07.05.12 |
film |
∞
I love Blu-rays. They’ve got great visual quality and serve as a counterpoint to the high prices, loud audiences and endless ads at mainstream theaters. But Blu-rays are dying in the rental market with à la carte streaming taking its place, a more limited and often inferior substitute.
I’m aware that a defense of any disc media can appear shortsighted as tech shifts to mobile and the cloud. Streams clearly have several big advantages, most notably their convenience. But for the cinephile in me, Blu-rays for now are an unparalleled experience. There’s fewer artifacts or compression and no visual stutter from a bump in your internet connection. Almost every Blu-ray soundtrack delivers 5.1 surround. Also Blu-ray color depth and saturation trounces the content I stream from Amazon and iTunes.
Yet Blu-rays feel virtually inaccessible for rental. Netflix queue times are laughably bad; I’m averaging about two months from the time a new release movie is available for download or Blu-ray purchase, and when I get it from Netflix. I live in New York, a worldwide film hub, yet most local video options are long gone. Nearby self-service boxes from Blockbuster and Redbox have little selection.
This no-win situation is probably exactly what studios want: pony up $20 or more for an outright Blu-ray buy or suffer inferior quality (and no special features) at $5 for a 24-hour download rental. We deserve better.
Unfortunately, there’s no signs of the trend changing course. The studios set the rules. Distribution patterns for physical media take forever to change. If anything I’d expect more unskippable trailers and less content on rental Blu-rays to make the situation even worse.
So Blu-ray as a rental format appears dead, but movie streams and downloads don’t have to suffer the same fate. Hollywood has the chance to prevent a lot of problems (while cutting piracy) with a few changes in its download and streaming content:
Provide higher end streaming options that offer less compression and more special feature tie-ins. When I have to play a guessing game or run Google searches to find out if your “1080p HD” version is butchered by artifacts or other shortcuts, I’m out the door. Even at a slightly higher cost, I’d happily pay a $1 or $2 premium for an enhanced stream.
All films get 5.1 surround where available. It’s true if you listen from your laptop or mobile device, this doesn’t change much. But home theater packages have bumped up their quality in recent years at lower price points. Surround tracks can make a huge difference, and not just with blockbuster action films (e.g. the atmospheric surround touches in “Mulholland Drive” are pretty masterful.)
Cut the price of HD back catalog titles by at least $1 or $2. Why is the classic comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles only a buck less than a new release on iTunes? I know the “one simple price” mantra is popular for Blockbuster and the iTunes music store. But this is a very different market; a movie rental stream is a watch once, low investment impulse buy (just look at the popularity of Netflix’s instant streaming.) Tap into that by keeping the back catalog priced low.
Online delivery is clearly film’s future. Yet that medium, much like we’ve seen with music, has the ability to disrupt the Hollywood studio system. It won’t kill it, because they still hold most of the content (i.e. why the same few studios have ruled films for decades.) This, combined with growing frustration by consumers on increasing content restrictions along with pirated torrents being easier to access, can significantly harm Hollywood. If the studios don’t adapt and change, the market will force them to.
07.03.12 |
∞
Warning, spoilers below for TDNR:
I’ve read way too many reviews and breakdowns of the final entry in Nolan’s Batman trilogy, but Matt Rorie’s – former head writer at Screened.com – was one of the funniest and most astute with regard to the film’s many plot holes. A few real zingers:
“Hey, I know that we only have hours to stop Bane and find the bomb, but I took a while to rappel off this bridge and paint a big Batman sign with gasoline on it. Because of hope and stuff. Oh, and that thin ice that has been the death of everyone who’s been exiled from the city? Why don’t you go ahead and set that on fire while we’re all standing on it.”
or:
Why do people have guns if no one ever wishes to shoot them? The entire film is filled with people with perfectly fine firearms who instead choose to run at each other and use said guns as blunt instruments. I mean, the entire police force is armed and ready to take on Bane’s army…and then they just rush them and get into a fistfight?
07.03.12 |
∞
Wonderful takedown of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic. Writer Julian Sanchez really hits all the major screenplay problems, from the inept scientists to Guy Pearce in bad makeup. Bonus points for referencing “Space Captain Stringer Bell”, which made me laugh every time I read it.
07.02.12 |
∞
A.O. Scott writing for The New York Times on the growing slate of superhero movies:
And yet … I have to say that the hegemony of the superheroes leaves an increasingly sour taste in my mouth, and that their commercial ascendance has produced, with a few exceptions, diminishing creative returns. The scrappy underdogs and pulpy tales have turned into something else, and I wonder if some of the fun, and much of the soul, has been lost.
06.22.12 |
∞
Great two minute comparison between the 1990 Schwarzenegger original and the Len Wiseman version opening on August 3rd. It’s clear there’s way more similarities than I noticed the first time I watched the Wiseman trailer. Look for the great The Fifth Element reference at the video end.
06.07.12 |
∞
Yeah, Dragon Tattoo reviews aren’t exactly timely. But Matt Zeitz on Twitter recently brought to my attention late an excellent review from Slant Magazine I must have missed. Slant writer Ed Gonzalez has some astute observations of director David Fincher’s style:
Fincher is a meticulous, albeit chilly, observer of procedure, and the film derives much of its momentum from Mikael’s sleuthing into the lives of the Vangers and Lisbeth’s high-tech hacking, which passes the smell test more easily here than it did in Arden Oplev’s version, and from the elegance with which their storylines are paralleled…The film’s elegant moroseness, like the propulsive, sometimes discordant, volume of Reznor and Ross’s experimental score, seems intended to distract us from the fact that these two characters are banal stock types.
06.07.12 |
∞
Bill Murray is a notoriously private and quiet kind of guy, so I was surprised to see how much he opened up to Esquire editor Scott Raab. It’s not a super long interview but enjoyable. Murray apparently had met Moonrise Kingdom co-star Bruce Willis once a while ago:
I met him at this Andy Garcia movie I did, The Lost City. Willis is there and he’d had a couple drinks. We’ve all had a few drinks. And he says, “I just want you to know …” I’m like, “Oh, fuck.” He says, “I used to work as a page at NBC, and my job was to refill the M&M bowls and the peanut bowls in the actors’ dressing room. And only you and Gilda ever treated me like a human being. You were nice to me.” And I thought, Whew, that’s good. I felt like, Shit, I did somethin’ right, you know?
06.03.12 |
∞
Because the Lost craze kind of passed me by with little effect, TV and film writer Damon Lindelof didn’t ring a bell with me at first. But now he’s attached as the main writer for Prometheus, so I checked out his interview on the latest On the Verge podcast. Really good discussion here about screenplay, TV endings, living up to prequel expectations, working with Ridley Scott and much more.
06.01.12 |
∞
There’s been a lot of critical breakdown of The Avengers success, but The House Next Door’s Ted Pigeon really nails it:
As you might guess, just about every plot turn is recycled from other fantasy or superhero stories…But it’s worth noting that Whedon, to his credit, never pretends that the story arc is particularly significant. He instead supports it from the bottom up, with solid structuring and careful characterization. For example, despite a weak plot, Whedon gets all the mileage he needs out of Hiddleston’s exceptional performance. He bellows phrases like “Kneel before me!” about as convincingly as an actor can, and his demonic smile works to great effect when beaming through that metal-horned helmet of his.
How often do we see such a strong directorial hand or style in a $300 million plus summer blockbuster? Exactly. Without Whedon, The Avengers would have been merely average.
06.01.12 |
∞
I’ve already plugged the excellent film podcast Battleship Pretension enough here, but this week’s episode was awesome. It’s all about film scores with deep analysis and extended audio clips.