Film and Episodic Content Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by purr1n, Jan 8, 2020.

  1. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Apple been pushing me about Apple TV+ for a little bit since my recent purchases is giving me Apple TV+ free for three months.

    For those who actually paying for the service, what are some of your recommendations from this service?
     
  2. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    For all mankind is pretty good, made by the guy behind the bsg reboot. Ted lasso, Foundation ehm maybe Invasion which is a bit of slow burn but not super boring. All i’ve watched so far. Got it for free two times. Honestly there is not much on there…
     
  3. SoupRKnowva

    SoupRKnowva Official SBAF South Korean Ambassador

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    Ted Lasso season 1 is the only standout I’ve seen. For all mankind is ok, same with foundation. I’ve been meaning to try Invasion.
     
  4. Pharmaboy

    Pharmaboy Friend

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    Anyone here have the Criterion Channel? I keep thinking about that one (always loved old black & whites, foreign films, crazy indie stuff).
     
  5. Qildail

    Qildail Friend

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    @YMO talked me into that one (kinda sorta, twist my arm, etc.); they just came off a 10% EOY sale. So far I'm finding it to be "crate diving for cinephiles". Some really eclectic stuff there, but the new Criterion releases being funneled in will cut down on my physical media purchases, which honestly, I could stand to do a bit in 2022.

    It's apples and oranges I know, but given I pay three times the price per year for audio subscriptions; if you aren't packed to the gills with other video services and watch lists running out pages, it's not the worst way to spend $10/month, at least so far for me.

    Extra bonus: it's not a bad way to brush up on your French...
     
  6. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    It is one of the very very few handful streaming services that I am willing to pay $100/year to sub it. For me Criterion Channel/CC is super worth it.

    As I told a friend, you will never run out of watching interesting films on the CC. A good bit of the Criterion Collection releases are on the CC (including most newly released BD releases from Criterion) for streaming with most of the BD release extras (including the excellent video remastering jobs) to boot in very good streaming quality. On top of that they get streaming license from different movie groups/studios to have their stuff on the CC. Now those movies were not mastered by Criterion, and some of them are a hit and miss of quality. However, they always add/change films in the service so there's always something interesting they add on it on a monthly basis as a curtailer of films. So if you have or had most of the Criterion BD releases, CC is still worth it due to variation that doesn't make the service boring. Of course Criterion for some films will only keep the license for a certain period of time, so for some they will still get the BD releases since they are BD and the video quality will be better than streaming. However, the film will be removed from CC once Criterion no longer have the rights to it.

    Love Police Story 1 + 2 back when Jackie Chan was in his prime? It's on CC since Criterion did released both films in excellent quality over a year ago. How about the classic Godzilla films? Guess what, Criterion did a box set of the classic Godzilla films from the 50s-70s and you can stream them all in great quality on CC. I might watch Destroy All Monsters tonight. If you are weird, you can watch the classic dubs of the Godzilla film in English on most releases free of charge. I was bored and CC actually had the first Mad Max film to watch. Not as good as Mad Max 2, but I appreciate them having it when I was browsing.

    Qildail stated about brushing up your French, but there's so many films from around the world that it is hard to pinpoint a bias down. Want to watch Le Samouraï? I do! Film is cool as f**k for neo-nior. How about most of the classic Powell and Pressburger/The Archers stuff like Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp*? f**k yeah! Better than woke Hollywood any day of the f'ing week. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. International documentaries are on here and geez I can't even tell you the volume of stuff on here. Oh yeah, classic Kurosawa films are of course on CC from his heyday.

    If you never tried CC before, you can try it for two weeks before they will charge your credit card. Easy to cancel if you want. I mostly watch older films anyway, and I can't live without CC. Considering I'm not really into buying BD discs, I prefer CC since I prefer to stream for my movies (but stream/buy for music).

    As I stated previously, if you watch five films that were released by Criterion on CC then you are breaking even on the sub cost. I do this cost by $20 when Barnes & Noble does half off sale on the Criterion BD releases. I normally break even on the sub cost within one month. On the other stuff on CC that isn't from Criterion, I would price them $5-$10 per watch depending on the material.

    *One of my favorite films.
     
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    Last edited: Jan 3, 2022
  7. Pharmaboy

    Pharmaboy Friend

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    Great responses from @Qildail & @YMO !!

    I've seen many of the core list of movies in theaters in NYC & Boston decades ago: most of the French Nouvelle Vague; Bergman; Satyajit Ray; Kurosawa; Krzysztof Kieślowski; Peter Weir (so many astounding films). I also hoovered up any number of indies from all over the globe.

    But I stopped going to these cities w/any regularity ~20 years ago & stopped seeing all the great new stuff (that never came near where I live). That's where Criterion would really help--putting me back in touch with bleeding edge films of all genres/eras (plus a chance to revisit the great films I'd already seen).

    I really need to do this. It's only money.

    PS: I've gone to see movies in theaters often here all through the years--that never stopped.
     
  8. Tchoupitoulas

    Tchoupitoulas Friend

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    I signed up for a Criterion Channel subscription when it first came out. Unfortunately, I let it lapse when work commitments got in the way. One additional quality to those mentioned above is that Criterion does a great job of curating series of movies. I got hooked on the Columbia Noir selection when the channel first went live and saw a bunch of great films that, otherwise, I'd never have learned about or thought to watch. You can get a sense of these past offerings here.

    (I'm going to sign up again, I couldn't make use of the discount subscription because I'm out of the country.)
     
  9. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    Criterion + kanopy covers 99% of my cinephile tastes

    Ditto to everything @YMO said, Criterion would be worth 3 times the price to me. I still buy some BD releases but more and more of the extras are becoming available on the service. Possibly the best benefit to me are the monthly rotating focuses on different genres \ directors. Great to find something new you love or dive deeper into a director/actor. If you don't like it on to the next thing. I spent a full week watching the Randolph Scott "Ranown Cycle" westerns a few months back, great to find an interest in stuff I never of before.

    kanopy is a free service, you need a membership to a participating library then its just like any other streaming service but with a 15 movies\month limit. Pretty much any 'classic' movie that gets re-released on blu-ray by a company other than criterion ( Olive films, FlickerAlley, Cohen, etc.) shows up on kanopy but it also has a huge, disparate collection of other stuff including educational stuff, documentaries & new releases. If you can get kanopy, get it, guarantee you'll find stuff you like.
     
  10. Pharmaboy

    Pharmaboy Friend

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    I haven't even gotten started but already am bogged down in messy tech:
    • I have a 77" LG OLED, TOTL from 2 yrs back (it's an amazing TV)
    • LG does not offer downloadable apps for Criterion Channel or Kanopy
    • Allegedly I can somehow view these channels content via my Amazon 4K Firestick...
    • Except the apps cannot be directly downloaded there, either
    • And my wifi isn't really strong enough at that TV's location to reliably stream as often as I want
    (a mess)
     
  11. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    @Pharmaboy, the firestick should be renamed dumpsterfirestick. I tried streaming on one the very first day Criterion went online, never got it to work.

    I unplugged my 'smart' TVs and now have 3 Nvidia Sheild pro's in the house. Rock solid & you can block or remove all the 'suggestions' on the home screens which are just paid advertisements. I'm a very happy streamer now and I never thought i'd say that.
     
  12. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    @ogodei one thing I am going to say on the err of caution is not all apps on the Nvidia Shield supports proper 24p video support. While there's an option on the Shield to support 24p, in reality it doesn't fully work. Keep in mind its been years since I had a Shield and I was disappointed on 24p support. I still heard from Shield owners that 24p switching is still a miss on a lot of apps.

    However, what I heard does work well with 24p support is Plex, which make sense since IMO Plex on Shield is top-tier stuff. Still not happy that Google/Android TV OS is brining more ads on, might as well call ads ass. Of course not everyone cares for 24p stuff on films, but sadly my eyes are good enough that I can detect the judder in 24p if app/tv isn't on the same page for 24p.

    This alone plus reviews from other owners is making me go for the Apple TV soon. I read from some people that they have two streaming boxes: Apple TV for streaming due to 24p just about works on almost everything and a Shield for Plex and Android/Emulation stuff.
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2022
  13. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    Makes sense but in general im good with the quaility. Lots of my content is old stuff (1920s through 50s) and HD streaming looks good up-scaled to my projector. My eyes arent the greatest & I'm getting to the point in my life that I want to enjoy the content and not fuss about it being the 'betterest'.

    Of couse I still need to upgrade my projector, DACs, amps, etc. whenever the itch hits :rolleyes:
     
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  14. Wilewarer

    Wilewarer Almost "Made"

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    Criterion Channel is perfect if you're the sort of person who might ordinarily consider going out of your way to a theater showing a movie that came out 40 years ago, but would rather just watch it at home if possible.

    I think my favorite part is that it just doesn't do any algorithmic recommendation for films period that I can see, so there aren't any personal suggestions for me to get increasingly offended at. It's very much programmed like a series of film festivals, so the offense at them attempting to get me to watch a film that's apparently just 8 hours of people doing menial labor is at least potentially shared with every other subscriber.

    It's easier to find stuff to watch on their website than the actual app if you want to browse, though. Need to have a good idea of what you're looking for, if their featured selections aren't it. There's lots of stuff you'd never find on the app if you didn't already know it was there.
     
  15. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    That is very true @ogodei.

    Back to CC talk: If you are curious they do have a section that said leaving by this date on the app. As I previously stated, Criterion can only keep the streaming rights for films for a certain period of time before they go away either due to lost of rights on digital or they don't have full rights anymore Here's a weblink with an example: https://letterboxd.com/drcarpenter/list/watchlist-films-leaving-the-criterion-channel/

    Seems I need to watch Kagemusha on the weekend and On the Waterfront before they are gone. So watching Kagemusha on a weekend.

    However, when things are removed from the service more things are added in to keep it interesting.
     
  16. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Came back for a double post regarding Kanopy. I just got on Kanopy after confirming my Library uses their services. It seems each library system is different on movies/month limit (or credits as Kanopy calls it) since I only have a six credit limit per month. Tons of crap on this service that is a good balance when comparing to CC. Too much stuff on here where I can get overloaded, so I'll focus on films for the most part. Barry Lyndon is available for one credit, and I'm overdue in watching it.

    Also I feel like watching Paths of Glory and Chinatown again, which on my end they are available on Konaopy. Thanks @ogodei!
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2022
  17. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    Quite a few good/obscure music docs/concert films on Kanopy too. Another recommendation from me, if your library gets it.
     
  18. Pharmaboy

    Pharmaboy Friend

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    I never heard of Nvidia Shield or Kanopy before today. And this string of posts from today alone has more subjective impressions about Criterion Channel than I've ever seen. Sometimes I love SABF!

    Still not sure how to get CC on my TV, though.

    Re 24p video support...I was just reading about another device I never heard of before today, Apple Fire TV 4k/2021, which supposedly has been upgraded to pass through all frame rates, fractional and integral. Actually, a post by @YMO above touches on this, too.

    Finally, I'm reading about the Roku Ultra 4K/2021 box, which apparently has the CC app pre-installed (cue celestial choir).

    (just 1 day--so much to think about)
     
  19. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    @Pharmaboy its Apple TV. Fire TV is Amazon’s streaming box/stick.
     
  20. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    I just upgraded a few days ago an old Roku stick in the living room and a dumpsterfirestick (accurate name @ogodei !) in the guest bedroom with Roku Ultra units. You can't disable the one (thankfully non moving/sound) advertisement on the main page, but you can everywhere else. The UI is relatively clean and easy to use, and installing aps/services/channels is a breeze including Criterion Channel. I noticed a better picture as well compared to the old Roku stick I had, though that thing must have been 4 years old now.

    @YMO must moonlight in an ORFAS audio shop, he's convinced me to subscribe to Criterion ;)
     

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