Happy Birthday Drew! And congrats on your recent health successes.
I agree that HBO Max has potential, and I share some of your critiques. Another thing that's odd that certain shows have incomplete seasons: Mad TV, Looney Tunes, etc. Also, not having ANY shows/movies available in 4K, when Disney+ has a decent amount and is like half the price, is another disappointment.
To my mind, a lot of streaming's problems are trying to build a UI that fits the old TV remote-control, but really demands something a bit more rich. A small thing YouTube got right is I could use my phone to find a (short) video, and then tell it to push it on to my larger-screen-driving device - TiVo or Blu-Ray. I don't have it, but I'll bet Apple gets that right with iPhone + Apple TV. Although given the content complaints you've lodged above, part of me wonders if a better UI would expose the very content problems you diagnosed?
Oooh, speaking of TiVo, you can't discuss modern viewing without acknowledging their pioneering work. This includes doing text with a mostly-standard remote. Pity the name (like AT&T) is now the front-end of a much less soul-less company (and for AT&T, that's still true, and even more terrible given old Ma Bell's behavior).
My wife and I cut the cord this passed year. We already had Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. We picked up Hulu and CBS All Access (Survivor is a must for us, and I have to say I dug "Star Trek: Picard and Twilight Zone so far).
Boy, did I feel what you said about Disney+, but it seems it was huge on hype when it first came out, then I ran through The Mandalorian and the Jeff Goldblum show, had a good time watching some of their older movies, then kinda hit a wall. I'm sure that wall will get knocked down once my daughter gets a little older (She's turning 2 in June, so she's not watching any movies right now) But its cancelled in the meantime since, I have no real use for it right now.
You were also right on the money on how Disney hobbled what they should do with their Fox Properties, especially after owning all of Hulu. It seemed like a no-brainer to put several Fox movies and shows that don't fit on Disney+ on Hulu, so I'm scratching my head here wondering why they didn't do that. Yes, they don't quite have an identity yet, but I'm a HUGE fan of anything on FX, my favorite channel by far. So having access to so much from the channel has made the app essential to me.
Amazon Prime is also just a dumping ground for a rag-tag collection of entertainment, but they turn around. Their original series' in just the passed year has improved. I love Homecoming, Jack Ryan, The Romanoffs, and it absolutely kills me that The Tick is gone. That could make them a force to be reckoned with if they keep getting good originals. But I also agree they gotta make their app easier to use, I swear there's more movies on there then we realize, and once you do enough searching, they have a nice catalog of films from all sorts of decades and genres, you have to search though.
I recently picked up Shudder, a great get for me. I am also in the middle of a free trial with Criterion, digging it very much. Not gonna do anything with HBO Max until next year.
Happy Birthday! Glad you got to eat some delicious, carb-ladened food. Fried chicken is a great choice, and of course potatoes. Oh, potatoes. The greatest and most delicious food and also vehicle for other delicious but bad for you foods. I know I'm a big bread guy, but lately I've been thinking that potatoes are the biggest part of my carb addiction. French-fried, hash browned (especially from Waffle House), crunchy chipped, baked, boiled, broiled, mashed, stuffed, skinned... I want it all. A happy, quiet birthday is the best kind.
I kinda feel the opposite of you when it comes to Hulu. I think Hulu does have a voice, and for me that voice is: The EASIEST streaming service to collate and navigate what you want to watch. Netflix has all but abandoned the idea of a watchlist, and Prime's watchlist is all in a singular, horizontal row, like one row of excel, which means it's impossible to find stuff you add. HBO Max also has this issue. With Hulu however, everything's laid out nice and easy for you to find, and during the normal TV season all shows with new episodes are pushed to the top of your watchlist. It's extremely user-friendly, and that goes a long way. That marks the Hulu app as easily the best, and because of their deals with ABC, FOX, NBC, and FX, they're the app you go to when you don't have cable to watch all your favorite shows Day+1. They also have the best live-streaming service, so when you do want to watch local baseball or CFB or the NFL, they're the best choice for that, too. Hulu is also where you can go to watch most of your favorite older shows as Netflix is shedding them all like a second skin. So when I want to watch Frasier or Cheers or Star Trek or whatever, I do it all at Hulu now. I think Netflix is making a big mistake in not renewing most of these older shows and putting most of their eggs in the original content basket. I think Hulu has a good mix of great originals and my favorites from the past.
Speaking of which, I started binging King of the Hill this week, a show I loved 20 years ago but could never get into because FOX was always preempting it. They had it scheduled for most of its life at 7:30pm Eastern on Sundays, before The Simpsons instead of after it, and the show was often delayed or not shown at all because of football. Now I'm watching this show and it's HILARIOUS in that best Mike Judge kind of way. It makes me laugh out loud, and Bobby Hill and Dale Gribble are two of the best amazing weirdo characters in television history. They're all great. Hank isn't nearly the stick in the mud I remember. These characters are hardly tropes, and feel far more fully-fleshed out than most live action sitcom characters ever have. It's certainly funnier than The Simpsons of the same era which was beginning to wear out its welcome.
So to me, that's Hulu. They're the most user-friendly app, the place to watch your favorite shows like What We Do in the Shadows on Day+1, the best live TV streaming service, have some great originals, and are the place to go when you want to watch your old favorites.
Happy Birthday, Drew! Just released my new Awfully Good episode on NOTHING BUT TROUBLE, and I dropped your name when I mentioned your Dan Aykroyd encounter in the video. Plus, I made a reference to the 1981 comedy GAS that wouldn't have happened without listening to the 80s ALL OVER podcast. So thanks for the inspiration, and here's to many more great years of content!
Happy Birthday Drew & congrats on the keto transformation! You're doing great!
I checked out HBO Max because it came free since I pay for HBO with Verizon Fios. It's interesting. I don't quite understand why certain things are on there. Like some programming, I don't mentally associate with the HBO brand. That makes it difficult to know what you're looking for on there outside of the HBO content. My wife & I were thrilled to see some of the original Sesame Street run on there. I want to believe I have the patience to sit down and watch those, but I'm not sure I do. For the record, I grew up when Sesame Street was a thing but had an older sister who watched All My Children & General Hospital (and something I recall called Santa Barbara) and we only had 1 TV so I didn't get to watch children's programming growing up. I was watching Luke & Laura when most people my age were watching Bert & Ernie.
I'm also confused by the overlap in Criterion-like titles on HBO Max. I love the Criterion channel. It's my go-to streaming app at the moment. It does confuse me when I see films on there that are also on Kanopy, Prime, and now HBO Max. As a consumer, I start to wonder which of these things I need if there's overlap. I would love for them to just drop the Warners catalog on there just like I wish Disney would drop the Touchstone and Fox catalog on something.
With Disney +, we eagerly jumped on The Mandalorian and Encore. Outside of that, I don't think I've streamed a movie on there. I watched those 2 shows and some of the Forky shorts. I don't open the app. I think people with small children probably run that app for hours on end though.
What I find interesting is how many of these apps I'm getting for free. Netflix and HBO Max come free with my Fios account. Kanopy is free with a library card. Hulu is free with my Sprint cell phone plan. Prime comes with prime which just for the dog food they ship to us, makes the fee worth it when you throw in the streaming stuff. Hell, I'd probably pay $50 a year for a new season of Mrs. Maisel alone. I'm out of pocket on Criterion (worth it) and Shudder (worth it). Disney + I got for free too with Fios for a year, I think. When you add in some of these streamers being thrown in with other services, it's a nice added value. I think if I had to pay retail for the streamers it would get interesting. In that scenario, I'd probably keep 2 or 3 of them tops. When Netflix loses The Office, I'm curious about what my viewing habits will be. Same if I can't get 30 Rock on Prime or Hulu. The Office and 30 Rock are my comfort food.
I do have to say though, looking back on the milestone birthday you just hit, can you even imagine how much content we have at our fingertips right now? I mean, sure, we imagined it, but it's real now. I used to go to the video store and debate what to rent like I was on the jury in 12 Angry Men as a kid because it would be too expensive to rent too many movies or the store had a limit of 2 tapes out at a time. If you told me in the 80's I could press a button and watch all the stuff I can right now, I'd think you were lying. Most of the time I was concerned with how many movies I could fit on a VHS tape. Now I'm looking at hard drives so I can own the video store of my dreams at home. What a crazy life our generation gets to live going from tech just starting to invade our homes to what we have now.
I don't use it as often as I like, but Criterion Channel is really the best service out there. I just watched Hitchock's "Sabotage" with my girlfriend over FaceTime and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Their curation is really beyond reproach. I'm getting very hyperbolic, but it's just so damn great and I wish it was a bigger player in this space since I think that majority of these services are leaving a lot to be desired. Netflix is maybe the most reliable, there's just too much bullshit to sift through.
HBO Max's potential is through the roof, though. Despite the fact that the app as it stands is a mess and their current catalog is kind of baffling (how is the Nolan Batman trilogy *not* on this thing? They have a dedicating Batman hub and couldn't swing that deal somehow?), having every LOTR, Harry Potter, and a shit ton of Ghibli films in one place while also having a decent chunk of Criterion's catalog with the TCM offerings is pretty solid. I feel like *if* they can get their shit together sooner rather than later, I could easily find myself with just a sub for Criterion and HBO Max. Considering who's calling the shots at Warners these days, that might be a big "if".
Also, one of the weird things I'm seeing from the ol' clickity clack, press release regurgitaters... I mean entertainment media is that Disney+ is amazing and HBO Max is shit. I'm in full agreement with you about brand loyalty being dumb and I'm not a Warners shill by any stretch, but I canceled my sub for Disney+ after The Mandalorian ended. I'll probably sign up again for WandaVision and S2 of Mandalorian, but that service seems so inert. I don't really understand where the effusive love is coming from. Granted, I've heard great things about the final season of Clone Wars, but that's about it so far. At least Max has potential. I feel like Disney has had ample time to capitalize on their own potential and just... haven't for some reason. I guess the same can be true for Max, seeing as how the bean counters are calling the shots, but only time will tell and it really feels like Max's biggest issue is just the design of the app. It's really quite bad.
Happy birthday Drew! The Cronenberg Screen Drafts was a great show, and I'm glad people aren't as mad about it as they were about the Carpenter one. (I think most people accept that while "Scanners" is fun, it's rough around the edges; as for "Videodrome", I get a sense that right now it just doesn't play the same for some if only because of James Woods' ongoing meltdown.) I of course was crushed that 80s All Over ended when it did, so hearing you finally get to talk about "The Fly" and "Dead Ringers" at length was a soothing balm. And my heart about exploded at your mentioning what the former means to some autistic people, because I'm one of them. (The Projection Booth podcast did an 3-hour-plus episode on the film last year and also briefly mentioned this.)
I have had exposure to Netflix and with-ads Hulu and some similar services because a brother subscribes and legally shares them with me. The only Netflix show I worked my way through entirely was the MST3K revival, which was a delight, and of course that was one of the shows they gave up on.
I am a Disney+ subscriber from Day One, primarily because of "World According to Jeff Goldblum", which exceeded my expectations. By the end of that first run of shows, they announced it was getting a second season pickup, so I decided to stick with it. Of course, COVID-19 is likely going to delay that second season a loooooong while (human interaction, face-to-face, is vital to its premise) -- but on its own, the Disney+ price point is so low, and there is enough catalog content I am interested in (mostly movies and the SparkShorts), that I'll stick with it for a while.
About your thoughts on the catalog -- I agree that it could be a lot deeper, especially when they aren't using Hulu to its full potential as yet for the Fox titles. (Which makes me even madder that the for-profit revival house scene isn't getting to use most of those titles anymore by Disney fiat.) They've been really stingy about the vintage features and cartoons since launch.
But then...I'm an '80s kid. I've been in conversations with '90s kids who adore the service because it HAS brought out a lot of the Disney TV shows and movies from that decade, many of which never got complete DVD releases. In general, if you are interested in Disney content from the '90s onward, especially TV stuff, it is a legitimate option. I think most of their newer children's shows are fully available there, and again, at a way cheaper price point than piecemeal DVD releases. And they have been pretty on top of getting their newer theatrical films out there, and even left a few bucks on the table with the early "Frozen II", "Onward", and "Rise of Skywalker" rollouts.
That said, at this point I doubt there's a legit excuse for not just bringing out those Marvel shows on time or sooner, and their apparent refusal to bring out any vintage Muppet TV shows is just another example of how badly Disney has treated that franchise. THAT would be a huge get for me.
I might subscribe to Criterion Channel down the line, but I've got some DVDs, etc. to work through first before that investment. Right now, I actually get the most value out of the free-with-ads streamers like Pluto TV, Tubi, and to a lesser extent Stirr. There's a lot of content overlap between them (and the YouTube free movies service), but again -- free with ads, which doesn't bug me that much. And they've had a lot of fun gathering up all the media that falls through the cracks at the big name services, especially pre-1990s stuff, the Lionsgate library (where's the "Earth Girls Are Easy" Blu-Ray, anyway?), and anything Shout! Factory owns. Tubi actually has a great search engine and easy to assemble queue function too.
I really like some of the offerings of Apple TV+. Home Before Dark, Ghost Whisperer, See and especially Servant are all fascinating shows each in their own right. They're definitely figuring themselves out right now but I hope they stay and grow. It's cool to have a streaming service that is comprised of all originals. Cobra Kai would prob-ly find a good home on Apple.
I may not watch everything on there, but I really appreciate Shudder and the Criterion Channel. I like seeing Joe Bob and the sense of community Shudder builds. We’re all watching “Deadbeat at Dawn” together and losing our minds over it. I’m at the point where I don’t know if I want to keep my Netflix subscription. Between physical media, sports, the niche streamers, and TCM, there isn’t much of interest to me there. They have great docs, but not much else.
Slightly related to this post...would be interested in your thoughts on the Fox back catalogue on Blu-ray. Unsurprisingly, titles are going out of print at a considerable rate and I’m really concerned many of them may not ever show up on physical media for the foreseeable. Which would be an absolute travesty.
Right now I’m feverishly trying to get hold of Fox titles I love and haven’t purchased...fearing the worst that Disney will be in no rush to put them out on Blu-ray.
Surely an indie label would welcome tons of these films with open arms?
Happy 50th, sir! And congratulations on the new svelte rig! It’s an astonishing achievement, you should be proud of yourself. Here’s to the next 50! <insert GATSBY gif of Leo raising glass backed by fireworks> 😊
To date I'm a subscriber to: Netflix, Prime, Hulu (no ads), Criterion Channel, Disney+, Sundance Now (via Prime), IFC Unlimited (via Prime), HBO Max and Starz. I've started to do better at tracking how much I use each one, so I can drop ones that aren't getting enough mileage (Sundance Now is on the chopping block; realized I've watched something on it maybe twice in the last 12 months).
I'm with you on the annoyance of HBO Max not being on Amazon or Roku; means I'm relegated to using my laptop for it, and since I do lots of movie watching while working, it moves to the bottom of the list. Hoping it gets untangled soon, and that the library improves a bit (read: Extended LotR).
I didn't expect to get much usage out of Disney+, but the last few weeks have sent me on a small Pixar nostalgia trip, which has justified me keeping it around. Netflix remains a must, and Hulu has a surprisingly strong film library, and now that it offers offline playback (in the Before Times I had a long commute underground, so that was a requirement) I can't see myself getting rid of it. Criterion is a great teaching tool, and Prime and IFC have strong libraries despite a terrible user interface.
As someone who makes use of each services watchlist feature, I'm annoyed by how bad some of them are. It shouldn't be difficult to include basic filters like toggling between Movies & TV, sorting by title, or letting me know what's expiring soon. But no service offers all three, and some can't even give me two of them. I get that the services want to push me toward their content first, second and third, but if I'm already putting the effort in to give them data about what I intend to watch, can't they make it a little easier?
My wife and I cut the cord on cable about a year ago and it's been good. But we're now reaching the point where we're paying about as much for streaming services as we were for cable, and we're probably going to need to start figuring out what services are essential.
With an 8-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, Disney+ has gotten a lot of play in our house. My son loves Star Wars and Marvel, my daughter gravitates toward princesses and "Muppet Babies." They both love Bluey (we like Bluey, too). For my part, aside from watching "Simpsons" episodes, I don't give it as much play as I thought I would. It's nice to have the Star Wars movies in one place, but the last one left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have no desire to go back yet and rewatch the series. And the Marvel movies were great to have, in theory...but while I loved seeing the MCU unfold, I think it was so all-consuming and the movies such shallow, sugary fun that I'm kind of exhausted on them for now.
HBO Max seems to be more in line with what I want. It's a mainstream streaming service that actually has films released before 1980. I revisited "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and found it holds up surprisingly well. My kids liked the Looney Tunes cartoons, and Studio Ghibli's movies are a huge blind spot for me that I can now rectify. But streaming rights being as frustrating as they are, there are a lot of WB properties that are glaringly missing -- Lethal Weapon, The Matrix, Mad Max (I know the first isn't WB)....and the studio has depended so much on Clint Eastwood and Christopher Nolan that it's shocking how little by them is on the service.
And I worry about what this might do to Criterion Channel. So much of the stuff from TCM is from Criterion that I worry some may find the Criterion Channel redundant. And it's honestly the best service out there for film buffs. It goes so deep and its content is so rich, I shudder (another good streaming service!) to think about it being threatened.
The biggest thing I'm learning is that the broad-based outlets -- Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime -- get very little play from me. I'll drop into a stand-up special on Netflix and catch up on some shows on Hulu, but they get the least amount of play. I think streaming services that curate content well are going to be the ones I gravitate toward.
Happy Birthday Drew! And congrats on your recent health successes.
I agree that HBO Max has potential, and I share some of your critiques. Another thing that's odd that certain shows have incomplete seasons: Mad TV, Looney Tunes, etc. Also, not having ANY shows/movies available in 4K, when Disney+ has a decent amount and is like half the price, is another disappointment.
Welcome to your 50s.
To my mind, a lot of streaming's problems are trying to build a UI that fits the old TV remote-control, but really demands something a bit more rich. A small thing YouTube got right is I could use my phone to find a (short) video, and then tell it to push it on to my larger-screen-driving device - TiVo or Blu-Ray. I don't have it, but I'll bet Apple gets that right with iPhone + Apple TV. Although given the content complaints you've lodged above, part of me wonders if a better UI would expose the very content problems you diagnosed?
Oooh, speaking of TiVo, you can't discuss modern viewing without acknowledging their pioneering work. This includes doing text with a mostly-standard remote. Pity the name (like AT&T) is now the front-end of a much less soul-less company (and for AT&T, that's still true, and even more terrible given old Ma Bell's behavior).
My wife and I cut the cord this passed year. We already had Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. We picked up Hulu and CBS All Access (Survivor is a must for us, and I have to say I dug "Star Trek: Picard and Twilight Zone so far).
Boy, did I feel what you said about Disney+, but it seems it was huge on hype when it first came out, then I ran through The Mandalorian and the Jeff Goldblum show, had a good time watching some of their older movies, then kinda hit a wall. I'm sure that wall will get knocked down once my daughter gets a little older (She's turning 2 in June, so she's not watching any movies right now) But its cancelled in the meantime since, I have no real use for it right now.
You were also right on the money on how Disney hobbled what they should do with their Fox Properties, especially after owning all of Hulu. It seemed like a no-brainer to put several Fox movies and shows that don't fit on Disney+ on Hulu, so I'm scratching my head here wondering why they didn't do that. Yes, they don't quite have an identity yet, but I'm a HUGE fan of anything on FX, my favorite channel by far. So having access to so much from the channel has made the app essential to me.
Amazon Prime is also just a dumping ground for a rag-tag collection of entertainment, but they turn around. Their original series' in just the passed year has improved. I love Homecoming, Jack Ryan, The Romanoffs, and it absolutely kills me that The Tick is gone. That could make them a force to be reckoned with if they keep getting good originals. But I also agree they gotta make their app easier to use, I swear there's more movies on there then we realize, and once you do enough searching, they have a nice catalog of films from all sorts of decades and genres, you have to search though.
I recently picked up Shudder, a great get for me. I am also in the middle of a free trial with Criterion, digging it very much. Not gonna do anything with HBO Max until next year.
Happy Birthday! Glad you got to eat some delicious, carb-ladened food. Fried chicken is a great choice, and of course potatoes. Oh, potatoes. The greatest and most delicious food and also vehicle for other delicious but bad for you foods. I know I'm a big bread guy, but lately I've been thinking that potatoes are the biggest part of my carb addiction. French-fried, hash browned (especially from Waffle House), crunchy chipped, baked, boiled, broiled, mashed, stuffed, skinned... I want it all. A happy, quiet birthday is the best kind.
I kinda feel the opposite of you when it comes to Hulu. I think Hulu does have a voice, and for me that voice is: The EASIEST streaming service to collate and navigate what you want to watch. Netflix has all but abandoned the idea of a watchlist, and Prime's watchlist is all in a singular, horizontal row, like one row of excel, which means it's impossible to find stuff you add. HBO Max also has this issue. With Hulu however, everything's laid out nice and easy for you to find, and during the normal TV season all shows with new episodes are pushed to the top of your watchlist. It's extremely user-friendly, and that goes a long way. That marks the Hulu app as easily the best, and because of their deals with ABC, FOX, NBC, and FX, they're the app you go to when you don't have cable to watch all your favorite shows Day+1. They also have the best live-streaming service, so when you do want to watch local baseball or CFB or the NFL, they're the best choice for that, too. Hulu is also where you can go to watch most of your favorite older shows as Netflix is shedding them all like a second skin. So when I want to watch Frasier or Cheers or Star Trek or whatever, I do it all at Hulu now. I think Netflix is making a big mistake in not renewing most of these older shows and putting most of their eggs in the original content basket. I think Hulu has a good mix of great originals and my favorites from the past.
Speaking of which, I started binging King of the Hill this week, a show I loved 20 years ago but could never get into because FOX was always preempting it. They had it scheduled for most of its life at 7:30pm Eastern on Sundays, before The Simpsons instead of after it, and the show was often delayed or not shown at all because of football. Now I'm watching this show and it's HILARIOUS in that best Mike Judge kind of way. It makes me laugh out loud, and Bobby Hill and Dale Gribble are two of the best amazing weirdo characters in television history. They're all great. Hank isn't nearly the stick in the mud I remember. These characters are hardly tropes, and feel far more fully-fleshed out than most live action sitcom characters ever have. It's certainly funnier than The Simpsons of the same era which was beginning to wear out its welcome.
So to me, that's Hulu. They're the most user-friendly app, the place to watch your favorite shows like What We Do in the Shadows on Day+1, the best live TV streaming service, have some great originals, and are the place to go when you want to watch your old favorites.
Happy Birthday, Drew! Just released my new Awfully Good episode on NOTHING BUT TROUBLE, and I dropped your name when I mentioned your Dan Aykroyd encounter in the video. Plus, I made a reference to the 1981 comedy GAS that wouldn't have happened without listening to the 80s ALL OVER podcast. So thanks for the inspiration, and here's to many more great years of content!
Happy Birthday Drew & congrats on the keto transformation! You're doing great!
I checked out HBO Max because it came free since I pay for HBO with Verizon Fios. It's interesting. I don't quite understand why certain things are on there. Like some programming, I don't mentally associate with the HBO brand. That makes it difficult to know what you're looking for on there outside of the HBO content. My wife & I were thrilled to see some of the original Sesame Street run on there. I want to believe I have the patience to sit down and watch those, but I'm not sure I do. For the record, I grew up when Sesame Street was a thing but had an older sister who watched All My Children & General Hospital (and something I recall called Santa Barbara) and we only had 1 TV so I didn't get to watch children's programming growing up. I was watching Luke & Laura when most people my age were watching Bert & Ernie.
I'm also confused by the overlap in Criterion-like titles on HBO Max. I love the Criterion channel. It's my go-to streaming app at the moment. It does confuse me when I see films on there that are also on Kanopy, Prime, and now HBO Max. As a consumer, I start to wonder which of these things I need if there's overlap. I would love for them to just drop the Warners catalog on there just like I wish Disney would drop the Touchstone and Fox catalog on something.
With Disney +, we eagerly jumped on The Mandalorian and Encore. Outside of that, I don't think I've streamed a movie on there. I watched those 2 shows and some of the Forky shorts. I don't open the app. I think people with small children probably run that app for hours on end though.
What I find interesting is how many of these apps I'm getting for free. Netflix and HBO Max come free with my Fios account. Kanopy is free with a library card. Hulu is free with my Sprint cell phone plan. Prime comes with prime which just for the dog food they ship to us, makes the fee worth it when you throw in the streaming stuff. Hell, I'd probably pay $50 a year for a new season of Mrs. Maisel alone. I'm out of pocket on Criterion (worth it) and Shudder (worth it). Disney + I got for free too with Fios for a year, I think. When you add in some of these streamers being thrown in with other services, it's a nice added value. I think if I had to pay retail for the streamers it would get interesting. In that scenario, I'd probably keep 2 or 3 of them tops. When Netflix loses The Office, I'm curious about what my viewing habits will be. Same if I can't get 30 Rock on Prime or Hulu. The Office and 30 Rock are my comfort food.
I do have to say though, looking back on the milestone birthday you just hit, can you even imagine how much content we have at our fingertips right now? I mean, sure, we imagined it, but it's real now. I used to go to the video store and debate what to rent like I was on the jury in 12 Angry Men as a kid because it would be too expensive to rent too many movies or the store had a limit of 2 tapes out at a time. If you told me in the 80's I could press a button and watch all the stuff I can right now, I'd think you were lying. Most of the time I was concerned with how many movies I could fit on a VHS tape. Now I'm looking at hard drives so I can own the video store of my dreams at home. What a crazy life our generation gets to live going from tech just starting to invade our homes to what we have now.
I don't use it as often as I like, but Criterion Channel is really the best service out there. I just watched Hitchock's "Sabotage" with my girlfriend over FaceTime and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Their curation is really beyond reproach. I'm getting very hyperbolic, but it's just so damn great and I wish it was a bigger player in this space since I think that majority of these services are leaving a lot to be desired. Netflix is maybe the most reliable, there's just too much bullshit to sift through.
HBO Max's potential is through the roof, though. Despite the fact that the app as it stands is a mess and their current catalog is kind of baffling (how is the Nolan Batman trilogy *not* on this thing? They have a dedicating Batman hub and couldn't swing that deal somehow?), having every LOTR, Harry Potter, and a shit ton of Ghibli films in one place while also having a decent chunk of Criterion's catalog with the TCM offerings is pretty solid. I feel like *if* they can get their shit together sooner rather than later, I could easily find myself with just a sub for Criterion and HBO Max. Considering who's calling the shots at Warners these days, that might be a big "if".
Also, one of the weird things I'm seeing from the ol' clickity clack, press release regurgitaters... I mean entertainment media is that Disney+ is amazing and HBO Max is shit. I'm in full agreement with you about brand loyalty being dumb and I'm not a Warners shill by any stretch, but I canceled my sub for Disney+ after The Mandalorian ended. I'll probably sign up again for WandaVision and S2 of Mandalorian, but that service seems so inert. I don't really understand where the effusive love is coming from. Granted, I've heard great things about the final season of Clone Wars, but that's about it so far. At least Max has potential. I feel like Disney has had ample time to capitalize on their own potential and just... haven't for some reason. I guess the same can be true for Max, seeing as how the bean counters are calling the shots, but only time will tell and it really feels like Max's biggest issue is just the design of the app. It's really quite bad.
Happy birthday Drew! The Cronenberg Screen Drafts was a great show, and I'm glad people aren't as mad about it as they were about the Carpenter one. (I think most people accept that while "Scanners" is fun, it's rough around the edges; as for "Videodrome", I get a sense that right now it just doesn't play the same for some if only because of James Woods' ongoing meltdown.) I of course was crushed that 80s All Over ended when it did, so hearing you finally get to talk about "The Fly" and "Dead Ringers" at length was a soothing balm. And my heart about exploded at your mentioning what the former means to some autistic people, because I'm one of them. (The Projection Booth podcast did an 3-hour-plus episode on the film last year and also briefly mentioned this.)
I have had exposure to Netflix and with-ads Hulu and some similar services because a brother subscribes and legally shares them with me. The only Netflix show I worked my way through entirely was the MST3K revival, which was a delight, and of course that was one of the shows they gave up on.
I am a Disney+ subscriber from Day One, primarily because of "World According to Jeff Goldblum", which exceeded my expectations. By the end of that first run of shows, they announced it was getting a second season pickup, so I decided to stick with it. Of course, COVID-19 is likely going to delay that second season a loooooong while (human interaction, face-to-face, is vital to its premise) -- but on its own, the Disney+ price point is so low, and there is enough catalog content I am interested in (mostly movies and the SparkShorts), that I'll stick with it for a while.
About your thoughts on the catalog -- I agree that it could be a lot deeper, especially when they aren't using Hulu to its full potential as yet for the Fox titles. (Which makes me even madder that the for-profit revival house scene isn't getting to use most of those titles anymore by Disney fiat.) They've been really stingy about the vintage features and cartoons since launch.
But then...I'm an '80s kid. I've been in conversations with '90s kids who adore the service because it HAS brought out a lot of the Disney TV shows and movies from that decade, many of which never got complete DVD releases. In general, if you are interested in Disney content from the '90s onward, especially TV stuff, it is a legitimate option. I think most of their newer children's shows are fully available there, and again, at a way cheaper price point than piecemeal DVD releases. And they have been pretty on top of getting their newer theatrical films out there, and even left a few bucks on the table with the early "Frozen II", "Onward", and "Rise of Skywalker" rollouts.
That said, at this point I doubt there's a legit excuse for not just bringing out those Marvel shows on time or sooner, and their apparent refusal to bring out any vintage Muppet TV shows is just another example of how badly Disney has treated that franchise. THAT would be a huge get for me.
I might subscribe to Criterion Channel down the line, but I've got some DVDs, etc. to work through first before that investment. Right now, I actually get the most value out of the free-with-ads streamers like Pluto TV, Tubi, and to a lesser extent Stirr. There's a lot of content overlap between them (and the YouTube free movies service), but again -- free with ads, which doesn't bug me that much. And they've had a lot of fun gathering up all the media that falls through the cracks at the big name services, especially pre-1990s stuff, the Lionsgate library (where's the "Earth Girls Are Easy" Blu-Ray, anyway?), and anything Shout! Factory owns. Tubi actually has a great search engine and easy to assemble queue function too.
I really like some of the offerings of Apple TV+. Home Before Dark, Ghost Whisperer, See and especially Servant are all fascinating shows each in their own right. They're definitely figuring themselves out right now but I hope they stay and grow. It's cool to have a streaming service that is comprised of all originals. Cobra Kai would prob-ly find a good home on Apple.
I may not watch everything on there, but I really appreciate Shudder and the Criterion Channel. I like seeing Joe Bob and the sense of community Shudder builds. We’re all watching “Deadbeat at Dawn” together and losing our minds over it. I’m at the point where I don’t know if I want to keep my Netflix subscription. Between physical media, sports, the niche streamers, and TCM, there isn’t much of interest to me there. They have great docs, but not much else.
Hope you had a great birthday Drew.
Slightly related to this post...would be interested in your thoughts on the Fox back catalogue on Blu-ray. Unsurprisingly, titles are going out of print at a considerable rate and I’m really concerned many of them may not ever show up on physical media for the foreseeable. Which would be an absolute travesty.
Right now I’m feverishly trying to get hold of Fox titles I love and haven’t purchased...fearing the worst that Disney will be in no rush to put them out on Blu-ray.
Surely an indie label would welcome tons of these films with open arms?
Happy 50th, sir! And congratulations on the new svelte rig! It’s an astonishing achievement, you should be proud of yourself. Here’s to the next 50! <insert GATSBY gif of Leo raising glass backed by fireworks> 😊
Happy birthday, Drew!
To date I'm a subscriber to: Netflix, Prime, Hulu (no ads), Criterion Channel, Disney+, Sundance Now (via Prime), IFC Unlimited (via Prime), HBO Max and Starz. I've started to do better at tracking how much I use each one, so I can drop ones that aren't getting enough mileage (Sundance Now is on the chopping block; realized I've watched something on it maybe twice in the last 12 months).
I'm with you on the annoyance of HBO Max not being on Amazon or Roku; means I'm relegated to using my laptop for it, and since I do lots of movie watching while working, it moves to the bottom of the list. Hoping it gets untangled soon, and that the library improves a bit (read: Extended LotR).
I didn't expect to get much usage out of Disney+, but the last few weeks have sent me on a small Pixar nostalgia trip, which has justified me keeping it around. Netflix remains a must, and Hulu has a surprisingly strong film library, and now that it offers offline playback (in the Before Times I had a long commute underground, so that was a requirement) I can't see myself getting rid of it. Criterion is a great teaching tool, and Prime and IFC have strong libraries despite a terrible user interface.
As someone who makes use of each services watchlist feature, I'm annoyed by how bad some of them are. It shouldn't be difficult to include basic filters like toggling between Movies & TV, sorting by title, or letting me know what's expiring soon. But no service offers all three, and some can't even give me two of them. I get that the services want to push me toward their content first, second and third, but if I'm already putting the effort in to give them data about what I intend to watch, can't they make it a little easier?
My wife and I cut the cord on cable about a year ago and it's been good. But we're now reaching the point where we're paying about as much for streaming services as we were for cable, and we're probably going to need to start figuring out what services are essential.
With an 8-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl, Disney+ has gotten a lot of play in our house. My son loves Star Wars and Marvel, my daughter gravitates toward princesses and "Muppet Babies." They both love Bluey (we like Bluey, too). For my part, aside from watching "Simpsons" episodes, I don't give it as much play as I thought I would. It's nice to have the Star Wars movies in one place, but the last one left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have no desire to go back yet and rewatch the series. And the Marvel movies were great to have, in theory...but while I loved seeing the MCU unfold, I think it was so all-consuming and the movies such shallow, sugary fun that I'm kind of exhausted on them for now.
HBO Max seems to be more in line with what I want. It's a mainstream streaming service that actually has films released before 1980. I revisited "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and found it holds up surprisingly well. My kids liked the Looney Tunes cartoons, and Studio Ghibli's movies are a huge blind spot for me that I can now rectify. But streaming rights being as frustrating as they are, there are a lot of WB properties that are glaringly missing -- Lethal Weapon, The Matrix, Mad Max (I know the first isn't WB)....and the studio has depended so much on Clint Eastwood and Christopher Nolan that it's shocking how little by them is on the service.
And I worry about what this might do to Criterion Channel. So much of the stuff from TCM is from Criterion that I worry some may find the Criterion Channel redundant. And it's honestly the best service out there for film buffs. It goes so deep and its content is so rich, I shudder (another good streaming service!) to think about it being threatened.
The biggest thing I'm learning is that the broad-based outlets -- Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime -- get very little play from me. I'll drop into a stand-up special on Netflix and catch up on some shows on Hulu, but they get the least amount of play. I think streaming services that curate content well are going to be the ones I gravitate toward.