Spielberg vs Netflix

Mark Hamill

Don't the people who vote in the oscars just get screeners for many or even all of the films they vote on? Spielberg saying their votes don't count now or something?

johnny_ultimate

Interesting take from Paul Schrader here:

https://twitter.com/badinfinite/status/1102076490387202048

Sums up a few of the concerns I have with Netflix’s approach. Their quantity over quality approach means stuff gets lost in the mix. Not everything gets the push Roma does. There’s an interesting Japanese film called River’s Edge being released on Netflix in the next week or two - I fear like many others that’ll largely disappear into the ether. The ‘disposable’ nature of Netflix means a lot of films disappear from the conversation quicker than they do with a good festival, cinema, home release, awards circuit run. Many viewers may never be alerted of a film’s existence on Netflix (algorithms and automatic recommendations are a terrible method of curation).

There’s also the serious concerns over what films exactly are being picked up. Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s great Netflix is supporting films that mightn’t get funding otherwise, and often at a healthier budget (The Irishman, Roma). But there’s entire countries’ output and types of film that are barely present on Netflix. Independent and arthouse cinemas are already subsisting in prestige fare to support their more niche, art/world film offerings, and it’s vital they can keep doing what they’re doing as the range of films available would suffer dramatically if not. Thankfully there’s the likes of Mubi offering an alternative, but the biggest player having a relatively narrow purview is noteworthy (after all, for the dozens and dozens of original films released by Netflix only a tiny portion are keepers).

As said, it’s a complex situation and far from an either/or: there’s room for more elegant, cooperative agreements rather than one clan trying to clip the wings of the other.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Not sure. I’ve definitely watched more foreign language tv and movies on Netflix than I otherwise would have.

And their popularity is growing in India and other non western countries where presumably there’s a lot of local content.

Their recommendations need a tweek - a list of independent movies or foreign movies related to what you’ve already watched would be interesting.

is_that_so

expectationlost wrote: »

in 1929?

I doubt there was much of a need for it for a very long time. I know there was a change in 2016. Even if they do alter it again their goal is to protect film releases and not the Netflix business model.

Frank O. Pinion

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The cinema experience is superior wherever possible.

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/tv-and-home-entertainment/televisions/televisions/samsung-qe85q900-85-smart-8k-hdr-qled-tv-10186914-pdt.html

What Irish cinema experience is better than that?

batgoat

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/tv-and-home-entertainment/televisions/televisions/samsung-qe85q900-85-smart-8k-hdr-qled-tv-10186914-pdt.html

What Irish cinema experience is better than that?

Given the choice, I'd still prefer to see the latest Scorcese in a cinema before watching it on a TV, regardless of how big the TV is. Theatrical screenings are a very much so different experience. Actually find it sticks with me to a far greater degree.

Frank O. Pinion

batgoat wrote: »

Given the choice, I'd still prefer to see the latest Scorcese in a cinema before watching it on a TV, regardless of how big the TV is. Theatrical screenings are a very much so different experience. Actually find it sticks with me to a far greater degree.

It's not just the size, it's the quality of the screen too. That thing at one's home, in a blacked out room, would be a vastly superior visual experience. Also, I don't know about you, but my TV room doesn't have an extremely distracting illuminated EXIT sign.

SimonTemplar

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Two things I believe:

1. The cinema experience is superior wherever possible.

I'm sorry but that is just not true. I've had screenings where people walked in 15 minutes after the movie started and switched on their phone's torch for a good few minutes trying to read their ticket's seat and find their place; groups of giddy teenagers treating the cinema as a place to sit and chat rather than watch a film; numerous distracting brightly lit phone screens; people actually answering phone calls typically beginning the conversation with 'I'm in the cinema bit go ahead'; people kicking the back of my seat throughout the film; etc; etc.


If the point of cinema is to immerse the audience in the movie to a greater extent than is possible with home cinema, all of the above simply reduces a person's ability to enjoy and appreciate the film.



I do agree that watching films on a phone or tablet or a laptop is terrible. I have a nice 60 inch TV with a decent sound system in a room with black-out curtains. If I sit down to watch Roma, I know there will be absolutely no distractions and I am able to loose myself in the movie from the opening frame. If I go to a cinema to see Roma, there is always a risk that my screening will be ruined, or at least in some way compromised, by the inconsiderate behavior of others. And there is nothing more disheartening than thinking all the seats around you are empty only for some couple to walk in 10 minutes into the film and sit right beside you with loads of noisy sweet packets that they've brought from home. That won't happen at home.



I used to see pretty much all the new releases in the cinema but I've had too many screenings ruined that I made the transition to home viewing for about 75% of the films I see and I don't regret it. If I do see a movie in the cinema, I typically go to The Lighthouse whose clientele are typically better behaved on average than the multiplexes (they also have cardboard popcorn containers rather than rustley paper bags which is a god send), but I have had one or two bad experiences there also. I go to a quieter multiplex in the suburbs on a weekend morning if I want to see a movie not in The Lighthouse. Screen is usually only about a third full at that time.



I'm aware that people like me, who are very attuned to audience annoyances, are in the minority, but for people like me the cinema experience is definitely not always superior. It SHOULD be but not always.

Teddy Daniels

dreamers75 wrote: »

Being honest I have yet to see a decent netflix movie.

By that i mean a movie netlfix bought or made, they all sound and look great in trailers but none have been above average.

I have hopes that the Irishman will change all that .

Decuc500

I saw the new Neil Jordan film, Greta, at the Dublin Film Festival the other night. It's a fabulously creepy film. You could feel the tension and disquiet in the audience building as the film progressed.

There were gasps and nervous reactions at all the correct moments in the film. It was a great communal feeling of everybody being freaked out together and it was infectious.

That's the experience that can never be repeated at home and one of the reasons why the cinema experience is so good. And yes, a film festival audience might be better behaved than your average multiplex but there's still lots of popcorn munching and some talking going on. A small price to pay for a better viewing experience.

Teddy Daniels

Decuc500 wrote: »

I saw the new Neil Jordan film, Greta, at the Dublin Film Festival the other night. It's a fabulously creepy film. You could feel the tension and disquiet in the audience building as the film progressed.

There were gasps and nervous reactions at all the correct moments in the film. It was a great communal feeling of everybody being freaked out together and it was infectious.

That's the experience that can never be repeated at home and one of the reasons why the cinema experience is so good. And yes, a film festival audience might be better behaved than your average multiplex but there's still lots of popcorn munching and some talking going on. A small price to pay for a better viewing experience.

I have a cinema room purpose built in my home, it lacks the other viewers but apart from that it’s every bit as good as the cinema experiance.
I respect that you like the group tension of watching with others but you must understand that the Dublin film festival cinema goer is much more of a preferred co watcher than the normal version.
I like watching with people I know. Spielberg wants to force the choice but I feel the market should decide.

For instance I’d go to a showing of Star Wars in a cinema tomorrow as I believe many would.

johnny_ultimate

SimonTemplar wrote: »

I'm sorry but that is just not true.

I can assure you it is absolutely true that I believe the cinema experience is superior wherever possible

It's a shame you've had bad experiences in the cinema. I personally can count on one hand the amount of properly bad experiences I've had in a cinema over the last decade or so, and as I said I probably go on average twice a week. I'm lucky to live near some of the best cinemas in the country with an audience that tends to skew towards the cinephile, absolutely. I know not everyone has that luxury, and the breaking down of that barrier is a major benefit of streaming and VOD. But again across dozens of cinemas and hundreds of screenings I've had a minuscule number of bad experiences. That's merely anecdotal evidence, sure, but what else can we go on?

But there's other reasons I prefer the cinema. I'll happy chime in with the others who love the communal experience, and it's helped me appreciate quite a number of films more than I would've if I watched on my own. Again, happy to accept people disagree with that. I tend to find good cinemas better equipped to display films - even with the settings properly tweaked, I find a lot of HD and ultra-HD TVs just don't look as good and have that overly digital look top-tier DCP projectors don't (not to mention that TVs have a set aspect ratio, whereas masked screens look much better than just a rectangle of empty space on a TV). And a cinema screen is always bigger - even if I had the luxury of a dedicated home cinema room (which, as someone who has to rent for the forseeable future, I don't) with an incredibly large screen / projector a cinema screen will always be exponentially larger.

I still watch craploads of films at home, because of course I do! I won't not watch a film because it's not in a cinema, and there's been cases I've been happy to settle for watching something home due to the inconvenience of trying to get to see it on the big screen (An Elephant Sitting Still, most recently). I can't stress enough that I think there are major benefits to streaming and being able to watch any given film at home: it's incredibly positive that almost anyone (broadband issues aside) can watch Roma without having to luck out and have an arthouse cinema nearby. But I for one love the cinema, and it will be my first choice wherever possible

Frank O. Pinion

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I tend to find good cinemas better equipped to display films - even with the settings properly tweaked, I find a lot of HD and ultra-HD TVs just don't look as good and have that overly digital look top-tier DCP projectors don't (not to mention that TVs have a set aspect ratio, whereas masked screens look much better than just a rectangle of empty space on a TV). And a cinema screen is always bigger - even if I had the luxury of a dedicated home cinema room (which, as someone who has to rent for the forseeable future, I don't) with an incredibly large screen / projector a cinema screen will always be exponentially larger.

Again it's not just about size. An 8K HDR screen is visually superior than most (all?) Irish cinema screens. Better colours, detail, etc.

"Overly digital"? You mean clearer, crisper...a better picture?

Sad Professor

If I ever buy a house (an increasingly unlikely prospect) the first thing I'll do is make a home cinema out of the living room. Not owning your own home, as johnny_ultimate said, can make having a proper home cinema quite difficult, either due to lack of space, inability to modify the property, or just not wanting to have too much stuff to move when the landlord decides he's selling or renovating.

johnny_ultimate

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Again it's not just about size.

But it's pretty important Watching a film on a towering screen with a high quality theatrical sound system (where you don't have to worry about whether the sound's too loud for housemates / neighbours) is IMO an ideal way to immerse oneself in a film completely.

"Overly digital"? You mean clearer, crisper...a better picture?

As absurd as it sounds, cleaner and crisper isn't necessarily better. I mean, just look at The Hobbit - perhaps the cleanest picture to ever grace a cinema screen and it all looked weird and artificial. Content that looks best in Ultra-HD - nature documentaries, video games and the like - tend to be designed for that purpose, whereas films aesthetically tend to be made with a cinema projector in mind.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good Blu-Ray restoration of a film that, on a good display, manages to capture the vibrancy and detail of a film. This is unambiguously a good thing. Equally, there's been many films I've seen where an LED/OLED screen makes a film look less convincing - I tend to point to CG as a good example of this, where even a well-optimised high quality TV can often make everything look fake and plastic in a way you wouldn't get with a properly calibrated cinema projector.

Then there's the issues with digital noise: DCP files are many times less compressed than most widely used streaming / digital home formats. No matter how good the TV (the best of which sadly remain prohibitively expensive for most) there's still quite some time to go before content is easily and widely available in a high enough quality to take advantage of that. Throw a Blu-Ray up on a big screen vs a proper 2K DCP and there's a massive difference quality wise that's considerably beyond the raw pixel differences between the two.

It's great that TVs are getting better. It's even better that enthusiasts out there are sharing the optimal settings to make sure a film looks as good as it can on any given TV. Hopefully one day in the not too distant future TVs that currently cost €16,000 will be more affordable to those of us who can only afford a fraction of that on a TV - since I watch plenty of films at home, I'd like to see them in the best quality I can. In the meantime, a tenner trip to the cinema ain't such a bad deal, and can't see that changing even if I did have an 8K TV in my living room

A tight, intimate, or personal film? Home watch

Big, brash, bombastic? Cinema all the way

Means that the films where I need to be invested and focused on I can be by watching at home.
For the tentpole film, I want to feel the sound and be awed by the event.

Dravokivich

I don't get the argument at all. The movie should be accredited on its own merits. It doesn't matter much where it came from. All it needs is a minimum run in the cinema. Sky are doing this too.

Sad Professor

The minimum theatrical run is the point of contention. Netflix only want to do token theatrical releases, the bare minimum to qualify for awards, if that. And going by this thread and twitter, it seems most people feel even that shouldn't be necessary - sure all films are the same - which must be music to Netflix's ears. Spielberg just wants to force them to give award worthy films a limited theatrical release of 4 weeks. It doesn't seem like a lot to ask given that other distributors take massive financial risks putting non-blockbuster films into theatres. Netflix has the money and most of their films (ahem) aren't award worthy, so it's not like they'd have to do this with many of their films.

Much of the pushback against this on social media seems to be taking the form of "old, out of touch white guy telling us our straight-to-streaming films aren't real movies, get him!", but there's more to it than that. Hollywood isn't any less corporate and soulless than Netflix and along with the multiplexes Hollywood carries most of the responsibly for the decline of the theatrical experience to the point that people would rather stay home and watch some second-rate Netflix film with Will Smith or Adam Sandler than go to the cinema. But the idea that Netflix cares more about film than Hollywood is just absurd. They programme through data and are only giving freedom to filmmakers now because they are desperate for content.

ThePott

Lot of misinformation in that post, I'm afraid

Sad Professor wrote: »

The minimum theatrical run is the point of contention. Netflix only want to do token theatrical releases, the bare minimum to qualify for awards, if that.

Totally untrue, the contention for Oscars requires a film to be played for 7 consecutive days in Los Angeles Country, Roma played 3 weeks in America in around 100 theatres. Not to mention international theatres where it also played heavily.

Sad Professor wrote: »

And going by this thread and twitter, it seems most people feel even that shouldn't be necessary - sure all films are the same - which must be music to Netflix's ears. Spielberg just wants to force them to give award worthy films a limited theatrical release of 4 weeks.

Studios in the past have played with the whole 1 week eligibility and had movies come out for one week just to qualify for Oscars before releasing properly later in the year, it's nothing new and they are happy to game the system as well. Let's not act like the poor studios don't mess with the rules to win awards too.

Sad Professor wrote: »

But the idea that Netflix cares more about film than Hollywood is just absurd. They programme through data and are only giving freedom to filmmakers now because they are desperate for content.

I don't think people really believe Netflix care about cinema for some altruistic reason, it is for content, no doubt. However there is plenty of independent smaller films that have gotten a bigger platform for distribution from Netflix.

The only reason Spielberg and members of the academy are annoyed now is because the easier access to Roma made other foreign language distributors face tough competition for their awards hopes and Netflix are more willing to throw money at an awards campaign and it can seemingly work.

Spielberg has grinded that Netflix axe before but the truth is the rules for the Academy in general are outdated with regards to what qualifies and streaming wasn't considered. They do need to update their rules because streaming is only going to be more prominent in the future.
As I said Netflix aren't playing ball in some aspects but let's not act like everyone plays fair come awards season.

I'm not saying Netflix are a great purveyor of cinema but they do give some creative freedom and budget to director's who otherwise wouldn't get it, regardless of their reasoning. They have deep pockets, Spielberg and Hollywood are understandably concerned because what if next year they have 10 films they want in the Oscars race.

It's not a white or black issue, there's plenty of grey areas. Probably should be noted also that Spielberg had a vested interest in Green Book doing well as Amblin has a stake in the Chinese distributors of the movie so maybe he is not happy that he could have lost to a Netflix movie.

The rules need updating in general cause Netflix and streaming is not going anywhere and with such a large platform they shouldn't be discounted.

There's lots of factors at play, it's not that easy.

Sad Professor

ThePott wrote: »

Lot of misinformation in that post, I'm afraid



Totally untrue, the contention for Oscars requires a film to be played for 7 consecutive days in Los Angeles Country, Roma played 3 weeks in America in around 100 theatres. Not to mention international theatres where it also played heavily.

I’m not sure how this contradicts what I said. A 7 day theatrical run in two cities is a token theatrical release, the bare minimum needed for Oscar consideration, as I said. Roma’s release was not typical of Netflix’s release strategy for films. Or their preferred strategy. Netflix have repeatedly stated their opposition to the theatrical window.

Other studios doing an award season run to qualify in advance of a wide release a month or two later is not equivalent to Netflix doing the bare minimum before sending the film straight to their catalogue.

expectationlost

Sad Professor wrote: »

The minimum theatrical run is the point of contention. Netflix only want to do token theatrical releases, the bare minimum to qualify for awards, if that. And going by this thread and twitter, it seems most people feel even that shouldn't be necessary - sure all films are the same - which must be music to Netflix's ears. Spielberg just wants to force them to give award worthy films a limited theatrical release of 4 weeks. It doesn't seem like a lot to ask given that other distributors take massive financial risks putting non-blockbuster films into theatres. Netflix has the money and most of their films (ahem) aren't award worthy, so it's not like they'd have to do this with many of their films.

Much of the pushback against this on social media seems to be taking the form of "old, out of touch white guy telling us our straight-to-streaming films aren't real movies, get him!", but there's more to it than that. Hollywood isn't any less corporate and soulless than Netflix and along with the multiplexes Hollywood carries most of the responsibly for the decline of the theatrical experience to the point that people would rather stay home and watch some second-rate Netflix film with Will Smith or Adam Sandler than go to the cinema. But the idea that Netflix cares more about film than Hollywood is just absurd. They programme through data and are only giving freedom to filmmakers now because they are desperate for content.

i thought netflix did more then the bare minimum for roma and july 22 https://www.slashfilm.com/22-july-theatrical-release/
Netflix to Release ROMA Day-and-Date on 100 Screens
http://collider.com/roma-movie-theater-release/

Agent Coulson

We love cinema. Here are some things we also love:

-Access for people who can't always afford, or live in towns without, theaters
-Letting everyone, everywhere enjoy releases at the same time
-Giving filmmakers more ways to share art

These things are not mutually exclusive.

https://twitter.com/NetflixFilm

ThePott

Sad Professor wrote: »

I’m not sure how this contradicts what I said. A 7 day theatrical run in two cities is a token theatrical release, the bare minimum needed for Oscar consideration, as I said. Roma’s release was not typical of Netflix’s release strategy for films. Or their preferred strategy. Netflix have repeatedly stated their opposition to the theatrical window.
Other studios doing an award season run to qualify in advance of a wide release a month or two later is not equivalent to Netflix doing the bare minimum before sending the film straight to their catalogue.

If you read what I said it's that Netflix released in plenty of locations across America for 3 weeks, far more than they needed to. They haven't done it with every film but the release strategy for Oscar films will always be different regardless of who puts it out. So in other words far from the bare minimum, they gave it a domestic and international release far exceeding the Academy's requirements.

The straight to their catalogue argument is a separate one and shouldn't really be a baring on whether it is worthy for Oscar contention, that's more damaging to theatres. Like I said Netflix aren't doing the normal strategies, not saying that is good or bad but saying they met the bare minimum for consideration is wrong.

expectationlost wrote: »

i thought netflix did more then the bare minimum for roma and july 22 https://www.slashfilm.com/22-july-theatrical-release/
Netflix to Release ROMA Day-and-Date on 100 Screens
http://collider.com/roma-movie-theater-release/

Exactly

Fysh

Sad Professor wrote: »

I’m not sure how this contradicts what I said. A 7 day theatrical run in two cities is a token theatrical release, the bare minimum needed for Oscar consideration, as I said. Roma’s release was not typical of Netflix’s release strategy for films. Or their preferred strategy. Netflix have repeatedly stated their opposition to the theatrical window.

Other studios doing an award season run to qualify in advance of a wide release a month or two later is not equivalent to Netflix doing the bare minimum before sending the film straight to their catalogue.

Ah here, it's hardly black and white.

Also worth noting that all the adulation of "the theatrical experience" does ignore the films which do the festival circuit and then totally disappear; streaming platforms offer at least some alternative to that.

I don't really want anyone involved to "win" as it were, but if the old greybeards in Hollywood could uncouple heads from holes re: streaming it'd help (as it would if Netflix would implement a curated strand of Originals, to push back against the tendency towards mediocrity-at-best that their Originals films have shown).

IMO it's cringey to read established directors like Spielberg or Almodóvar moan about streaming and that it's hard to get funding for films, because they have it infinitely easier than people starting out today. I don't imagine young filmmakers view Netflix as the second coming of Jesus, Buddha and Steve Jobs or anything, but I'd imagine they're happy that additional options and avenues exist what may be more open to new talent than existing studios. I'd much rather read something like johhny's case for why he believes cinema is the better experience than some old fart moaning about how "tv movies should stick to the Emmys".

Sad Professor

expectationlost wrote: »

i thought netflix did more then the bare minimum for roma and july 22 https://www.slashfilm.com/22-july-theatrical-release/
Netflix to Release ROMA Day-and-Date on 100 Screens
http://collider.com/roma-movie-theater-release/

ThePott wrote: »

If you read what I said it's that Netflix released in plenty of locations across America for 3 weeks, far more than they needed to. They haven't done it with every film but the release strategy for Oscar films will always be different regardless of who puts it out. So in other words far from the bare minimum, they gave it a domestic and international release far exceeding the Academy's requirements.

Netflix might have played along this year in order to win some Oscars and add some prestige to their brand, which is mostly associated with low quality crap like Bird Box, but they are not in any way committed to theatrical. If they were they would have reduced the 3 week window and the various other restrictions they offered US chains for Roma in order to get it into even more cinemas. They don't care about theatrical or film. They care about disrupting the theatrical model so they don't have to compete with studios/theatre chains for content or viewers.

ThePott

Sad Professor wrote: »

Netflix might have played along this year in order to win some Oscars and add some prestige to their brand, which is mostly associated with low quality crap like Bird Box, but they are not in any way committed to theatrical.

Never suggested they were, I was taking issue with you saying they did the bare minimum when they did far more than that. Let's be honest, few distributors in general would have given a film like Roma a wide release with any real success. I agree Bird Box was crap but it did have a massive audience and as much as you can attack the huge amount of rubbish on there (and there is) they have also put out good quality stuff, so you can't tar it all with the same brush, the same way you can't tar any film studio for having a diverse catalogue of highs and lows. Not to mention being associated with Bird Box is great for them as it was massive, regardless of what we both though. Netflix just has a much wider platform that goes directly to the consumer.

Sad Professor wrote: »

If they were they would have reduced the 3 week window and the various other restrictions they offered US chains for Roma in order to get it into even more cinemas. They don't care about theatrical or film. They care about disrupting the theatrical model so they don't have to compete with studios/theatre chains for content or viewers.

I'd like to know where I ever said they did. While they don't care about film there is the adverse affect of giving a blank check and creative control to more established directors and offering a wider distribution system for smaller films, REGARDLESS of their reasons. Of course they don't care about theatrical, no one said they did and why would they their model is literally opposed to it.



My argument is the idea that Netflix didn't do more than they needed to to get Oscar consideration and again studios are no saints either when it comes to trying to get awards consideration. The rules are outdated no one denies that but it's not as simple as you are making it out to be and Netflix aren't totally wrong with how they handled the situation.

Should they give box office results?
Should they reduce their window?


Maybe but there's no reason for them to do that to be considered for awards and that's what this whole thing is about.

Frank O. Pinion

To pick out one "Netflix film", Joe Swanberg's most recent mumblecore feature, Win It All (2017) debuted on Netflix, April 2017. Enjoyable film, that nobody was going to go see in the cinema. His previous film before that, Digging For Fire (2015) made $119,000 at the box office.

Sad Professor

ThePott wrote: »

Never suggested they were, I was taking issue with you saying they did the bare minimum when they did far more than that.

Sorry ThePott but I don't have the energy to do the endless back and forth quoting thing right now. To clarify: My last post (explaining why Netflix used a different release strategy for Roma) was a follow on from my previous one in which I was responding specifically to your claim that my post was "misinformation" or "totally untrue" on the basis that one example (Roma) disapproved it. I was taking issue with your claim that I was posting misinformation, which I wasn't. You presumedly disagree with my broader argument re: Netflix and that's fine. Most people in this thread disagree with me.

johnny_ultimate

ThePott wrote: »

Let's be honest, few distributors in general would have given a film like Roma a wide release with any real success.

I'd suggest Roma is the increasingly rare foreign language film that is a reasonably safe bet. I do believe Netflix likely allowed for a larger budget, and a less complicated one (the amount of logos before many foreign language films is always fascinating to me). But it's the next Alfonso Cuaron film: whatever form it arrived in, it would have gotten a pretty decent push by foreign language film standards. Maybe not ‘wide’ as in Captain Marvel wide release, but wide by world cinema standards.

For a point of comparison, look at Cold War. Obviously a quite different film to Roma, but similar in some key respects: established auteur; black & white visuals; director's follow-up to a big hit; eventual Oscar nominations (although that wasn't apparent at the time); critical acclaim. When released last August in the UK, it had by far the highest screen average take of the week's top 15 films during its opening week (I use UK figures as BFI is a bit more transparent with box office numbers than Screen Ireland). It stuck around for a long time - a pretty staggering 14 weeks in the IFI, for example:

https://twitter.com/IFI_Dub/status/1070052675541184514

There's also the film club and arts centre circuit here in Ireland, which gives foreign language films a notable extra bump and wider audience beyond a commercial release in the arthouse cinemas.

By those sorts of standards, Roma's strict one-week engagement in two cinemas could be fairly described as token (although some films don't even get that, I hasten to add). The Lighthouse indicated on social media they'd have organised more screenings if they were allowed - this, remember, is the cinema that showed Call Me By Your Name regularly for like eight months and still throw on screenings whenever they have an excuse to do so :pac:. I'd have little doubt if it was released as a traditional theatrical release, it'd have done well - and likely very well - by arthouse standards.

Now, I'm firmly of the opinion that even if Roma didn't get a cinema release at all it still by all rights should have been every bit an awards contender given its extraordinary quality. But for an Irish viewer, Netflix's relationship with cinemas here so far only amounts to one film in two cinemas for a week. Honestly, I'd really loved to have seen Buster Scruggs on the big screen as I felt it looked a bit ugly with the Netflix encoding. So while there's a reasonable argument to be made that Roma's release was a step beyond 'bare minimum', I don't think it amounted to much beyond 'token' either. Better than nothing is something, for sure, but not ideal either

Sad Professor

Cold War was my favourite film of the year. I loved Roma but it didn't immediately grab me the way Cold War did, though maybe it would have if I had seen it theatrically.

Speaking of Scruggs, there's been a lot of straight-to-Netflix films where something seemed off about the sound and/or picture quality but I couldn't put my finger on it. Mute for example seemed to have really bad sound. It didn't feel like a film despite being from the guy who directed Moon. I often wondered if they skimped somewhere because it was just for Netflix or it was the encoding or mixing. Felt the same about Ouija.