Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tha_nose 2667 days ago
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.
1 comments
ambulancechaser 2667 days ago
I don't think anyone is questioning what is a movie. Spielberg points out that this question is not controversial when it comes to made for TV movies. They are not eligible for oscars but rather emmys. He is arguing that streaming movies are made for the small screen and should qualify for emmys the same as made for TV movies.
link
tha_nose 2667 days ago
Interesting point. But I wonder, why not expand the oscars by including all movies regardless of platform? Make the oscars, a movie awards and advertisement show and the emmy's a tv series awards and advertisement shows.

If VR takes off in 20 years and people watch movies in VR rather than in theaters, how will the oscars distinguish "theater movies" vs "other movies"? If theaters disappear in the manner of phone booths ( a distinct possibility ), will the oscars simply shut down? I doubt that.

Both sides have interesting points and I certainly don't the answers. Maybe the answer is streaming services like netflix, youtube, etc create their own awards advertisement show?

It seems limiting to confine awards to platforms rather than the art genre. It would be like there being a music award dedicated solely for each platform - cassettes, CDs, Vinyl, Radio, Streaming, etc.

link
Kaiyou 2667 days ago
Extending reach isn't necessarily a good thing. Just like with software, expanding until it can read email isn't necessarily a good thing.

Why not have a different award? Though, not sure why people even want awards.

link