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"I don't have much sympathy for Netflix since you can't acquire a standalone copy of any of their content - you must subscribe to watch the videos."

A requirement that it must be commonly and reasonably purchaseable as stand-alone content on some reasonable schedule wouldn't necessarily be out of line. "You want to win an award, you must put it out in a format that it can be legally archived outside of your particular walled garden. We're not willing to give an award to a movie that may not be available in 50 years."

Sounds like a pragmatic and sensible suggestion,

That does sound reasonable, but there's already past history of The Academy not caring about customer's access to film, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault

That's slightly different, because a customer could assume that eventually they could purchase a physical copy of a film. Neither Disney and Netflix were/are being customer-friendly here. If I want a physical copy of a TV show or film they created, I should be allowed to buy it.

It seems hard to square that with what seems to be Spielberg's real objection, which is that Netflix is diminishing the theatrical experience. He prioritizes that film experience over any other. It seems incoherent to make rules about home media in order to support theaters.

Yes, that was just me musing, not directly reacting to Spielberg. My comment is more sourced from copyright law principles (even though they obviously do not directly apply) than Spielberg's complaints. I'm not very invested in his opinions in any direction; he is welcome to them but his perspective and mine are very distant.

And by a similar token, it's totally reasonable to have a "must be viewable in a theatre" requirement, for the same reason. If you view going to a theatre essential to the experience of seeing a movie—even if it's an ephemeral opportunity—you should be able to set criteria based on that.

I wouldn't agree that's a similar requirement to the one I laid out; a critical aspect of what I said is the ability to archive, and, at least officially, you can't archive a theater presentation. Unofficially, of course, we (for suitable values of "we") have a taxonomy of terms for the precise type of theater-based archiving one can do. But I'd like to make the archive requirement publicly-available.

My point is, in both cases, you're making a requirement based on what part of cinema you feel is important.

You see "ability for the public to see this movie in X years" as important for cinema.

Steven Spielberg sees "ability for the public to see this movie in a theatre" (at some point) as important for cinema.

Both are valid criteria.

The rules already require that films are first publicly exhibited in a theatre, and so you are misrepresenting Spielberg's view. He, for some reason, doesn't want people to be able to see the movies on streaming services for some period after they are first shown in theatres. I don't quite understand the justification for wanted that though I have my guesses.

This is true, insofar as (it seems to me) Spielberg is specifying the wrong criteria.

However, if you believe that the theatre experience is critical to a film, I think it's also fair to be annoyed at what Netflix is doing. Only a select few have the ability to see Netflix's films in a theatre, because they're only released to a couple theatres in a handful of major cities.

I’d argue that the theatre limitation would be detrimental as it’s a entranched industry that has not been shown to be moving forward for a long time.

Cannes’ festival makes it an actual requirement to be shown in theaters, and I think it discredit lot of the prestige that it had, now that truely excelent pieces are tv only or streaming only. All the more so, showing in theatres has legal ramifications that go beyond art and movie making.

> We're not willing to give an award to a movie that may not be available in 50 years.

You know how at the end of every movie it has that MPAA registration number? The only way to get that is to submit a copy of the film to the MPAA for archiving. So they have a copy of every film. If the movie studio ceases to exist, they still have at least one copy.

In my own view, the people arguing that movies never available to the public in some archive-able format should be given secondary consideration kind of have a point. I've been to the Louvre. Several times. I've seen the Mona Lisa. So I can make my own judgement. But if someone in, say, 1525 said, "This is one of the greatest works of all time", and then locked it in a Vatican Vault for the next 500 years, I should be forgiven for being skeptical. (At least until 2025 when they brought it out from the vault. Whereupon I can make my own judgement.)

I'm not in the movie business at all, so I'm just a regular person, but I guess what I'm saying is, in 50 years, why do I have to just take the Academy's word that Film X is good? They'd be saying, "Trust us. We have a copy of it, and we've seen it. It's one of the best films ever." Which is fine. But why can't I get it and judge for myself? Why can't I get it show it to some friends and neighbors and talk about it? It's a legitimate issue in my view.

I see your point, but luckily there is a solution. This year the MPAA is opening a museum and supposedly will have an area where you can view any film that was ever made from their archive. It'll probably take a while to digitize it all, but at least there will be a way to view the movie if you happen to be in Los Angeles.

So, I was all with you folks on the "must be able to buy it outside subscription" requirement, but this example falls really flat. If you want to go the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa, you have to buy a ticket to see it for a day.

Netflix is selling tickets for like ten bucks to see Roma for a whole month.

Wow I kind of assumed art museums in France were free like the ones here.

Even free admission museums, need funding. Someone is paying.

Where are art museums free?

The Louvre has a ticket for about $20. Here in the Chicago area, you can visit the Art Institute for $14, MOMA in New York is $25.

I guess the Smithsonian is free, but that's just my tax dollars already spent, really. ;)

That's really cool to know, thank you.

I'm not in a position to find out right now or for the next several hours, so, open question to the house: do Netflix's in-house movies have those numbers already?

Yes, Roma is number 51696.

Wow, a system the spammers haven’t found a way to exploit yet!

Things worked that way for almost 50 years. First Academy Awards were presented in 1929. Home movies didn't become available until the mid-late '70s.

> you can't acquire a standalone copy of most of their content

That was the default for decades in film. Film schools had personal libraries students would schedule time to use. Home video changed that (which was fought against by the industry) and the original DVD Netflix changed that again for rare movies. I can see how that would affect your emotions but it has had little/no effect with the Academy Awards.

I actually think Spielberg would be ok with not allowing Apple, either. Years ago, when iTunes and iPod video started getting films, Spielberg said something like, "I didn't create these movies to be viewed on a tiny screen."

I haven't followed this too closely, but I get where Spielberg is coming from--although, I dunno if I agree with him that Emmys are better suited for Netflix (they have their own agenda). The Academy was built for the betterment of theatrical feature film. The whole point of the Academy Awards is to promote feature film. If Netflix is just doing the minimum to gain credibility for something that's not feature films, I can see why the Academy is not cool with that.

Kind of hard to make sense of his position:

>I actually think Spielberg would be ok with not allowing Apple, either. Years ago, when iTunes and iPod video started getting films, Spielberg said something like, "I didn't create these movies to be viewed on a tiny screen."

So, in future movies he required a rider on the studio contract that they'd never be released on mobile phone or tablet platforms? He restricted himself to indie movies where he could ensure this artistic purity now that he has unlimited wealth to rest on?

See kahirsch's comment below—Spielberg believes in a distinction between media designed for large screens and media designed for small screens. He has made both types of media, and so clearly believes they both have merit, but thinks only the former—films for large screens—should be eligible for an Oscar.

Ah, okay, that's actually pretty reasonable. Or at least not obviously-unreasonable.

> Is Spielberg going to feel the same about Apple's streaming service? Would he want his movies there excluded from the Oscars?

Yes.

“Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” he told ITV News in March 2018. “You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar. I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”

Spielberg has produced many TV series and TV movies and has won 4 Emmy Awards.

> I don't have much sympathy for Netflix since you can't acquire a standalone copy of most of their content (TV yes, but I believe to date they've yet to release an original movie on physical media) - you must subscribe to watch the videos. They sort of release in theaters, sometimes, whenever they feel like it, but the majority of their content is locked into their platform. I feel like Netflix would love for there to be zero requirements to show their movies in theaters.

But that's not the thing Spielberg, et. al. are saying disqualifies them. It's this vague idea that it's a "TV format" and something about amount of time in theaters:

> “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie. You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar,” he said at the time. “I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”

Spielberg isn't making movies for Apple. He's making new episodes of Amazing Stories, a TV show he first made in the mid-80s.