When Do We Stop Calling Them "Films"

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The Guy Who Sees Movies
So....I'm squirming in my seat in the theater, making my way through this morbid, dysphoric drama, The Room Next Door, about a writer on her way out, suffering from cancer. I have plenty of mental down time to ponder the production methods.

So....some of the movie obviously has New York digitized into the background. The supporting cast, as well as the crew and the actual movie making seems to have been done in Spain. The movie was shown in our local theater using digital projection. So, when do we stop calling them "Films"?

My need for precision in language is itching. "Movie" is obviously an anachronism itself, a shortened version of Moving Pictures, which they never were. We need a contest for a new name.

The winner gets a lifetime subscription to a streaming service and unlimited tickets to the theater. What do we call those 1.5 - 3 hour pieces of entertainment that we see in theaters?



What do we call those 1.5 - 3 hour pieces of entertainment that we see in theaters?
"Flicker Shows"

"Hot Garbage"

"Vidis"

"Also Playing on Prime"

"Occular Herpes"

"Soon to be Featured in the $5 Walmart Bin"

"Phantasmagorias"

"Overpriced"



Oh, for God's sake, we're doing this again?

-sigh- okay, I suggest we call them,

"Film films that are not actually made out of film, but we'll call it film because it's a nice word, and why waste a perfectly good word, so deal with it, films"

Alternate suggestion - "Films are real treats", aka F.A.R.T. - as in "I'm going out to see a fart"

Now give me my prize!!
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With the deconstructive way that you described it...I'm fine calling them a "visual collab" (Vilab?) for the time being... Sht, at least I tried something new, Corax.

Not an ugly-looking work that one, but not very good either... Swinton I thought was a stand-out but the whole package seems "fake", as a friend put it.



I don't actually wear pants.
Please post sober.
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I hate insomnia. Oh yeah. Last year I had four cases of it, and each time it lasted three months.



NO...we will not stop calling them films. That's what my brain tells my fingers to type.
True, but the time is coming when they won't.



You'll only take Film away from me when you pry it from my cold dead hands! (audience cheers)
They're not going to pry celluloid from our dead fingers. They will hardly take a moment to look up from their smartphones. And the souls of the damned will howl when aspect ratios officially go vertical. But they will also cheer, because Satan already had everything in Hell formatted in 9:16.



Plays Recorded on Camera.

We call them Procs.
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“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!” ~ Rocky Balboa



as long as the word film conveys the concept of a film to people they will be called films. doesn't matter if it was shot on a phone or made entirely in Blender and only uploaded to youtube.



Whether somebody uses 'film' or 'movie' is a pleb filter.
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If you no longer wish to use the word “film” describe such a visual spectacle, then I suggest calling it Sight Horrorscopic Image Technology, or S.H.I.T.

Mark



While this may be the consensus, I'm just going to continue to call everything a movie, but if a discussion requires differentiating between the long and the short, I'll use the terms short film and feature film, perhaps mostly because "short film" rolls off the tongue better than "short movie."



as long as the word film conveys the concept of a film to people they will be called films.
This. Words convey ideas, that's their purpose. Yes, it's kind of a bummer when they evolve into something that no longer matches the etymology of the word, but it's not preventable and should probably only be resisted in situations where it's particularly dissonant.



When someone says 'I saw a film" nearly everyone born in either this century of the past one knows exactly what this means.


How precise do we have to get?


Or is this actually just the preamble to complaints about how it's only snobs who use words like 'film' and it should be done away with to get back at them and all their fancy pants Citizen Kane watching?



Personally, I don’t care about this issue (as my previous post indicated), if we HAVE to be precise, why not just call them movies? Even if it’s a bit anachronistic, “movie” a timeless, universally recognizable term that can apply to any era, regardless of the technology used to make them, and conveys the same concept as “film”?

Mark