Filmstruck / Criterion Channel

I have no idea why, and good luck prying any info out of them. Fuckers. I bought a Roku instead of Apple TV because I thought "oh a couple of months delay between device rollouts won't be too big a deal."

you still made the right choice

This is handy.
http://criterioncast.com/news/all-of-the-films-joining-filmstrucks-criterion-channel-this-april

Finally watched Come and See. Caring for a newborn it took me about two weeks of watching it in 5 to 20 minute chunks. Not ideal, but wow, what a movie.

Per help desk chat a few minutes ago, Roku availability is now "late May to mid-June."

I was irritated that Happy Together disappeared from Amazon before I had a chance to see it, but Filmstruck is starting a program of LGBTQ films on June 2nd that includes it.

A JIHAD FOR LOVE
PARTING GLANCES
WORD IS OUT
THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK
BORN IN FLAMES
THE WATERMELON WOMAN
JEFFREY
ANOTHER COUNTRY
STEAM: THE TURKISH BATH
QUERELLE
WILD REEDS
VICTIM
HAPPY TOGETHER

The Roku channel is live.

lmao it's amazing how little I've grown to care about this. I still never even signed up for a free trial. Have the buffering issues improved? I wonder how they're doing business-wise.

i signed up a couple weeks ago, and I'm really enjoying it. I haven't had any issues with buffering at all.

No buffering problems for me. Once a week or so it'll hang up on me moving from one part of the service to another, like from Criterion main screen to my watchlist, but overall it's pretty smooth. I wish their color scheme wasn't so black/white/gray – they could use the red from their logo to indicate selection and it would be a lot easier to navigate.

The biggest problem with this service is that there's too damn much to choose from. Between the Filmstruck side and Criterion side, they have about 1700 films, enough choice to be paralyzing. Which is great, but coming up with navigation strategies other than just looking at their featured banners is on the viewer – they don't make things any easier.

Of all the apps I use on Apple TV, FilmStruck streams the best; rarely have I had any buffering issues. The interface is also gorgeous and well-organized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_music

Ha, whoops. So it's finally available for Roku. Is it still hemorrhaging content beyond the Criterion Collection?

I'm not sure what you mean. On the Filmstruck side, every Thursday a 2-3 banners are dropped, and every Friday 2-3 banners are added. They said from the beginning that films would be rotated in and out; they stay steady at ~500 films, and the Criterion channel is up to ~1200.

Gotcha. Just wanted to make sure that was the strategy rather than a struggled to show there's value in Filmstruck beyond the CC. When I looked at the site yesterday (since it just became available for Roku and I'm out of the country I haven't signed up yet) I saw this long list of movies leaving Filmstruck, and I was bummed, because as great as the CC is (and honestly there's little more a film fan needs), there was all sorts of good stuff leaving. So as long as new good stuff comes in and not, say, a bunch of shit, I'm cool with rotation.

There is a huge amount leaving in the next month, it's true – Resnais, Sayles and Errol Morris alone in one week.

Guess I should buy a subscription!

Better hurry, those three banners (plus the "Behind the Iron Curtain" banner that includes Petzold's Barbara and the Cinematography by Rudolph Mate banner) are leaving this Thursday evening; 26 films total, 8 of which will stay on the Criterion side.
https://help.filmstruck.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000301047-Movies-Leaving-FilmStruck

I'm loving this. Cancelled cable (which I mostly had for TCM). Various bugs exist but they are obvious & will be ironed out. After dealing with the screaming red hell of Netflix it's so nice to have a soothing gray-colored adulty service, a fairly curated list where nearly everything is good.

OK, signed up. Confused, though - it's not the complete Criterion Collection? They have pretty much everything from Kieslowski, for example, but not Dekalog, which is a bummer.

Yeah things cycle in and out. I thought that would bum me out -- how incredible it would be to have all 800 of those. But the curation has worked out really well; I don't go scrolling for choices for 2 hours. The key might be bookmarking this link:

https://www.filmstruck.com/coming-soon

Pretty good July coming on the Criterion side. http://criterioncast.com/news/all-of-the-films-joining-filmstrucks-criterion-channel-this-july

I think we may have answered this before but does anything ever *leave* the Criterion Channel?

Not unless they lose the rights.

Some stuff is added for very short streaming engagements. Sometimes they make note of it on the film's banner (Downhill Racer, Ace in the Hole, Heaven's Gate, Safe, the 1961 Something Wild) and sometimes they don't (Bitter Victory, the 1986 Something Wild). Flight of the Red Balloon and Blow Out came and went but I can't remember if they had a "limited engagement" note.

Tourneur's Cat People is leaving Friday but there's no note on the banner. 12 Angry Men is leaving on 7/31 but there's no note. I think the trick is to look for things that are leaving on the last day of the month no matter what day of the week that is -- those tend to be the few films leaving the Criterion channel.

Yeah, the quick cycling in and out has forced me to forgo the whole "100 movies in my queue om nom nom" aspirational viewing habit that streaming has helped create in me, and just enjoy something they have at the moment. It was annoying at first but now ultimately feels a little liberating?

And you can always lie about watching it!

xpost Though all I've really watched recently is 'Blood Simple' :/

i'm into this! last night i watched Peter Weir's THE PLUMBER and it was great

It was annoying at first but now ultimately feels a little liberating?

Yeah, with 1500+ movies to choose from I'm def glad to have a little push in any direction. I might have half-assed around and never seen A Separation if it hadn't had an expiration date. -- xp

Yeah, there must be some sort of psychological explanation for it - choice paralysis? - but I do know that when Netflix started hiding when its movies were leaving I started watching less on Netflix.

imho all services of this type should default to a view of six movies picked at random from your list, with nothing else to click down to or scroll past unless you enter a special code or beat a minigame or something. really focus on those six, to simulate your friend meeting back up with you after you've both been walking around the video store for half an hour: it's gonna be one of these. pick one!

One of Kenji Mizoguchi's only 2 color films, Princess Yang Kwei-Fei, is added on the Criterion side.

A "Directed by Terry Zwigoff" banner's going up this evening, including Crumb, my #1 in the documentary poll Clemenza ran.

I was about to finally pull the trigger on this the other day before realizing that my laptop is the only device I can use to watch it. Which is pretty effing lame. So no-go, I guess.

i recently have been enjoying the "actuality dramas" of Allan King -- Come On, Children and Warrenville so far -- and the short Asparagus, which was super weird and enjoyable.

Was thinking of pulling the trigger until I learned that, as of today, my NYPL card entitles me to ten Criterions per calendar month.

We just added this the other day so haven't actually watched a ton on it. I watched In A Lonely Place and On The Bowery earlier this week as well as a Les Blank short I hadn't seen before.

I'm interested in the Italian crime TV drama that is on there - has anyone watched it?

Alex Lifeson is one of the teens in Come On, Children!
Not that this would make you want to watch it but it's pretty good regardless

i should say "the teen who become known as Alex Lifeson"
he had a different name back then
there's even a scene with his parents about his lack of prospects as a guitar player

Ian, It sounded like Some More Sopranos, so I passed.

LL, I loved Warrendale and A Married Couple -- I'll add Come On Children and Dying at Grace to my queue (which is already too long).

The bad writing and editing on their editorial side drives me nuts -- "Alice Kominsky Crumb," "Christopher Plumber" guuuhhhh

Yeah, some of the copy is pretty dire.

Decided to watch "Sapphire" this evening.

i was afraid to watch A Married Couple!

I approached it as sort of a...hysterically funny horror movie.

I haven't had too much time to dive in, watched one of the Apu films, but I'm glad I signed up. I wanted to pick a movie to watch with my older daughter, and I was going to give her the choice of Oliver Twist or Grand Illusion or Seven Samurai. I pressured her into the last, and while she seemed to enjoy it the enthusiasm was limited and relative, since I think we only saw 30 minutes of it (ha). But it's a start! Grand Illusion (for subtitles) and Oliver Twist (for craft) might be more her speed.

Watched Visions (the movie about Hildegard) and Koko: A Talking Gorilla (1978, pre-kitten) would recommend both.

Vision, seconded. Not a Criterion, I don't think, but would also recommend a somewhat similar film, I, The Worst of All/Yo, la peor de todas, which is about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

ooh that sounds good. i'm kind of nunned out after that one but i'm sure my appetite will come back ;)