Bank of Dave on Netflix is worth watching. The theme is the time worn “virtuous little guys overcome the evil big guys”. Good music and endearing characters. No one says fuck, there’s no nudity, no violence and no sex - real, simulated or by innuendo. Not for the sophisticated cinephile.
Actually, it sounds pretty sophisticated by today’s standards.
So after buy a dozen or so used 4K BDs, and countless 2K BDs, I finally got one - a 4K - that wouldn’t play. Given how much I have saved doing this, I’ll accept this “loss”, especially as the 2K disk that was also included played just fine.
With example after example of movies disappearing completely from streaming services, and even purchased content being removed because the service no longer wants to maintain that content, physical media is still the way to go.
Further, as everything goes to 4K, streaming right now doesn’t cut it. Netflix has been caught serving up 720p to subscribers who pay for 4K content, using the technical restrictions buried in the user agreement as an excuse.
Streaming 4K content is limited by bit rate, too, so it will never match the quality of picture and sound that you get off a Blu Ray. If you have invested in a home theater, there is no way on this good green earth that you should be wasting it on watching streaming content.
Last example, I was at a friend’s house for Christmas and, after dinner, they wanted to watch “Die Hard”. They have multiple streaming services but it was not available on any of them so they rented it for $4. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it added back to one or more services now that the holidays are over, only for it to disappear mysteriously again around mid-November.
Bottom line: If you have movies or TV shows that you watch regularly or are relatively obscure, buy them on disk now, before they’re gone.
I liked it. Thanks for the recommendation.
Don’t worry. They once removed vinyl records from stores. DVDs will be hip and cool again one day and you can say “ never left the platform.”
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I enjoyed The Holdovers yesterday. It is streaming on Peacock. Paul Giamatti was so good as a curmudgeonly boarding school teacher stuck watching the kids who had to stay at the school over the winter break. I still can’t figure out how he made his eye do that.
We decided to split up the year into movie types, and watch a different type for each month. January was to be foreign movies, February is supposed to be romantic comedies. Because Kris is working a jigsaw puzzle and I’m tying flies for a couple of trips, we couldn’t deal with subtitles so foreign movies turned into English and Irish movies. It’s been a complete success. Here’s what we’ve watched so far:
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Zulu (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Yesterday (2019)
The Third Man (1949)
Notting Hill (1999)
Once (2007)
Great Expectations (1946)
Henry V (1944)
The Guard (2011)
Goldfinger (1964)
A Brief Encounter (1945)
The biggest surprise was Great Expectations, which is very beautiful. The biggest disappointment was Zulu, which I remembered as great but is hard-pressed by the cheesy fight scenes.
The project has gone a fer piece to settle the eternal question of what should we watch.
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Might I recommend teeing up “The Lion in Winter”?
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Done. Seems appropriate this week.
You could thrown in some early Guy Ritchie too, although that might mean the reintroduction of subtitles.
Also, seek out Michael Caine’s “The Italian Job”, for some shits ‘n’ giggles and a legendary car chase.
The opening titles should give you a flavor…
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“Separate Tables.”
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…oooh…”Sliding Doors”
A movie so good that its name now a reference all of its own.
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Oh no. You’ve got me worried about Zulu. I also loved that one, but it’s been a good fifteen or twenty years.
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Agreed, really great movie. Did you notice the lazy eye switched from left to right several times?
Zulu is an excellent movie, but the close-quarter fighting is very much a product of its era.
If you want some back story/realism check, this is a good watch:
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I didn’t notice but I’ve got a friend with amblyopia and sometimes it’s hard to tell if she is looking at me or the wall.
The Third Man is such a great film. One of my all time favorites.
And the cocktail is pretty goddamn good as well.
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I just remember reading Great Expectations when I was about 15 and it was the worst book I’d ever read. And I like Dickens. But I’ve had no desire to see the movie version.
I was just thinking about that. How about a month of movies that inspired cocktails…or at least has some tie in?
I have little interest in a Vesper martini but never pass on Casino Royale