Filmstruck / Criterion Channel

things to watch before Filmstruck disappears: the short nature films of Jean Painlevé. They're like 6-15 min long, span the 1920s (sea urchins, among others) to 1980s (pigeons iirc), have super sweet titles like Shrimp Stories, and are completely delightful.

i guess i should buy a copy of sans soleil if it's that important to me, but it was kinda nice having a streaming service where i could put it on whenever

oh also there is a really cool one about crystals! i am glad to have the chance to watch them before they are absorbed back into the earth or wherever nature films go to rest

I only recently learned this was going away. I would've loved to have taken advantage while it existed but, as far as I could tell, there was no convenient way for me to watch Filmstruck stuff on my actual TV. Which was a pretty serious demerit.

Things like the death of Filmstruck quell my occasional doubts re: the wisdom/sanity of having a 1000+ physical film collection. Relying on digital services is like doing all of your shopping at TJ Maxx, just kinda shrugging your shoulders and taking whatever happens to be on offer that day. There's only so much unpredictability and ephemerality I can come to terms with in this fragile world, knowhutimsayin.

Unsubstantiated gossip from the Criterion Forum message board --

Also, thought I'd add a bit of info that I found out from a friend who works in thebTurner building in Atlanta (they work for primarily with TCM, but also assisted FilmStruck at times).

I asked them when the employees working there found out about the shutdown, because it seemed to come out of nowhere — no rumors or anything. They told me that everyone was notified at work about one-hour before the customer announcement e-mails got sent out that Friday... Yikes :(

Edit: Sent my friend the Bill Hader clip and we talked more. They said that Scorsese apparently tried calling AT&T executives about it (keyphrase: "tried calling"), and other networks are currently offering to purchase the service. So that's hopeful news.

Also, FS already tried merging with Amazon (I assumed as a Prime Channel), but Amazon only wanted them to put up a bulk batch of films — no curation, weekly themes, or supplements/FS extras — so the deal didn't happen.

there was no convenient way for me to watch Filmstruck stuff on my actual TV

the roku app's been around for a while. i guess that requires buying a roku

I wonder if the ATT/Warner/TCM mega service coming next year might try to do a new Criterion deal -- cancel Filmstruck, make Criterion flail for a while, then re-sign them at better-for-ATT terms.

LL, I agree, those Painlevé films are great. A couple of "RIP Filmstruck" articles have mentioned Lubitsch's Cluny Brown and the fact that it's not available in any physical format so I watched it last night and it is terrific.

the short nature films of Jean Painlevé.

I just bought the Criterion DVD collection of these this weekend! I admit I am like the streaming skeptic big guy with the wall of discs upthread. Although I have zero copies of Boondock Saints and three different editions of the Wicker Man.

<3 my friend

maybe i should buy the dvd too. speaking of antiquated nature films, when will criterion discover ken middleham?! i want to see his stuff collected ASAP, before the filmstrips deteriorate!

Hm. Looking through Kanopy I see a bunch of good stuff that comes via the Cohen Collection as well, which collection I had been unaware of

Here we go

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6044-new-independent-criterion-channel-to-launch-spring-2019

https://www.criterion.com/channel

The best news and the scariest news at once.

Well, trying to sign up as a charter member didn't go well, and doesn't bode well.

Huh. Went easy for me, then again I might have snuck in before the crush.

Worked for me. It'd be nice to think they got such a deluge of signups it broke the site for a few minutes.

This is a little worrisome, though:

Our library will also be available through WarnerMedia’s new consumer platform when it launches late next year, so once both services are live, Criterion fans will have even more ways to find the films they love.

After the Warner site launches, will people leave the CChannel to maximize their dollar? Presumably the CChannel will be the only place to get supplements and curated programming and the Bordwell/Thompson/Smith stuff, but will that be enough? The exclusive content will have to be very enticing.

Guess we'll have to see. Unless Warner offers a full streaming TCM at last, can't say I'm immediately interested in what they have to offer.

Yay!

https://trueclassics.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/strangers-on-a-train-bruno.png

forgot to add
Criss Cross

are they still gonna be on kanopy

I wasn't a Filmstruck subscriber but reading about it in the wake of the cancellation announcement made me want to sign up. Glad they're continuing this kind of programming.

Signed up!

Me too. This, along with the new video store in town, will keep me very busy in 2019. I do still buy a lot of physical media, but as Morbius said upthread, I've gotta scale it back to the essentials: certain boxes, movies I know I'll watch multiple times, will go thru the supplements and essays. Does Filmstruck provide any of the essays/liner notes for the CC films they put up?

No, but aren't the essays usually available on the product pages at the Criterion website?

The liners for Bad Timing are not here: https://www.criterion.com/films/744-bad-timing

Not sure about more recent releases/movies that have been upgraded. I just wanted to read the booklet again because I lent out my copy of Bad Timing and like always have had a very hard time getting it back!

The Painleve shorts were a big discovery for me as well. “Daphnia“ was my favorite of those, the microscopic views functioned almost as hyonoticslly beautiful abstract imagery.

Didn’t dig the Farewell Video that much

The liners for Bad Timing are not here: https://www.criterion.com/films/744-bad-timing

yeah they are https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/385-bad-timing-the-men-who-didn-t-know-something

it is missing the garfunkel interview though

right

It’s still there.

Time of death, 8:12 a.m. I was about 15 minutes into The Awful Truth.

:( I watched a few minutes of Still Walking to see if I could just now, must have stopped right before they pulled the plug

Gonna miss this. Went out with an accidental double feature of The Last Seduction and Body Heat (both first time--had no idea it was basically the same movie!) last night.

Only signed up very recently, maybe two months ago (I suppose I could look up thread but tl;dr!) and never got fully into the swing of watching things from beginning to end although I did revisit the beginnings of many old favorites. The last thing I watched to completion, on Wednesday, was Naked for some reason.

And today I heard somebody accidentally quote the security guard from that so I guess it was worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XDmasbARtE

Without the beginning cut off
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXgpoLhEBa0

Prior version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJfP6G0LSEA

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.

i took at look at this via one of my (MANY) university employers' library websites, maybe the local public library too, and was discouraged, but going in straight through the kanopy site i was delighted to find that it offered to find my university and offered an immediate authentication using my university login. so, that was cool.

can't find anything definite about a watch limit, maybe i don't have one.

Watch limits are set by the library, not by Kanopy - so if you don’t see one (eg top right in the phone app), you’re probably unlimited.

yeah that's what i figured - there's nothing like a number in any prominent location at all - just hard to believe my cheapass state university system would ever cover such a thing : )

Want to say I am jealous. But it is possible if you have multiple libraries attached that you could be in a state of being “between” libraries in which no watch limit is shown

Feel like we should have a Kanopy watching thread so we can synchronize our three days if we choose or at least exchange suggestions of what we are watching and discuss.

I might just start one myself

I have unlimited Criterion and 4/month non-Criterion through my public library, and so far I haven't had a month where I ran out of credits. It's so nice.

Done. kanopy: thoughtful entertainment. what are you watching now?
(Almost jealous of your unlimited subscriptions, but I can’t really watch that much anyway)

A new year's email:

All of us at the Criterion Collection wanted to start the year off by thanking you for signing up to become a Charter Subscriber of the Criterion Channel.

We’re excited to report that we are still on track for a spring launch in the U.S. and Canada, on the web and Amazon Fire, Roku, Android, and Apple devices. In the next few weeks we’ll be announcing our launch date and sending along instructions for making your subscription official.

Hopefully "Apple devices" means Apple TV as well as iOS.

https://hyperallergic.com/481111/in-march-a-much-needed-streaming-service-for-arthouse-films-will-launch/

Enter OVID, a recently announced partnership between academic documentary service Docuseek and six independent film distribution companies. Together, these partners — Bullfrog Films, Distrib Films US, Grasshopper Film, Icarus Films, KimStim, and First Run Features — control the rights to thousands of different documentary, arthouse, independent, and international titles. OVID will be an on-demand subscription service offering selections from these various catalogues.
OVID is planned to launch in March, at which point its slate will consist of hundreds of documentary titles. Fiction titles will be added in the summer, and further curated selections will be made available on a monthly basis. The site stresses that many of these films will be unavailable to see anywhere else. It promises to feature filmmakers Chantal Akerman, Chris Marker, Bill Morrison, Jean Rouch, Wang Bing, Bi Gan, Pedro Costa, Claire Denis, Bruno Dumont, Cheryl Dunye, Eric Rohmer, Raul Ruiz, and Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet.