“Netflix leads all studios with an impressive eighteen – count ‘em – eighteen price increases,” Oscars host Conan O’Brien joked in the monologue, the first of many jokes to come about the increasingly prevalent nature of streaming television. Netflix may lead in price changes, but they also lead in nominations, suggesting that most viewers and Netflix voters may enjoy the year’s best films from the comfort of their own homes.
Midway through the broadcast, Conan pitched the audience on a new invention, kind of: CinemaStreams, “a building that’s dedicated to streaming movies.” For the millennials in the ad, used to watching their favorite TV and movies from their tablets in the kitchen, the notion of a whole building made to watch movies in feels, well, a little funny. “How do you hold it?” one of them asks. “The building holds it,” Conan answers, pointing to the big screen on the wall. That’s not to say that the young people seated necessarily understand it, as a man bursts into the theater holding one of the ropes from the concession stand line. “Hey, they got ropes out there!” he announces.
Despite the novel nature of CinemaStream, O’Brien’s advent is maybe a little familiar. “Isn’t this just a movie theater?” one of his patrons points out. But don’t overthink it: CinemaStreams is actually a trademark of Conan O’Brien “in partnership with the Sackler family and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” As if that wasn’t convincing enough, the outro features a little Martin Scorsese cameo. “Tell ‘em Marty sent ya,” the director says with a little smirk. Nothing’s better than seeing a movie the way its director intended, though O’Brien is clear to mention that Scorsese’s initial cut of the commercial was “six hours and very violent.”