At a time when one of the few genuinely exciting trends in the world of cinema is the growing popularity of repertory theaters screening old movies on film, taking a major library off the market would be yet another blow to the theater industry that Netflix is apparently keen to destroy entirely. As movie theaters have struggled with finding creative solutions to the problem of Hollywood’s substandard (and decreased) output, repertory cinema has been a rare bright spot.
Theaters like Metrograph in New York, the New Beverly in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Film Society (PFS) in Philadelphia, Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston, and Music Box Theatre in Chicago have thrived as young cinephiles have flocked to see old movies on the silver screen. Recent rereleases of films ranging from Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (only in IMAX 70mm) to Jaws to Kill Bill have enthralled moviegoers. Even more important, studies show that the supposedly “YouTube-addled” Gen Alpha actually prefer the theater experience to streaming, despite what Sarandos might say about the communal experience of a movie theater being “outdated.”
Rather than trusting Netflix to be stewards of such an important piece of America’s artistic and cultural landscape, they should turn over control of the archive to an institution like the University of California, Los Angeles, which already does a great deal of film preservation, along with the rights to license movies for rep screenings and physical media releases, the way Warner itself has assumed control of a number of old studio libraries.
I thought we generally hated mergers. Other than that though I’m out of the loop - why is this propaganda?
Oh, make no mistake, it’s still a bad merger. It’s just that someone was going to buy Warner either way, and the main competing bid was from Paramount-Skydance with the express purpose of gutting CNN to appease the strange grayish-yellow slime mold that’s been growing in the White House, because the news won’t stop telling people how slimy it is. Which, of course, gives the adherents of the slime mold reason to try and turn public favor against Netflix’s acquisition. Or something along those lines, I’d be lying if I said I was all the way in the loop myself. Maybe there’s some other reason it’s propaganda, I don’t know. It does certainly seem to be echoing the same victim complex that cinemas have been playing up since COVID, but I’m not sure “theater propaganda” is really a thing.
Netflix isnt trying to buy the part of the company that owns CNN. News is not a factor in any way.
Larry Ellison IS. That’s the alternative.
Its not an alternative. Ellison will sfill be able to buy CNN after the Netflix deal.
True, but at least that’s just CNN and not a chokehold on all media.
I have no interest in a 9 part mini-series titled “The Golden God - Inside Trump’s White House”.
I can’t imagine netflix having any commitment to news either
They don’t. Their bid is just for the Warner Bros. side of the company. CNN is part of the Global Networks side. Paramount is bidding on the whole thing. Either way, Paramount will likely get CNN.
Probably not, but given the choice (term used loosely) between “ignore it at best, get rid of it at worst” and “fire the journalists and replace them with state-funded sycophants”, the apathetic option suddenly seems more appealing. Obviously the preferred option is “stop letting the big companies eat all the smaller ones,” but I don’t see any formal crackdown on that any time soon, what with that slime mold and all.