of an original work of art, even though you couldn't tell the difference as a filthy commoner anyway. In that case seeing the "original" is really important because... that's what we've been told, I guess.

 

People get really stupid about this shit and I find it incredibly irksome. If you can't get the full experience of a movie because you watched it on a screen of a different size you might be a fucking moron. We get so caught up in all this details on how to enjoy something that you're always worried you're not enjoying it exactly as the creator intended, as though anyone can EVER experience anything exactly as the creator intended. And that's assuming the creator's intention even matters. Lucas showed us exactly what his intentions were. Sometimes things are great in spite of their creators, not because of them.

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1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

People get really stupid about this shit and I find it incredibly irksome. If you can't get the full experience of a movie because you watched it on a screen of a different size you might be a fucking moron.

On some films I can agree with this but in a film like Lawrence Of Arabia 70mm , watching it on phone vs theater is miles apart. If people are content to do it thats fine but the experiences are not the same.

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I take the Roger Ebert approach. 

 

"Is watching a movie on a cellphone an artistic crime?

 

Probably, and I've never done it -- but then I remember that as a budding movie-lover I grew up watching classic cinema on a small portable black and white TV. That's where I fell in love with Citizen Kane, Sergeant York, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca and all the other Hollywood classics. I was 10 or 11, and I couldn't have cared less about aspect ratio or poor lighting. All I cared about was decent reception and sound -- and if I had that, then I have to say that at that time and that age I had as fine an artistic experience as I could have hoped for. The story, the performances, the script, the allure -- all those most important elements can very definitely come through a tiny screen if you're an alert and interested viewer who yearns for a good story. Didn't Scorsese grow up the same way -- watching afternoon movies on the tube? Didn't we all?

 

Watching a movie on your cellphone, with stereophonic sound (if you use headphones) is actually probably a step up from what I had then. If you handed me an iPhone and a Netflix or Hulu Plus subscription in 1974 -- I would have thought I had died and done to heaven! (Especially if you grew up in the rural South, and you knew that you would be forever denied any chance at all of seeing a movie by this guy Bunuel that Pauline Kael raved about unless you moved to a big city.)

 

By all means I think you should see a movie on a big screen with a fantastic print and superior sound -- that's the ultimate experience -- but if a cellphone is all you have to work with, go for it."

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15 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

A totally unbiased opinion, I'm sure. ;)

 

The content affected here has no bearing on my business, actually. I almost exclusively make money on the tent pole content. Ain’t nobody coming to see Roma if I played it :p

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3 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

 

The content affected here has no bearing on my business, actually. I almost exclusively make money on the tent pole content. Ain’t nobody coming to see Roma if I played it :p

Then why waste our time by making it exclusive in the theatre for a month? I doubt the theatres near me would play it anyways for the same reason. There are a lot of movies my theatres don’t play. Roma already played in big markets for 2 weeks plus. 

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7 minutes ago, johnny said:

Then why waste our time by making it exclusive in the theatre for a month? I doubt the theatres near me would play it anyways for the same reason. There are a lot of movies my theatres don’t play. Roma already played in big markets for 2 weeks plus. 

 

I, and many others, want to be able to go see films besides the blockbusters in a cinema. Theaters that specialize in such product do great business on them. The studios are getting really cheap in regards to theatrical distribution despite distribution costs plummeting with digital cinema.

 

AMPAS already requires a qualifying theatrical run for movies to be eligible for an Oscar, this is just saying they also have to have an exclusive theatrical window of 4 weeks. All that means is that they studio has to wait four weeks between the debut of the film in theaters and the release on home video. 

 

I don’t really care if Spielberg has some living-in-the-past reasoning about the theatrical exhibition imbuing a movie with a certain quality, I want to sit in a dark theater with a big screen and a good audience.

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16 hours ago, sblfilms said:

Encouraging studios to put movies in theaters is a good thing, and the 4 week window is a good compromise.

 

Well, it's a good thing if you own a theatre or work there. If you don't, then it's much cheaper (and a better experience a lot of the time) to watch it at home.

 

15 hours ago, sblfilms said:

 

I, and many others, want to be able to go see films besides the blockbusters in a cinema. Theaters that specialize in such product do great business on them. The studios are getting really cheap in regards to theatrical distribution despite distribution costs plummeting with digital cinema.

 

AMPAS already requires a qualifying theatrical run for movies to be eligible for an Oscar, this is just saying they also have to have an exclusive theatrical window of 4 weeks. All that means is that they studio has to wait four weeks between the debut of the film in theaters and the release on home video. 

 

I don’t really care if Spielberg has some living-in-the-past reasoning about the theatrical exhibition imbuing a movie with a certain quality, I want to sit in a dark theater with a big screen and a good audience.

 

And that's great if you prefer the experience! But the choice should be left up to the consumer. If a movie can't succeed at a theatre without being forced to be played there, then it didn't deserve to be aired in a theatre. If companies want they can release it in a theatre at the same time as online, and if there is a market for it then people will see it. Forcing it to have an exclusive window is going against the free market, and is dumb. 

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29 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

Forcing it to have an exclusive window is going against the free market, and is dumb. 

 

You don’t believe this so don’t even try it :p

 

Once again, the product that is affected by this are movies people want to see in theaters, the studios are just trying to save money knowing people will settle if that is all that is available.

 

Pushing for the window incentivizes the studios to go beyond qualifying runs and put the movie at least in to the major markets beyond a couple of screens in LA and NYC, cities like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston.

 

The AMPAS is a trade association and their only job is to advocate for the health of the industry, and an industry where the cinematic experience is only Disney flicks and the studios trying to

copy what makes Disney successful isn’t healthy, even if it’s highly profitable for somebody like me who serves a client base who just want the soulless corporately molded stuff.

 

But I am also not surprised that this board doesn’t care about good movies being relegated to second tier status. Y’all mostly like the stuff that won’t be affected :p

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