But Is It on Netflix? - Streaming Video Service Thread: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube TV, AT+T Watch, Philo, Playstation Vue, HBO Max, HBO Now, Facebook Live and many more

At least in the UK, Amazon Prime is still pretty good for cult movie obscurities if you do a bit of digging around - quite a lot of giallo, kung fu, poliziotteschi that's obviously been sourced from Arrow or 88 films so the print quality is generally better than on YouTube etc.

Prime has Deadloch, which was one of the best streaming-only shows I've seen.

Huh akm, I’ve found it to be consistently funny and I’ve enjoyed the tonal shifts between each character’s perspective

On the Prime homepage, they've started mixing the FreeVee film titles in alongside the regular Prime stuff instead of clearly separating them into separate listings (FreeVee Comedies/Dramas/Action etc.).

The fact that our shipping account comes with a free TV channel (??) is just an add-on. There are a few shows I watch (The Boys, LotR), but nothing I'd feel gutted about missing if I ever got rid of it entirely. There is no way I'd spend one extra dollar for this service. I already subscribe to too many others (all of which I watch far more).

My dad loves car racing and I have terrible memories of the tv being hijacked by him for hours on weekends to watch nascar/Grand Prix/etc, I find it intolerably boring to watch. But I’m interested in behind-the-scenes of almost anything, so I’ve been watching the NASCAR: Full Speed doc series and it’s pretty interesting.

I looked up earnings out of curiosity, because I think the pit stop stuff is particularly interesting and was shocked to see pit crew workers average $44k per year, while drivers get a base salary of $112k plus $8-47k per race depending on where they finish. The pit crew’s skills are pretty crucial to winning a race, and it’s a dangerous job, but I guess it’s no surprise that teams making in excess of $100m a year have them on the bottom salary rungs.

All films should be a tight 90 minutes. Except ones called '60 Minutes'.

― organ doner (ledge), Thursday, February 1, 2024 10:36 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm a firm believer that 90 mins is the perfect movie length. Anything over 2 hrs gtfo too long.

i like when i'm watching some movie from the 30s and its 70 minutes long. perfect!

Rear Window is 1:52 - there is no reason on Earth for a dumb action or superhero movie to be longer than Rear Window IMO.

i think i wrote that in a metal review once. that slayer's south of heaven was 37 minutes long and unless your album is better than slayer's south of heaven it shouldn't be longer than 37 minutes. but nobody listened to me.

Chuck otm about Deadloch, by the way.

they really pad out the length of TV series too. when i see newer TV shows i sometimes realize how little the plots move on an episode by episode basis, like you wait a year or more for a new season of ten episodes and over the whole season the plot inches forward and goes nowhere. i think i started seeing this in the middle seasons of Game of Thrones, when they started making it up as they went along. i don't know that a single thing happened in seasons 5 and 6.

I tend to feel there's a "too long/not long enough" pocket, a running time "uncanny valley" if you will. Movies that are less than 100 minutes, smooth sailing. Movies that are over, say, 240 minutes and duration is part of the experience? Hunker down with a blanket and enjoy.

But between those two? That's where we have a problem.

there are definite pacing issues. i saw ant man and the wasp quantumania and had to turn it off after what felt like an hour and a half, couldn't even make it to the end, but we were only 40 minutes in. whereas at least for me personally something like The Irishman had just great pacing and rhythm, much slower but not exhausting. same thing w/any random episode of that Boba Fett series vs, idk, Tar or something. isn't a series about the galaxy's illest bounty hunter supposed to fly by?

He only flies when someone hasn't bopped him on the jet pack...

Things can be any length they need to be and it helps to not be shit and ideally be edited by Thelma Schoonmaker is basically how I break it down to an extent

the longer you make your movie the better you need to be imo. lots of current hacks would've been making perfectly fine 75min films in the past but now they all get two and a half hours.

Obv if you're Leone or Tarkovsky or Scorsese, feel free to go wild with the lenght.

Those aren't the first three I'd pick for durational masters, but that battle was lost long ago (looooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggg ago)

i don't know why I can watch like 6 hours straight of a prestige tv series but a movie longer than 120 minutes feels like an eternity (even watching at home) but that's how it is.

(yes I know it's about pacing etc)

One of my favorite directors is Frederick Wiseman and I can easily sit through multiple hours of institutional meetings but I'm absolutely going to complain when Monarch season 1 is 4 hours of show in a 10 hour package.

I think where Prime have fucked up is that when Netflix & Disney introduced ads, they did it via a new, lower priced subscription tier.

Amazon sticking them into the existing tier and making subscribers pay extra for ad.free takes some chutzpah.

I immediately cancelled my Prime membership as soon as they announced the ads. I wasn't watching it anyway, I realised. The shows that it platfrmed like the Boys, we'd sailed the seas for anyway, so that left me watching reruns of KITH and old cartoons from the 30s.

i don't know why I can watch like 6 hours straight of a prestige tv series but a movie longer than 120 minutes feels like an eternity (even watching at home) but that's how it is.

Oh wow absolute opposite for me, frankly most hourlong dramas are paced so slowly these days that even one episode cam be tough. Never enjoyed binging, always feel weirdly depressed afterwards.

this reminds me I need to cancel my free trial Prime by like 2/15 or something

(yes I know it's about pacing etc)

That's quite the accent on you, but I agree, pissing is the main thing.

i made a thread about masters of the air if any ww2-minded nerds are interested in going on some bombing runs with me

Masters of the Air (Hanks/Spielberg series on Apple+)

I think I said upthread I had started Criminal Record on AppleTV - it has a generic title and looks like just another cop show but it is overall pretty good. Five episodes in now. About a cop who has discovered deep-running corruption. So far they are doing a good job of toying with the nature of the corruption--possibly the antagonist straight up committed the murder being covered up, or maybe he's just covering it up, or maybe he has some weird network of undercover agents and is actually a good guy? My only major complaint is the leading actress is in a biracial marriage and yet every conversation she has with her husband, she is gobsmacked by his blind privilege/unconscious racism. How on earth did they get so deep into their relationship without this being an issue sooner? Seems like a big red flag for a marriage.

The pilot for Mr and Mrs Smith ,the new thing with Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, was very watchable but rather inert and by-the-numbers. Maybe the rest of the season gets better/weirder.

I’ve watched two eps so far and enjoyed them both

i really like it! i’m happy to have Glover in a new show and it has a good vibe imo

picked up The Time Traveler's Wife on dvd as part of a two for £15 deal (i wanted Raised By Wolves 2 and this was the only other thing that looked interesting). it got canned after 6 episodes, which makes it an easy weekend watch. and it has her from The Good Fight / Virgil in it, so that was good. so much butt though.

did they ever explain the feet though?

Finished Mr & Mrs Smith. Overall really liked it. In some ways it moved too fast—the arc of these 8 episodes could have easily been stretched to 12 episodes, or even 2-3 seasons. But the overall tone of the show, for this genre, was fun and unique. Maya Erskine was terrific.

I am just now learning that her father is the famous drummer, Peter.

Ugh, nepo baby, riding that latent Weather Report fame to Hollywood success.

lol

I used know this drummer who had Erskine's signature on his cymbal bag.

used to

Richard Karn plays a lightly fictionalized version of her dad on Pen15. On the show, he plays in a Steely Dan cover band as opposed to the real thing.

I feel like I may have had a Peter Erskine signature cymbal at one time? But it was preprinted, not physically signed.

Famous acting children of drummers:

Maya Erskine
Lily Collins

Jemima & Lola Kirke

That episode of Pen15 where Maya's mother talks about her past as a roadie for Stevie Wonder and how she often felt stuck between two cultures, btw, is the best single episode of television I think I've seen since "Episode 8."

Famous acting children of drummers:

Luci Arnaz
Desi Arnaz Jr.

Nona Aisha Gaye

(Lest we forget that Marvin was an accomplished drummer)

Watched El Conde on Netflix, Argentinean black comedy imagining Pinochet (and redacted) as an elderly vampire. Loved it tbh, although I know I was missing some political context for some elements, like how the church was portrayed (but get the gist obviously).

I guess by some of those standards, Zoe Kravitz fits.

El Conde was great

lol at the spoiler text, though

Famous acting children of drummers

Tennessee Thomas (daughter of Pete Thomas)

Anyone else here watching Scavengers Reign? I'm two episodes in and finding it to be one of the most original sci-fi shows I've seen - nearest comparisons would be Fantastic Planet, Gandahar, and everything by Moebius