I spent part of this weekend binge-watching the first three episodes of the new, gay-themed Canadian sports romance series, Heated Rivalry, on HBO despite being told the death of the movies was upon us.
Once again.
In any other era this would be sacrilegious for a movie lover.
The funereal panic was related to the announcement that Netflix was buying Warner Bros. Discovery for the incomprehensible price (NOTE: To me, anyway. I’m still smarting over $10 eggs) of $82.7 billion. A pending deal that, according to the N.Y. Times, could redefine Hollywood and the broader media landscape.
I have no doubt the above is true since Hollywood and media has been consistently redefining itself every couple of years since I first became professionally involved with it in the late 1970s.
Yes, I have all the career, financial and personal battle scars to prove it. And one night, over cocktails, I’ll tell you all about if you so desire.
But more to the point, I have all the iterations of media and my own work to prove it.
Unopened boxes in my closet that contain VHS recordings of rare movies taped from network TV, cassette and eight tracks of movie soundtracks (Note: And more than a few vinyl records), a neatly tied bundle of laser discs (Note: A very short but very cool tech period, in my humble opinion), many drawers of CD movie themes/songs I bought or were sent to me from studios during awards seasons or for promotional purposes, and several walls full of DVDs my husband and I love having on hand even though three quarters of them are available on streaming services.
Add to that hundreds of original screenplays, pilots and treatments (Note: Several dozens of them my own) of very good work that was never made because they weren’t big enough, commercial enough, contemporary enough, relatable enough, young enough or just plain enough enough for the theatrical film market as it stood at the time.
Speaking for those projects that I DID NOT write, since no one can be objective about their own work, I promise you that determination is and was BULLSH-T since all of them could have been enough if given the chance.
But, of course, it depends on what you mean by enough. My definition is a film, or potential film or film element, that is entertaining or meaningful or satisfying to group of people other than your friends and relatives.
The theatrical deciders’ definition is a piece of material that will make them unlimited scads of money for the smallest amount of risk despite the tried and true adage, Nothing ventured, Nothing gained.
Meaning, screenwriter William Goldman’s summation of the movie business and all its marketplace gatekeepers in his seminal 1983 memoir Adventures in the Screen Trade still, and perennially, applies:
NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING.
What especially no one knows anymore is what a movie is by 2025 and beyond standards and how it should or will be consumed. (Note: Consumed? What a horrible but applicable choice of words, as if we’re eating soylent green, though in a sense we are).
The chief complaint about Netflix and other streaming platforms is that their mere existence spells the death knell of the movie business, and the fact that it’s gobbling up one of what remains of a handful of big Hollywood studios ushers in the end of “movies.”
After all, what incentive does Netflix have for people to watch a film outside of their homes, in a theatre (aka, the definition of a “real” movie)?
About as much as David Zaslav, a former cable/streaming exec who was put in charge of theatrical when he was made CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery in 2022 cares about it.
Though probably more, since one of Zaslav’s first acts when put in charge was a cost-cutting measure that would’ve ended the one cable channel most beloved by movie lovers, TCM (Turner Classic Movies), as we know it, until filmmakers Paul Thomas Anderson and Martin Scorsese and others stepped in to exert a little… ahem… pressure.
This while Netflix stepped up and made movies and deals with some of the top directors in the movie business, including Martin Scorsese (The Irishman), Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein), Rian Johnson (Knives Out II and III) and Greta Gerwig (the upcoming Chronicles of Narnia) and her husband Noah Baumbach (the just-released George Clooney starrer, Jay Kelly).
All of these films have had or will have theatrical runs of various lengths and all the work of these and most other filmmakers will likely continue to do so.
Are they or will they be as long as they used to be? Well, um, no.
But to all of the movie consumers out there – nerds, intellectuals, horror fanatics, foreign film fans, the super-hero obsessed or rom-com fanatics – how many times have you uttered these four words in the last number of years:
Is it streaming yet?
It is worth noting the film most likely to win this year’s best picture Oscar and, for my money, the best film of 2025, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, was a Warner Bros. release that played a mere eight weeks before being available to rent or buy on streamers.
This is not very long at all by traditional standards. And will undoubtedly vary depending on how much demand there is to see a film and how much money can be made on them.
I used to marvel when my parents recounted to me there was a time that they huddled around the RADIO to listen to original serialized storytelling. The same way I did to my husband a few years ago when I suddenly realized true crime podcasts were becoming the new commercial “thing,” making something very recognizably radio popular again.
Do I long for the old days of movies?
Not so much.
What I long for instead are the days of more good and great movies and less pure commercial garbage for the mythical lowest common denominator, non-thinking international, four quadrant audience.
And on that subject, I’d put more faith in Netflix than in the guy who treated Dr. Pimple Popper and 90 Day Fiancé with the same reverence as a Scorsese or Nolan film when he first listed them on HBO Max.
Not that there is anything wrong with any film or TV show of any kind. Including the steamy Heated Rivalry, which I have every intention of watching in between this year’s Oscar movies – at the theatre and at home.
On my couch.
Doom scrolling.
notes from a chair 