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Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

John Cougar Lunchbucket Feb 27 2014 11:02 AM

As you Facebook guys know I'm mourning the loss of my local video store, which had a really great selection of movies and convenient location and fueled about all of the dozens of dusty, one-vote, practically worthless obscure movie-review threads littering this forum and its archives. I've occasionally felt insulted and underappreciated by the lack of traction many of my snappy but considered reviews drew but occurs to me now, crushingly, that not everyone lives around the corner from an awesome video store. I didn't really ever want Netflix, but it came integrated with the TV we bought last year. I like the convenience of on-demand streaming and there's content there that's quite good, but depth-wise it's outrageously inadequate, and though much is made of their peer-review recommendation algorthyms, it looks to me that practically anything and everything on Netflix winds up with 3 stars, from the worst straight-to-video piece of shit you've ever seen (and there's pletny of that available) to the actually good well made movie. Of course there's so little of the latter category available and no incentive to add it (it'd probably be expensive and compete with Netflix's own shit) that it makes the whole enterprise, from my perspective, to be less about what's good for me than what's good for Netflix. I'm really at a loss here. How can I save movie night?

Benjamin Grimm Feb 27 2014 11:08 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

I get all the movies I need (and more) from cable. I love TCM, but there are also good channels like EPIX and HDNET that show more recent movies. (And of course, HBO and Showtime and all those channels.)

Frayed Knot Feb 27 2014 11:30 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

I've found very little that's NOT available through NetFlix -- the 1989 British Politics & Sex movie SCANDAL, which I'd like to re-see, is one, but I can't think of many others where I've been shut down via them. What flicks, or type of flicks, are you not finding that prompts the "outrageously inadequate" comment?

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Feb 27 2014 11:33 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

Liberry? Liberry's gots some moo-vees.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Feb 27 2014 12:30 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

Frayed Knot wrote: I've found very little that's NOT available through NetFlix -- the 1989 British Politics & Sex movie SCANDAL, which I'd like to re-see, is one, but I can't think of many others where I've been shut down via them. What flicks, or type of flicks, are you not finding that prompts the "outrageously inadequate" comment? i'm talking about the stream only. I mean, almost any movie you'd want to see is unavailable, while lots of pure shit on a stick is at your fingertipts. the whole dvd by mail thing sorta kills the excitement of being able to walk into the place and find what I want, and I think it might cost more too.

Ceetar Feb 27 2014 12:53 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: I've found very little that's NOT available through NetFlix -- the 1989 British Politics & Sex movie SCANDAL, which I'd like to re-see, is one, but I can't think of many others where I've been shut down via them. What flicks, or type of flicks, are you not finding that prompts the "outrageously inadequate" comment? i'm talking about the stream only. I mean, almost any movie you'd want to see is unavailable, while lots of pure shit on a stick is at your fingertipts. the whole dvd by mail thing sorta kills the excitement of being able to walk into the place and find what I want, and I think it might cost more too. Yeah, I find the streaming selection somewhat lacking. For a while I was getting the DVDs in the mail and burning them (like, burn, send back the next day, boom new movie) though I'd occasionally run into issues with playback after compressing and ripping the DVDs to my own discs. Movie channels work for that though, I'll record stuff I want to watch in advance. Still doesn't help you if you're not planning far in advance. If I want a movie otherwise I usually find a torrent, but how about Amazon Video? Seems pretty good. [url]http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dinstant-video&field-keywords=the+world%27s+end&rh=n%3A2858778011%2Ck%3Athe+world%27s+end&ajr=0

Edgy MD Feb 27 2014 01:27 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

What's available through streaming is a terribly cut cross-section. It seemed early on that they were just cycling through getting TV shows up and were holding back on getting a critical mass of films. But then good films started coming DOWN, and what the fuck was that about? I'm guessing: (1) TV shows are a winning ticket for them --- rights-acquisition-wise and customer-satisfaction-wise. A commitment to And Justice for All is a commitment of two hours by the viewer. A commitment to LA Law is a commitment of 250 hours. (2) It probably makes business sense to put the shitty films online. Who is going to wait a few days for Caddyshack 2 to come in the mail? But maybe I might drunkenly make it my impulse selection to tide me over while I'm waiting for Apocalypse Now to arrive in my mail box. It's the electronic version of selling Goobers at the counter.

sharpie Feb 27 2014 02:11 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

I also lost an awesome video store about two years ago. There still is one in my neighborhood and I sometimes go there. Had to get both the streaming and non-streaming Netflix since the convenience of the streaming is nice but the selection is terrible. The one remaining video store in the neighborhood (not nearly as good as the one that closed but decent) now seems to do really good business (plus on weekends they have a really smart guy behind the counter who knows his stuff). I still probably watch more on TCM than anywhere else.

Frayed Knot Feb 27 2014 03:01 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

I guess I didn't realize that the streaming menu was so much more limited. I figured the whole idea, from a business standpoint, to pushing their streaming idea was that it freed them from maintaining a huge inventory of back-titles that rarely get rented. Neighborhood video stores (and, in some cases, libraries) definitely had a lot going for them, but Blockbuster killed off most of those (I HATED Blockbuster during the brief time I was a member) and now NetFlix/streaming/on-demand killed off them. For a while a bunch of years back I was an agent of death for indie video stores; shortly after I'd join a new locale they'd go out of business at which point I had to find a new place to put into critical condition.

TransMonk Feb 27 2014 03:45 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

I have Amazon Prime (got it for the free shipping, the streaming is a perk), though it suffers from much of the same inadequate selection that Netflix does.

metirish Feb 27 2014 05:42 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

TransMonk wrote: I have Amazon Prime (got it for the free shipping, the streaming is a perk), though it suffers from much of the same inadequate selection that Netflix does. agree, can't remember the last time I watched a movie through prime, seemed to suffer from HD quality too. I would say Lorcan uses Netflix the most, although I think it is great for documentaries . I would say it is good for foreign films that you like Seau?

SteveJRogers Mar 01 2014 03:21 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: I've found very little that's NOT available through NetFlix -- the 1989 British Politics & Sex movie SCANDAL, which I'd like to re-see, is one, but I can't think of many others where I've been shut down via them. What flicks, or type of flicks, are you not finding that prompts the "outrageously inadequate" comment? i'm talking about the stream only. I mean, almost any movie you'd want to see is unavailable, while lots of pure shit on a stick is at your fingertipts. the whole dvd by mail thing sorta kills the excitement of being able to walk into the place and find what I want, and I think it might cost more too. Try the local library? I'm sure there are tons of obscure and under appreciated stuff in the NYPL system.

RealityChuck Mar 02 2014 07:45 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

The problem with Netflix (and Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus and HBO Online and everything else) is the fragmentation of the market. Film producers sell streaming rights to the highest bidder (if they're willing to sell them at all) and the highest bidder also insists on exclusive rights. Thus streaming films don't come from multiple sources, and no one source has everything. Each service has plenty of good things to watch, but no one will have everything you want to see.

Ceetar Mar 03 2014 08:17 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

RealityChuck wrote: The problem with Netflix (and Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus and HBO Online and everything else) is the fragmentation of the market. Film producers sell streaming rights to the highest bidder (if they're willing to sell them at all) and the highest bidder also insists on exclusive rights. Thus streaming films don't come from multiple sources, and no one source has everything. Each service has plenty of good things to watch, but no one will have everything you want to see. Yeah, this is the main problem. Everyone wants a piece of the action. There are problems like this in a lot of industries. Perhaps it'll take something like NetFlix getting bought by Google and having the wealth to just buy enough that everyone else is forced to go through them. In the meantime, the consumer is stuck with struggling to figure out the best option, which is never good.

Vic Sage Mar 03 2014 08:35 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

Ceetar wrote: RealityChuck wrote: The problem with Netflix (and Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus and HBO Online and everything else) is the fragmentation of the market. Film producers sell streaming rights to the highest bidder (if they're willing to sell them at all) and the highest bidder also insists on exclusive rights. Thus streaming films don't come from multiple sources, and no one source has everything. Each service has plenty of good things to watch, but no one will have everything you want to see. Yeah, this is the main problem. Everyone wants a piece of the action. There are problems like this in a lot of industries. Perhaps it'll take something like NetFlix getting bought by Google and having the wealth to just buy enough that everyone else is forced to go through them. In the meantime, the consumer is stuck with struggling to figure out the best option, which is never good. yes, your right, monopolies give the best deal to the consumer. Lets make sure google owns everything; i'm sure they'll make the price cheaper then. And yes, the problem is the "Fragmentation of the market", allowing a wider range of independent producers to finance a wider range of films then were available when the gatekeepers had a tighter grip on the access to the marketplace. Yes, no matter your niche interest, there is a tv station, podcast, website, youtube channel, or satellite radio program that caters to it and, gosh darn it, that's a big problem for the viewing public. The multi-platform "competition" that you are bemoaning, illusory as it is (lets remember there are like 6 media companies on the planet that own ALL these things), is the only countervaling force in the marketplace to total monopoly control, and drives technological, economic and content competition, to whatever degree those things still have meaning. But lets by all means wish for the day where everything is owned by one entity, and we have to see what they decide we can see, and we pay what they decide what we have to pay. Sounds like heaven, because then it'll be easy to find everything in one place.

Ceetar Mar 03 2014 09:00 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

See, I DO find everything I want in one place, I just don't pay for it. It's not that one over-arcing conglomerate is better, but that the idea that I would, or should, pay for one subscription to get Universal movies and one subscription to get Paramount and one..that's ridiculous. These companies ARE NOT competing with each other. They exist in a "rising tide raises all ships" environment. It's not like anyone chooses a movie based on the studio. That these companies in the middle of the artist and the consumer have all the power is the problem, and perhaps the solution is to throw it to Google/Apple/Amazon/NetFlix and let the films (and tv shows) go directly up on sites where you buy them directly. Get rid of this BS exclusivity stuff. When I say sell to Google, what I mean is I want the discussion about what to sell to be with the consumer, with me. I want NetFlix to base it on what I'm watching, what I want to watch. Right now it feels like the discussion is between NetFlix and the studios about what they think they can sell us. Because where we're going now is plenty scary. These film companies trying to keep control of the market and tell NetFlix how much it's going to cost, which then NetFlix adjusts the price to tell us what we can watch, while Comcast tells us to pony up more money if you actually want to have the internet connection to watch it while the cellphone companies strip data-allowances so that you have to give them more money if you want to watch it on a tablet or phone.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Mar 03 2014 09:21 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

here we go

RealityChuck Mar 03 2014 10:03 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

Vic Sage wrote: Ceetar wrote: RealityChuck wrote: The problem with Netflix (and Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus and HBO Online and everything else) is the fragmentation of the market. Film producers sell streaming rights to the highest bidder (if they're willing to sell them at all) and the highest bidder also insists on exclusive rights. Thus streaming films don't come from multiple sources, and no one source has everything. Each service has plenty of good things to watch, but no one will have everything you want to see. Yeah, this is the main problem. Everyone wants a piece of the action. There are problems like this in a lot of industries. Perhaps it'll take something like NetFlix getting bought by Google and having the wealth to just buy enough that everyone else is forced to go through them. In the meantime, the consumer is stuck with struggling to figure out the best option, which is never good. yes, your right, monopolies give the best deal to the consumer. Lets make sure google owns everything; i'm sure they'll make the price cheaper then. And yes, the problem is the "Fragmentation of the market", allowing a wider range of independent producers to finance a wider range of films then were available when the gatekeepers had a tighter grip on the access to the marketplace. Yes, no matter your niche interest, there is a tv station, podcast, website, youtube channel, or satellite radio program that caters to it and, gosh darn it, that's a big problem for the viewing public. It's a problem because the viewing public has to pay for multiple providers in order to see what they want. If you have join six or seven of them, it means you pay more money and get fewer films for the money you pay any one provider, and thus more per viewing (since the number of movies you can see in a month is limited). The solution, which will create even more competition, is for content makers to not sign exclusive contracts. Thus, they can sell their videos to Netflix, Amazon, Google, etc. It'd be like selling your DVDs to multiple video store chains -- best for both the producers and the consumer (but not to the middleman). Sometimes you may see that for old TV shows, but never for anything recent or popular.

Vic Sage Mar 03 2014 11:00 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

Non-exclusivity is not a solution because its an economic absurdity right now. The same reason you don't see HBO programs on SHOWTIME, and vice versa, as well as all the other original cable tv programming on other channels (at least for a long while), is that they use theair exclusivity period to draw subscribers to their channels. Independent producers sell them that exclusivity in order to raise the money to make the program in the first place; and studios use it to create cash flow for the same purposes, and/or to establish their own distribution platforms in the new media. So "non-exclusivity" isn't going to happen when "exclusivity" has so much value to them. But the answer to the problem of costly subscriptions isn't to seek a single monolithic corporate entity to take over the business, whether GOOGLE or otherwise... that represents the continued consolidation of media into fewer and fewer hands and a death-knell for democracy just so we can see movies cheaper. At any rate, content moves through windows of exclusivity... feature films go to some theaters in an area, not to EVERY theater (they bid for them), otherwise they'd be cannibalizing themselves. Then, they go to certain PPV/streaming/dvd rental platforms (not all of them), then to a premium cable channel (not all of them), then to a basic channel, then to a network broadcast channel (CBS and ABC don't offer the same movies at the same time to its audiences), then to off-network syndication, at which point every channel and its brother can license the show. Then, it goes into the public domain and anybody that owns a copy can screen it. Now, just as there once was VHS, BETA and Laserdisk formats competing in the marketplace, and HBO and Showtime, and various gaming platforms (all of which often feature exclusive content), we are in a transitional period. There will be winners and losers. There will be formats and providers that succeed and those that fail, and the failures will sell off their rights to the winners. Eventually, we are likely to have a single iCloud where each studio/network/content-owner will have its own digital ppv channel available to consumers, offering some combination of subscription, PPV and ad-based free programming, so you'll be able to access anything at any time. But only those providers with a critical mass of content will be able to get away with a subscriber model; the others will offer more PPV and free ad-based programs. And as pipes get broader, A-V content will face the same issues as music did, in that if they don't offer content for a reasonable price (or what the consumer considers reasonable), the consumer will engage in "self-help" (i.e., piracy, rendering EVERYTHING in the public domain), which will ultimately drive down the consumer price to "itunes" levels. But underlying all these considerations is not public interest; it's private profit. You'll have to pay more than you want for your entertainment, because they know you will. It's our drug. I want my... i want my ... i want my MTV....

Ceetar Mar 03 2014 11:12 AM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

Vic Sage wrote: But underlying all these considerations is not public interest; it's private profit. You'll have to pay more than you want for your entertainment, because they know you will. It's our drug. I want my... i want my ... i want my MTV.... Pretty much. see also: Baseball ticket prices. It's definitely a transition period, I have no doubt they'll eventually be a simpler system than there is now, I'm just hoping there's something we can do as consumers to push them in a direction that's better for us in the long run. Because as much as "it's our drug" there are a lot of other drugs out there. HBO and Showtime are competing to some extent, but all of HBO's drug-takers are potential (or current) Showtime druggies as well, whereas the ones the competition drives to take a different drug, say Nintendo's, are less likely to come back and buy your drug.

Nymr83 Mar 03 2014 12:50 PM Re: Death Blow to Unpopular Reviews and Films

metirish wrote: TransMonk wrote: I have Amazon Prime (got it for the free shipping, the streaming is a perk), though it suffers from much of the same inadequate selection that Netflix does. agree, can't remember the last time I watched a movie through prime, seemed to suffer from HD quality too. I would say Lorcan uses Netflix the most, although I think it is great for documentaries . I would say it is good for foreign films that you like Seau? I watched Centurion with Amazon Prime last night. .. mow where do i get that hour of my life back? Oh well, at least it was short.