Filmstruck / Criterion Channel

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 ;)

Best to steer clear of Black Narcissus for the time being as well then

I should join.

Black Narcissus is second to nun.

^^^ lol

I should join.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 8, 2017 12:08 PM

Its only real drawback is a paralyzing surfeit of choices.

for me it is the creeping feeling that i am hiding from reality in an artsy hole, but if i have to hide in a hole it's not a bad one to steal away to

oh also we started watching Bigger Than Life, which I am totally enjoying as well

would buy a "yay for the artsy hole" t-shirt

http://criterioncast.com/news/all-of-the-films-joining-filmstrucks-criterion-channel-this-september

I may only get to watch a few things on here a month, but I love having the channel and its choices.

started watching ROMANZO CRIMINALE, the Italian crime series I mentioned upthread. I like it a lot. I never watched the Sopranos so I can't say much in that regard, but the vibe is good, there's a lot going on, and it's nice to see all the footage of Italy, where I have never been. Certainly my interest in this show is DEFINITELY in its basis on a Giancarlo di Cataldo novel -- the novel hasn't been published in the US (yet?) but there's a UK edition. I'm reading right now a translation of another di Cataldo novel, Suburra, which I'm loving. So I'm kind of on the hardboiled Italian crime vibe right now. And over the last few years I've read tons of Massimo carlotto.. anyhoo, rambling here, but I'm definitely "on board" with this show for now. I wish I knew more about the history of communism v fascism in italy..

I know not many series are on Filmstruck, but it's really atrocious trying to navigate these episodes. They aren't in order no matter how you look at them, when you finish an episode it seems you just have to search for the episodes or browse for them. Sigh.

hooked on RC btw.

Excited for all the Godards I've never found streaming before, added today.

One month engagements of Crit collected editions for October will include On the Waterfront and Harold and Maude.

All Night Long -- British-made take on Othello, set in London jazz world, real-time during a party -- is quite good, and I'd never heard of it.

i want to get this for the t.v. in the bedroom but i would have to hook my computer up to the t.v. and i hate doing stuff like that.

my t.v. gets netflix (which we subscribe to) and youtube. so i watch netflix. and every film noir movie on youtube.

maybe i will go full roku someday.

( i do still miss criterion on hulu...which we have downstairs on the PS4...)

can you get a chromecast and stream it to your tv?

I've been enjoying Kanopy with my LA library card. It has most Criterion films streaming, although not as many as Filmstruck. That said, it's free.

For a few weeks, the Filmstruck channel on Roku had a massive bug — going from the app to the Roku home screen caused the device to do a hard restart. It was still doing it as late as last Friday but it looks like they've fixed it.

scott - chromecast. get it. no computer necessary.

i find their practice of using b/w photos for color movies really distracting
idk why they would do this

we watched Norma Rae recently and it was great

Scott, a roku box is really cheap... like, one wall record cheap.

We got kanopy like a month after we subscribe to filmstruck. There are some hoops to jump through for the former though. I think you can only watch 10 movies a month, and you have to watch them within 3 days.

Yes, it's not straightforward, but again, free.

Sadly, it's been a very long time since a 10 movie/month limit would be a problem for me!

i've got kanopy through the university, but it requires a vpn which then makes chromecasting impossible.

Kanopy is great tho how many plays you get depends on the deal struck by your library/institution. However the Roku app, at least on my Roku TV, is complete garbage - buggy as hell, awkward to navigate (tho not as bad as nu-Hulu) and the subtitle tracks are like 15 seconds in advance of the film, rendering all foreign films unwatchable. They've told me by email they're working on it. :-/

Romanzo Criminale is leaving on Sept 29, FYI. I check this page periodically: https://www.filmstruck.com/us/coming-soon

The Ross McElwee docs are leaving in a week, you don't want to miss those. They are unique.

"(tho not as bad as nu-Hulu)"

OMG, this is one of those cases where i really think a company is doing something to fuck with me personally. like they know it will drive me insane.

i will look into chrome/roku. i probably don't need more ways to watch hours of t.v. but i do miss having criterion at my fingertips even if i often ended up watching more episodes of Nikita when i meant to watch some chantal akerman movie i hadn't seen.

xpost yeah what in the fuck is wrong with them? i had only recently gotten oldHulu installed cause spotify just declared I had a free subscription (tho with such an obscene quantity of commercials that watching TV shows isn't worth fucking with), had fun loading up my watchlist with MOR blockbuster rental quality stuff, and then like three days later it morphed into this unbrowsable monstrosity

was wondering about the TCM content and looking at the website i can't help but notice that there are only five westerns listed. which is kinda sad.

i don't know why companies feel the need to do that. hulu wasn't perfect but jesus there wasn't anything really wrong with how it looked and it was easy to use. i'm guessing they made it more phone-friendly in some way that escapes me? i don't watch stuff on phones.