Give Me Roma Or Give Me Death
Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 12:32PM by Jason Adams
It's tempting to immediately call this "great news" and it is a positive... but it's also a bit like spinning sunshine out of an abusive relationship too -- Netflix is apparently set to announce they're going to be screening Alfonso Cuarón's Roma in "select cities" for two full weeks before the movie drops onto their streaming platform on December 14th. That means November 30th or so.
Deadline says it should be around 12 U.S. cities total, and that Cuarón insists all the theaters it plays are Dolby Atmos eqipped, which is a thing you'll understand once you see the film and take in its astonishingly rich soundtrack. (Although given the fact that most people are going to be watching this on their iPads while they're cooking, maybe he should just encourage as many theaters as possible?)
You can read Nathaniel's review of the film from TIFF right here - I didn't get the chance to review it out of NYFF myself but if you'd like my opinion it's the best movie I've seen this year, and if you can at all make it to one of these theaters, do. It's a total sense experience - the images, the sound, they really do envelope you and transport you to another world like only cinema at its finest can. Netflix owes us all a theatrical run, and I'm glad they seem to be figuring that out. Baby steps...
Alfonso Cuarón, Netflix, Roma
Reader Comments (9)
this is really such great news. Hoping a lot of you can see the movie this way
I hope to see it on the big screen as I'm a fan of Cuaron's work.
The Academy needs to institute a rule stating that a film must have be shown in theatres for a limited time BEFORE it streams. This is great news
MIchael R -- Its crazy to me that they didn't make sure that was the rule from the get go since the rules were previously always very clear about you must be released theatrically before television airings. it's like they were sleeping on the streaming problem until it was a problem.
Just snagged tickets at the Virginia Film Festival before it sold out, so excited to see this where it belongs - on the screen in a Dolby theater.
Hope it makes its way to Canada as well.
MDA: you and me both.
I truly get the frustration that cinematic experiences are compromised into TV movies. And I really don´t understand these rules...
But I also feel we should stop acting like people are watching Netflix only on their mobile devices. Basically everyone I know watches Netflix on their huge 4K resolution flat screens.
That´s btw a whole different experience than watching "Children of Men" in 2007 at home on DVD like I had to, because there wansn´t another way of doing so or watching "Titanic" on VHS... remember those days?!
@MDA, Michael in Canada
ROMA is playing in Vancouver December 14-20 in the Vancity theatre (one of the best independent film theatres) I think, but not sure about other Canadian cities unfortunately 😔, but good luck!!