On Sat, 3 May 2003 21:58:43 -0700 (PDT), Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com gave utterance to the following:
This whole debate is pointless. Who cares if we use movie or film. Neither one is ambiguous. Neither is really that "uncultured". It doesn't matter. Just make redirects from one to another (since some use movie and others film) or else pick one and adopt it as a standard. Pick a number 1 or 2. One of them is movie, the other film. It really doesn't matter which one is used. Will one of them detract from our goal of creating an encyclopedia? Just think of that when debating these pointless issues. -LittleDan
I was about to raise my hand in favour of movie for the reason that film is ambiguous but movie isn't.
As to usage, movie is one word I don't regard as an americanism (it probably arrived in NZ with the troops during WWII). New Zealanders will say they are going to the movies, to see a movie, to the pictures, but they will seldom say "to a film" or "to the cinema". I think "the flicks" has almost died out as a term.