> The Netflix catalog is full of not so good movies, and the video rental shops in the 90s were too.
I subscribed to Netflix for a year or two when the platform became popular, but I quickly realized it resembles those old school rental shops too much. Yes, you could get some popular classics like The Godfather or Goodfellas, but apart from that you were stuck with another crime story or a comedy with Steve Martin or John Candy. Actually, my analogy may not be 100% fortunate, because I still have good memories about watching these comedies as a kid with my dad. Now I wouldn't have time and patience to go through movies of "that" quality. Anyhow, my point is that you were very unlikely to get there anything that wasn't already proved to be popular. Forget about anything more niche / arthouse. Netflix has produced plenty by itself, but how many of those movies are actually any good? I remember a handful of them: Marriage Story, Roma, Don't Look Up and a movie for kids called Okja.
Really. You've watched Ed Wood sometime within the last 10 years? The Last Seduction? Wolf? Red Rock West? That's just from the top 10 in that list.
I don't know what the point of your second list is. It's never been the case that streamers or cable channels (their nearest antecedent) were big producers of movies. But streamers --- unlike cable channels --- did manage to produce CODA, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Irishman, Buster Scruggs, Roma, Dolemite, and Glass Onion.
None of this is true, nor does it need to be. As my photography professor says, “digital is better, but I don’t want better.”
Roma is as beautiful as anything shot on film, Amelie from 1995 is as teal-orange medium-shot photo filter as anything on Netflix. The Crown is often beautiful because of impressive practical lighting effects.
[EDIT: Amelie is from 2001, I mixed up the date with the same director’s City of Lost Children from 1995]
Roma? The Irishman? The Two Popes? Marriage Story? Mank? Beasts of No Nation? Power of the Dog? Tick Tick Boom?
Can't really take a comment seriously that puts Apple's film output over this. Besides Coda has Apple produced or even just distributed anything of comparable quality?
Roma (directed by Alfonso Cuarón and distributed by Netflix) was the first best picture nominee to not have a standard theatrical release, and there was a lot of controversy over it. Despite being the favorite that year it lost to Green Book, which is widely derided today.
In the early years of streaming the academy tried very hard to shut Netflix out of the Oscars. The company had to fight hard (including buying a theater in LA to do limited releases to satisfy their requirements) to get streaming films on equal footing. Only last year did they finally allow streaming-only releases to be considered for the awards.
Kind of creeps me out that Apple gets to just slide in and immediately become oscar winning film/tv production company darling, as well.
I'm sure someone at Netflix is cheesed with how quickly and easily Apple can just start drinking their milkshake, though. I remember there being a lot of pushing of ROMA and felt like it was a major nail biter for Netflix to get that to take home anything. But if we're being honest...Netflix doesn't actually try to make a lot of very good things to begin with. Though The Power of the Dog was quite notable, still a bit...sterile.
All that being said, at least HBO has another "quality, not quantity" competitor in the ring, at long last.
My past year discovery was watching foreign film with subtitles. What an eye opener to see atypical stories. Here's a list what I've liked, sorted by recommendation:
Roma
Corpus Christi
Parasite
Capernhaum
Quo Vadis Aida
The man who sold his skin
100 Metres
Felicita
Les miserables
El Inconveniente
La Belle Époque
Our happy holiday
Pain and Glory
The salesman
Tehran
Wedding unplanner
Aurora
Atlantics
> Film has a higher dynamic range than digital sensors today still.
No, not really.
Digital sensors surpassed film a long time ago in terms of DR. Film has 12-13 stops while it's pretty common these days in pro digital gear to have 15 stops of DR. Roma (the movie) was totally shot on digital because it has better DR than film.
As for resolution any modern pro camera (+8K) has more detail than 35mm or even 70mm film and much lower noise levels.
I'm not denying that film has its charm, but aesthetics are very subjective.
Think bigger! One of the best episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was almost entirely silent, and yet still featured the cleverness the show is known for. Some of the most evocative scenes in recent movies are largely dialog-free, such as several scenes in Roma, or Gravity. It isn't just Cuaron, either, remember Castaway?
Imagine a movie that can be watched with no sound but still tells the whole story. Now imagine the same movie can be listened to without seeing the screen, and again, tells the whole story.
The point of "show, don't tell," is to keep lazy or beginning writers from relying too heavily on assumptions about their readers. It doesn't mean "make things explode and don't worry about the plot making sense."
As for happy endings etc., this have always been a mainstay of Hollywood. In the Hollywood satire "The Player" from 1992 it is actually a plot point how a script without a happy ending cannot get produced. (And that movie itself have an improbable tacked-on happy-end to drive the point home.)
For fun I looked up the term "Hollywood Ending" ("a film ending of a conventional type, characterized as sentimental, simplistic, or melodramatic, and often featuring an improbably positive outcome; frequently in extended use."). The first example of this usage is from...1929.
So not exactly a recent development.
As for every movie being a "super-hero martial arts movie." - well this genre is certainly big at the moment, but by far isnt the only type of movie. If you look at the most recent Oscar awards, you will see movies like Roma, Vice, The Favourite, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book. These are mainstream Hollywood movies (almost by definition, this is what the Oscars awards) but there is still a span of genres and narrative styles. I don't see this as notably more homogenized than any other year.
And despite the hand-wringing over superheroes, I would like to point out that the "Marcel Cinematic Universe" is actually a pretty original concept in itself. Never before have such a complex shared universe and storyline unfolded over so many coordinated movies. I don't know if this is particularly worse than bygone Hollywood fads like westerns, sword-and-sandal epics, musicals etc.
But if you don't like superheroes there is still plenty of movies to choose from, since the overall number of movies released is steadily growing.
I find it hugely ironic that the Department of Justice has refused so far to step in on Google, Amazon, or Apple, as they harm the entire population, but is willing to step in and demand that Netflix be able to win awards for it's movies.
Which is to say, whoever's running antitrust at the DOJ must've really loved Roma.
(I do, as a note, believe Netflix movies should be eligible, I just think the DOJ's priorities are incredibly derailed here.)
> The letter came in response to reports that Steven Spielberg, an Academy board member, was planning to push for rules changes to Oscars eligibility, restricting movies that debut on Netflix and other streaming services around the same time that they show in theaters. Netflix made a big splash at the Oscars this year, as the movie “Roma” won best director, best foreign language film and best cinematography.
It boils down to preferences. I personally feel the quality of HBO’s shows & series is dramatically higher than even the peak quality of Netflix or Prime original offerings. They are simply nowhere close. They’re not even playing the same sport.
Pretty much every Netflix darling I’ve spent time to watch (Stranger Things, House of Cards, Russian Doll, Maniac, Bird Box, Roma) has been a huge disappointment.
By comparison with HBO, I only feel that way about True Detective Season 2 and Crashing (the Pete Holmes show). Other shows have variation of course and some are more interesting or less to me, but none of them have been sincerely big disappointments, while nearly every single darling that Netflix puts out is pretty crap.
"Netflix also benefits from TV/movies being more fungible"
Is this really the case? I mean, is there any research on this? I would guess exactly opposite is the case: I personally don't care about background music in most situations, but if I'm watching a film for two hours, I'm going to be very selective.
That means that Netflix in its current state is useless for me. As much as I applaud them for some of their production, the combination of half-empty catalogue and forced subscription model is going in the exactly wrong direction. I would pay one-time fee for Roma. I would pay subscription for a good catalogue.
Now, I don't state that it's not the case that most consumers does not care about what they watch as much as they care about what they listen. I'm just interested in some empirical data on this.
but Roma had a theatrical release so i'm not sure it counts here
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. In retrospect I didn’t think much of Children of Men or Gravity either, and I can’t even remember what I thought of Y Tu Mamá También, so it apparently didn’t leave much impression on me. Maybe he’s just not my cup of tea.
My upset with Roma was given how critically acclaimed it is, I was expecting a lot more. I appreciate your perspective but I still don’t think the film is worthy of the praise it’s been given. I went and read a ton of reviews after to try to understand what I might be missing and I just ended up getting more and more annoyed. Oh well.
I really hated Roma. I don't say that lightly. I'm in violent agreement with Richard Brody's review:
> That effacement of Cleo’s character, her reduction to a bland and blank trope that burnishes the director’s conscience while smothering her consciousness and his own, is the essential and crucial failure of “Roma.” It sets the tone for the movie’s aesthetic and hollows it out, reducing Cuarón’s worthwhile intentions and evident passions to vain gestures.
It's this way with all the characters. They're all shallow, one-dimensional tropes you're never given any reason to care about. Except for the domestic servants, they're all unlikeable.
Worse, I found the film outright boring (I say this as someone who loves Barry Lyndon).
The scene shown on the movie poster that I gather is supposed to have a big emotional impact, just left me feeling manipulated. It's telegraphed to you from a mile away, and then the family claiming they love the maid, it just isn't believable given how they've ignored her and mostly treated her like crap.
Speaking of crap, the dog shit. Why the hell was that so important to Cuarón that he features it, what, a dozen times?
Finally, I really didn't care for the B&W combined with digital. The overall effect just looked contrived to me. (I watched it on 100" screen with a calibrated JVC D-ILA projector, so I think I viewed it pretty close to how the director intended.)
If you want to see a brilliant 2018 film about the human condition and a family dealing with trying circumstances, watch Shoplifters instead. I viewed Roma and Shoplifters the same evening. I'm so glad I watched the latter and wish I could have my two hours back from the former.
TL;DR: Roma sucks, watch Shoplifters instead. Or Tokyo Story if you want to see Roma done right.
Roma is one example: it clearly is masterfully done. Film critics love it. I loved it and it resonated with me. Have you seen it yet? Maybe you think it's "mediocre".
I liked Bird Box because it was apocalyptic and dealt with the downfall of society, a common theme in this genre. I don't care if anyone else liked it or didn't, the film was made for me. I see Netflix just released Kingdom. I have loved it so far.
I could list dozens of shows and movies that I have been extremely thrilled with. Will everyone else? I. Don't. Care.
As long as Netflix keeps pumping in the fantastic content, people will continue to subscribe.
I think you just need to look harder in Netflix. Try some British shows like Marcella or The Bodyguard.
If you look closely enough you can see a clear trend regarding Netflix's content strategy. They will continue to make movies like Bird Box, B-style movies and "cult classics" that they can draw big numbers to via their reach and marketing.
Oscar contenders like Roma and Beast of No Nation (a bit early for it's time if you ask me).
Partnerships with foreign content makers to act as an international distributor (BBC produced, Golden Globe Winner, The Bodyguard for example).
Top quality original TV: The Crown for example, fueled by contracts with big name show-runners and writers to produce them (Shonda Rhymes).
And finally, high value syndication targets (Friends, Mad Men, The Office).
Netflix's content allocation seems pretty clear, the next few years will be optimization at the margins.
I don't have any experience with those wide screens and how they handle movies but I'd imagine they are very much suited for that kind of content if the player handles it properly.
Concerning the frame rate issue, I was really surprised that most people just don't care or notice at all. After some research it turns out that only about a dozen of Netflix clients on various bluray players, streaming boxes and TVs handle proper refresh rate switching. If your device's Netflix client supports it is apparently pure guess work and anything but certain. Instead they just seem to rely on the display's frame rate interpolation algorithms to fix an issue that shouldn't be there in the first place.
I can live with that for mindless, forgettable content, but if you're trying to sell your service as the future of cinema and put effort into high prestige projects like "Roma" or "The Other Side Of The Wind" maybe they should get the basics right in order to offer a worthwhile big screen experience.
No to forget that it would have dominated Cannes 2018, if the french producers wouldn't have fought them to death. And then subsequently dominated the Venice Film Festival with 3 of its most important prices going to Netflix movies: Roma, Ballad of Buster Scruggs, On my skin.
Mad Men didn't even have an audience when it aired (<2 million viewers most episodes), and airs on a network that likely won't exist in 5-6 years (or at least won't be producing new content), so it's not super clear to me what your point is about those shows as evidence of how a network grows. The way a network grows is by producing content people want to watch, whether that's disposable content made to last a minute or content made to last the test of time. HBO isn't growing because people are subscribing to watch Sopranos re-runs.
Past reporting suggests churn in most subscription content services is very low, so your Netflix cancellation may be unusual. I'd also add that exclusive content is one part of the story, but there's also a lot of licensed content that's very good on Netflix as on other services.
But for what it is worth, I would rank the following Netflix originals to be "top tier" within their genre -- some of these genres lend themselves more to rewatching than others, and some are closer to my taste than others, some held up in quality through their run more than others, so in a sense I am ranking shows based on their peak quality --
Orange is the New Black; Bloodline; Stranger Things; The Crown; Gilmore Girls AYITL; The OA; A Series of Unfortunate Events; Mindhunter; The Haunting of Hill House; Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Master of None; Love; Lady Dynamite; Santa Clarita Diet; GLOW; American Vandal; Maniac; Bojack Horseman; F is for Family; Disenchantment; Hilda; Dark; The Rain; Elite; Chef's Table; Making a Murderer; Shot in the Dark; Wormwood; Wild Wild Country; Salt Fat Acid Heat; Queer Eye; The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell; My Next Guest Needs No Introduction; Lilyhammer; Terrace House; Alias Grace; The End of the Fucking World; Collateral; Wanderlust; Longmire; Black Mirror; Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
In addition to these, the following shows are Netflix originals in my region, indicating that although someone else initially funded them, Netflix bought them for exclusive distribution here, and also meet the above requirements:
Babylon Berlin; Bodyguard; Casé; Crashing; Cuckoo; Derry Girls; The Great British Baking Show; Happy!; Happy Valley; The Investigator; Peaky Blinders; River.
I have pretty broad taste in TV and watch a lot of TV while I am programming or running data analysis, so maybe the breadth of stuff I include here is surprising to most. But to the extent your post is a useful anecdote about how Netflix has no great shows, I'm responding to your challenge to "Name one show" that would meet that criteria.
(These are TV shows only, not films. I haven't really liked many Netflix original films although there are a few I would say are great, like Okja and Roma)
Netflix would have dominated the Cannes Film Festival this year, but the french producers threw them out. So they dominated the Venice Film Festival a few months later, with the best film of the year "Roma", the best screenwriting with the new Coen Brothers movie on Netflix, and the best Italian drama. This caused a similar uproar in Italy as in France before, the Director of the Italian Producers had to resign, because he had co-produced the Italian Netflix movie.
Such hit pieces by the film industry will appear again and again, they are in big trouble. Last year the best film of the year was from Amazon ("Manchester by the Sea"), the big studios cannot produce anything of value anymore. Same thing happened with the TV shows before: "Sopranos", "Mad Men" not made in any big studio.
So the article should rather question the demise of the big studios who cannot attract any talent anymore.
It's fascinating to see Netflix's transition from the data-driven insights that led them to the perfectly targeted, yet ultimately artistically-bankrupt House of Cards to the critically-acclaimed, yet hard-to-target Roma.
Comparing a prestige TV series to a feature film may be apples-to-oranges, but it's hard to miss the contrast between a show that seemed to be triangulated from the successes of other networks' prestige dramas and a film that really has no popular successes to support it (apart from Cuarón's pedigree).
Roma is the kind of personal, auteur work that algorithms work against. It's an incredible credit to Netflix's new content strategy that it was produced, and furthermore, promoted.
Hacker Cinema
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Not Brazil — Mexico — but the movie Roma does an amazing job at dissecting this sort of dynamic.
> The Netflix catalog is full of not so good movies, and the video rental shops in the 90s were too.
I subscribed to Netflix for a year or two when the platform became popular, but I quickly realized it resembles those old school rental shops too much. Yes, you could get some popular classics like The Godfather or Goodfellas, but apart from that you were stuck with another crime story or a comedy with Steve Martin or John Candy. Actually, my analogy may not be 100% fortunate, because I still have good memories about watching these comedies as a kid with my dad. Now I wouldn't have time and patience to go through movies of "that" quality. Anyhow, my point is that you were very unlikely to get there anything that wasn't already proved to be popular. Forget about anything more niche / arthouse. Netflix has produced plenty by itself, but how many of those movies are actually any good? I remember a handful of them: Marriage Story, Roma, Don't Look Up and a movie for kids called Okja.
Roma is amazing and the documentary about it made me appreciate it even more. The insane attention to historical detail!
Really. You've watched Ed Wood sometime within the last 10 years? The Last Seduction? Wolf? Red Rock West? That's just from the top 10 in that list.
I don't know what the point of your second list is. It's never been the case that streamers or cable channels (their nearest antecedent) were big producers of movies. But streamers --- unlike cable channels --- did manage to produce CODA, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Irishman, Buster Scruggs, Roma, Dolemite, and Glass Onion.
None of this is true, nor does it need to be. As my photography professor says, “digital is better, but I don’t want better.”
Roma is as beautiful as anything shot on film, Amelie from 1995 is as teal-orange medium-shot photo filter as anything on Netflix. The Crown is often beautiful because of impressive practical lighting effects.
[EDIT: Amelie is from 2001, I mixed up the date with the same director’s City of Lost Children from 1995]
"Roma" was the "wrong" kind of film at the time, produced by a streaming service which was then considered the mark of the beast.
"Green Book" had a "white savior" trope which is now considered non-Narrative and shunned by people who support the Current Thing.
Roma? The Irishman? The Two Popes? Marriage Story? Mank? Beasts of No Nation? Power of the Dog? Tick Tick Boom?
Can't really take a comment seriously that puts Apple's film output over this. Besides Coda has Apple produced or even just distributed anything of comparable quality?
Roma (directed by Alfonso Cuarón and distributed by Netflix) was the first best picture nominee to not have a standard theatrical release, and there was a lot of controversy over it. Despite being the favorite that year it lost to Green Book, which is widely derided today.
In the early years of streaming the academy tried very hard to shut Netflix out of the Oscars. The company had to fight hard (including buying a theater in LA to do limited releases to satisfy their requirements) to get streaming films on equal footing. Only last year did they finally allow streaming-only releases to be considered for the awards.
Kind of creeps me out that Apple gets to just slide in and immediately become oscar winning film/tv production company darling, as well.
I'm sure someone at Netflix is cheesed with how quickly and easily Apple can just start drinking their milkshake, though. I remember there being a lot of pushing of ROMA and felt like it was a major nail biter for Netflix to get that to take home anything. But if we're being honest...Netflix doesn't actually try to make a lot of very good things to begin with. Though The Power of the Dog was quite notable, still a bit...sterile.
All that being said, at least HBO has another "quality, not quantity" competitor in the ring, at long last.
Roma, Unforgivable, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Dont Look Up, Bird Box, The Irishman, lots of good movies, few of them are greatbut some are good.
My past year discovery was watching foreign film with subtitles. What an eye opener to see atypical stories. Here's a list what I've liked, sorted by recommendation:
Roma Corpus Christi Parasite Capernhaum Quo Vadis Aida The man who sold his skin 100 Metres Felicita Les miserables El Inconveniente La Belle Époque Our happy holiday Pain and Glory The salesman Tehran Wedding unplanner Aurora Atlantics
Roma did not win the Oscar for best picture, but it did win other 3 oscars: Directing, Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film.
> Film has a higher dynamic range than digital sensors today still.
No, not really.
Digital sensors surpassed film a long time ago in terms of DR. Film has 12-13 stops while it's pretty common these days in pro digital gear to have 15 stops of DR. Roma (the movie) was totally shot on digital because it has better DR than film.
As for resolution any modern pro camera (+8K) has more detail than 35mm or even 70mm film and much lower noise levels.
I'm not denying that film has its charm, but aesthetics are very subjective.
Think bigger! One of the best episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was almost entirely silent, and yet still featured the cleverness the show is known for. Some of the most evocative scenes in recent movies are largely dialog-free, such as several scenes in Roma, or Gravity. It isn't just Cuaron, either, remember Castaway?
Imagine a movie that can be watched with no sound but still tells the whole story. Now imagine the same movie can be listened to without seeing the screen, and again, tells the whole story.
The point of "show, don't tell," is to keep lazy or beginning writers from relying too heavily on assumptions about their readers. It doesn't mean "make things explode and don't worry about the plot making sense."
As for happy endings etc., this have always been a mainstay of Hollywood. In the Hollywood satire "The Player" from 1992 it is actually a plot point how a script without a happy ending cannot get produced. (And that movie itself have an improbable tacked-on happy-end to drive the point home.)
For fun I looked up the term "Hollywood Ending" ("a film ending of a conventional type, characterized as sentimental, simplistic, or melodramatic, and often featuring an improbably positive outcome; frequently in extended use."). The first example of this usage is from...1929.
So not exactly a recent development.
As for every movie being a "super-hero martial arts movie." - well this genre is certainly big at the moment, but by far isnt the only type of movie. If you look at the most recent Oscar awards, you will see movies like Roma, Vice, The Favourite, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book. These are mainstream Hollywood movies (almost by definition, this is what the Oscars awards) but there is still a span of genres and narrative styles. I don't see this as notably more homogenized than any other year.
And despite the hand-wringing over superheroes, I would like to point out that the "Marcel Cinematic Universe" is actually a pretty original concept in itself. Never before have such a complex shared universe and storyline unfolded over so many coordinated movies. I don't know if this is particularly worse than bygone Hollywood fads like westerns, sword-and-sandal epics, musicals etc.
But if you don't like superheroes there is still plenty of movies to choose from, since the overall number of movies released is steadily growing.
I would have paid $$$ to see Roma in the cinema, after first streaming it to my phone via Netflix.
Cinematography genius!
Edit: I would still pay $$$
I find it hugely ironic that the Department of Justice has refused so far to step in on Google, Amazon, or Apple, as they harm the entire population, but is willing to step in and demand that Netflix be able to win awards for it's movies.
Which is to say, whoever's running antitrust at the DOJ must've really loved Roma.
(I do, as a note, believe Netflix movies should be eligible, I just think the DOJ's priorities are incredibly derailed here.)
> The letter came in response to reports that Steven Spielberg, an Academy board member, was planning to push for rules changes to Oscars eligibility, restricting movies that debut on Netflix and other streaming services around the same time that they show in theaters. Netflix made a big splash at the Oscars this year, as the movie “Roma” won best director, best foreign language film and best cinematography.
It boils down to preferences. I personally feel the quality of HBO’s shows & series is dramatically higher than even the peak quality of Netflix or Prime original offerings. They are simply nowhere close. They’re not even playing the same sport.
Pretty much every Netflix darling I’ve spent time to watch (Stranger Things, House of Cards, Russian Doll, Maniac, Bird Box, Roma) has been a huge disappointment.
By comparison with HBO, I only feel that way about True Detective Season 2 and Crashing (the Pete Holmes show). Other shows have variation of course and some are more interesting or less to me, but none of them have been sincerely big disappointments, while nearly every single darling that Netflix puts out is pretty crap.
"Netflix also benefits from TV/movies being more fungible"
Is this really the case? I mean, is there any research on this? I would guess exactly opposite is the case: I personally don't care about background music in most situations, but if I'm watching a film for two hours, I'm going to be very selective.
That means that Netflix in its current state is useless for me. As much as I applaud them for some of their production, the combination of half-empty catalogue and forced subscription model is going in the exactly wrong direction. I would pay one-time fee for Roma. I would pay subscription for a good catalogue.
Now, I don't state that it's not the case that most consumers does not care about what they watch as much as they care about what they listen. I'm just interested in some empirical data on this.
but Roma had a theatrical release so i'm not sure it counts here
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.
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.
Not defending Spielberg, but I would have spent $$$ to see Roma in the cinema. Off the charts cinematography.
You bring up an interesting point.
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.
The book is by definition a classic. The movie is not my favorite of Baz Luhrmann's. What's this got to do with Roma?
Speaking of Great Gatsby, I did enjoy Burning.
The Princess Bride... now that’s a classic.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. In retrospect I didn’t think much of Children of Men or Gravity either, and I can’t even remember what I thought of Y Tu Mamá También, so it apparently didn’t leave much impression on me. Maybe he’s just not my cup of tea.
My upset with Roma was given how critically acclaimed it is, I was expecting a lot more. I appreciate your perspective but I still don’t think the film is worthy of the praise it’s been given. I went and read a ton of reviews after to try to understand what I might be missing and I just ended up getting more and more annoyed. Oh well.
I really hated Roma. I don't say that lightly. I'm in violent agreement with Richard Brody's review:
> That effacement of Cleo’s character, her reduction to a bland and blank trope that burnishes the director’s conscience while smothering her consciousness and his own, is the essential and crucial failure of “Roma.” It sets the tone for the movie’s aesthetic and hollows it out, reducing Cuarón’s worthwhile intentions and evident passions to vain gestures.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/theres-a-voice-missing-in-alfonso-cuarons-roma
It's this way with all the characters. They're all shallow, one-dimensional tropes you're never given any reason to care about. Except for the domestic servants, they're all unlikeable.
Worse, I found the film outright boring (I say this as someone who loves Barry Lyndon).
The scene shown on the movie poster that I gather is supposed to have a big emotional impact, just left me feeling manipulated. It's telegraphed to you from a mile away, and then the family claiming they love the maid, it just isn't believable given how they've ignored her and mostly treated her like crap.
Speaking of crap, the dog shit. Why the hell was that so important to Cuarón that he features it, what, a dozen times?
Finally, I really didn't care for the B&W combined with digital. The overall effect just looked contrived to me. (I watched it on 100" screen with a calibrated JVC D-ILA projector, so I think I viewed it pretty close to how the director intended.)
If you want to see a brilliant 2018 film about the human condition and a family dealing with trying circumstances, watch Shoplifters instead. I viewed Roma and Shoplifters the same evening. I'm so glad I watched the latter and wish I could have my two hours back from the former.
TL;DR: Roma sucks, watch Shoplifters instead. Or Tokyo Story if you want to see Roma done right.
Here's the secret to Netflix:
A "masterpiece" is in the eye of the beholder.
A masterpiece to some is not to another.
Roma is one example: it clearly is masterfully done. Film critics love it. I loved it and it resonated with me. Have you seen it yet? Maybe you think it's "mediocre".
I liked Bird Box because it was apocalyptic and dealt with the downfall of society, a common theme in this genre. I don't care if anyone else liked it or didn't, the film was made for me. I see Netflix just released Kingdom. I have loved it so far.
I could list dozens of shows and movies that I have been extremely thrilled with. Will everyone else? I. Don't. Care.
As long as Netflix keeps pumping in the fantastic content, people will continue to subscribe.
I think you just need to look harder in Netflix. Try some British shows like Marcella or The Bodyguard.
If you look closely enough you can see a clear trend regarding Netflix's content strategy. They will continue to make movies like Bird Box, B-style movies and "cult classics" that they can draw big numbers to via their reach and marketing.
Oscar contenders like Roma and Beast of No Nation (a bit early for it's time if you ask me).
Partnerships with foreign content makers to act as an international distributor (BBC produced, Golden Globe Winner, The Bodyguard for example).
Top quality original TV: The Crown for example, fueled by contracts with big name show-runners and writers to produce them (Shonda Rhymes).
And finally, high value syndication targets (Friends, Mad Men, The Office).
Netflix's content allocation seems pretty clear, the next few years will be optimization at the margins.
I don't have any experience with those wide screens and how they handle movies but I'd imagine they are very much suited for that kind of content if the player handles it properly.
Concerning the frame rate issue, I was really surprised that most people just don't care or notice at all. After some research it turns out that only about a dozen of Netflix clients on various bluray players, streaming boxes and TVs handle proper refresh rate switching. If your device's Netflix client supports it is apparently pure guess work and anything but certain. Instead they just seem to rely on the display's frame rate interpolation algorithms to fix an issue that shouldn't be there in the first place.
I can live with that for mindless, forgettable content, but if you're trying to sell your service as the future of cinema and put effort into high prestige projects like "Roma" or "The Other Side Of The Wind" maybe they should get the basics right in order to offer a worthwhile big screen experience.
No to forget that it would have dominated Cannes 2018, if the french producers wouldn't have fought them to death. And then subsequently dominated the Venice Film Festival with 3 of its most important prices going to Netflix movies: Roma, Ballad of Buster Scruggs, On my skin.
Mad Men didn't even have an audience when it aired (<2 million viewers most episodes), and airs on a network that likely won't exist in 5-6 years (or at least won't be producing new content), so it's not super clear to me what your point is about those shows as evidence of how a network grows. The way a network grows is by producing content people want to watch, whether that's disposable content made to last a minute or content made to last the test of time. HBO isn't growing because people are subscribing to watch Sopranos re-runs.
Past reporting suggests churn in most subscription content services is very low, so your Netflix cancellation may be unusual. I'd also add that exclusive content is one part of the story, but there's also a lot of licensed content that's very good on Netflix as on other services.
But for what it is worth, I would rank the following Netflix originals to be "top tier" within their genre -- some of these genres lend themselves more to rewatching than others, and some are closer to my taste than others, some held up in quality through their run more than others, so in a sense I am ranking shows based on their peak quality --
Orange is the New Black; Bloodline; Stranger Things; The Crown; Gilmore Girls AYITL; The OA; A Series of Unfortunate Events; Mindhunter; The Haunting of Hill House; Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Master of None; Love; Lady Dynamite; Santa Clarita Diet; GLOW; American Vandal; Maniac; Bojack Horseman; F is for Family; Disenchantment; Hilda; Dark; The Rain; Elite; Chef's Table; Making a Murderer; Shot in the Dark; Wormwood; Wild Wild Country; Salt Fat Acid Heat; Queer Eye; The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell; My Next Guest Needs No Introduction; Lilyhammer; Terrace House; Alias Grace; The End of the Fucking World; Collateral; Wanderlust; Longmire; Black Mirror; Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
In addition to these, the following shows are Netflix originals in my region, indicating that although someone else initially funded them, Netflix bought them for exclusive distribution here, and also meet the above requirements:
Babylon Berlin; Bodyguard; Casé; Crashing; Cuckoo; Derry Girls; The Great British Baking Show; Happy!; Happy Valley; The Investigator; Peaky Blinders; River.
I have pretty broad taste in TV and watch a lot of TV while I am programming or running data analysis, so maybe the breadth of stuff I include here is surprising to most. But to the extent your post is a useful anecdote about how Netflix has no great shows, I'm responding to your challenge to "Name one show" that would meet that criteria.
(These are TV shows only, not films. I haven't really liked many Netflix original films although there are a few I would say are great, like Okja and Roma)
Netflix would have dominated the Cannes Film Festival this year, but the french producers threw them out. So they dominated the Venice Film Festival a few months later, with the best film of the year "Roma", the best screenwriting with the new Coen Brothers movie on Netflix, and the best Italian drama. This caused a similar uproar in Italy as in France before, the Director of the Italian Producers had to resign, because he had co-produced the Italian Netflix movie.
Such hit pieces by the film industry will appear again and again, they are in big trouble. Last year the best film of the year was from Amazon ("Manchester by the Sea"), the big studios cannot produce anything of value anymore. Same thing happened with the TV shows before: "Sopranos", "Mad Men" not made in any big studio.
So the article should rather question the demise of the big studios who cannot attract any talent anymore.
It's fascinating to see Netflix's transition from the data-driven insights that led them to the perfectly targeted, yet ultimately artistically-bankrupt House of Cards to the critically-acclaimed, yet hard-to-target Roma.
Comparing a prestige TV series to a feature film may be apples-to-oranges, but it's hard to miss the contrast between a show that seemed to be triangulated from the successes of other networks' prestige dramas and a film that really has no popular successes to support it (apart from Cuarón's pedigree).
Roma is the kind of personal, auteur work that algorithms work against. It's an incredible credit to Netflix's new content strategy that it was produced, and furthermore, promoted.