TV/Movies Megathread

[Eddie Teach]

I like some of Netflix's original series, but I wish they'd try to get more of the old content than your typical suburban branch library.

[viper37]

Couple more, haven't decided

God&Generals, extended version?  It's a tad better than the theatrical version.

[Malthus]

Saw Sorcerer (an adaptation of The Wages of Fear). Worst name choice for a movie ever. Apparently, the filmmaker deliberately wanted to build on the rep of his previous film The Exorcist. But the movie has nothing whatsoever to do with the supernatural or "sorcerers" ("Sorcerer" is the name of one of the trucks!).

The movie was, apparently, cursed by the gods of marketing (and a bunch of bad choices). It bombed, and badly, when it was released.

First, the foolish name choice. Audiences came expecting some sort of magic happening. Instead, they got a gritty French existentialist-style drama. Many were not amused.

Second, the movie begins with a bunch of vignettes taking place in various foreign countries, the significance of which are not explained. With a bunch of subtitles. Many walked out, thinking they had accidentally wandered into a foreign art film.

Third, with impeccable timing, the movie was released at exactly the same time as another new movie. That movie was called "Star Wars".

For some strange reason, audiences preferred this to an American remake of a gritty French existentialist drama of unrelieved tension, set in a squalid third world country, starring a bunch of characters who are all nasty criminals. They flocked to see "Star Wars" and ignored "Sorcerer".

Lastly, the filming was legendary in its difficulty and horrors.

Despite all that, I enjoyed it a lot.  The bridge-crossing sequence alone has to be seen to be believed, and is worth the price of admission. Ditto the exploding tree sequence.

(Allegedly, the director, dissatisfied with his special effects guy, brought in a real life arsonist named "Freddie the Torch" for this; it was typical of this production - whenever he could, it appears, he liked to employ real-life criminals. Some of the actors in the New Jersey scene were actual criminals, too; half his crew was kicked out of Mexico for drug offences, when he tried filming there).

[viper37]

Warcraft
You need to have played the 3 games so far, read the appendices, probably played World of Warcraft too if you want to understand it.

The Huntsman: Winter's War
I don't know if I saw the theatrical or extended version, I only noticed it at the end of the movie, for some reason, it didn't pop up when I inserted the disc in the blu ray player.

Anyway.  Utterly and totally boring.  Highly predictable, classic story of betrayal.  Some things seem to happen just out of nowhere, and some stunts, while a certain character is supposed to infiltrate a castle without getting seen by the hundreds of soldiers inside are just too incredible to be even remotely believable.


X-Men: Apocalypse
Could have been better.  It's not bad, it's just not great.  The weakest of these 3 news films so far.  Apocalypse was underplayed as a villain, imho.  Maybe, knowing about the characters, you know they're going to change side at some point and turn on him, and that affects the overall satisfaction of the plot.  The good part of the movie was Quicksilver, again.  Always fun to see this character in action.

[celedhring]

Saw Sorcerer (an adaptation of The Wages of Fear). Worst name choice for a movie ever. Apparently, the filmmaker deliberately wanted to build on the rep of his previous film The Exorcist. But the movie has nothing whatsoever to do with the supernatural or "sorcerers" ("Sorcerer" is the name of one of the trucks!).

The movie was, apparently, cursed by the gods of marketing (and a bunch of bad choices). It bombed, and badly, when it was released.

First, the foolish name choice. Audiences came expecting some sort of magic happening. Instead, they got a gritty French existentialist-style drama. Many were not amused.

Second, the movie begins with a bunch of vignettes taking place in various foreign countries, the significance of which are not explained. With a bunch of subtitles. Many walked out, thinking they had accidentally wandered into a foreign art film.

Third, with impeccable timing, the movie was released at exactly the same time as another new movie. That movie was called "Star Wars".

For some strange reason, audiences preferred this to an American remake of a gritty French existentialist drama of unrelieved tension, set in a squalid third world country, starring a bunch of characters who are all nasty criminals. They flocked to see "Star Wars" and ignored "Sorcerer".

Lastly, the filming was legendary in its difficulty and horrors.

Despite all that, I enjoyed it a lot.  The bridge-crossing sequence alone has to be seen to be believed, and is worth the price of admission. Ditto the exploding tree sequence.

(Allegedly, the director, dissatisfied with his special effects guy, brought in a real life arsonist named "Freddie the Torch" for this; it was typical of this production - whenever he could, it appears, he liked to employ real-life criminals. Some of the actors in the New Jersey scene were actual criminals, too; half his crew was kicked out of Mexico for drug offences, when he tried filming there).

Sorcerer is allright. Friedkin had already let success go to his head so the film is packed with self-indulgence and self-importance (like those character vignettes), but if you cut through all that fat there's a fine thriller in there.

[Malthus]

Sorcerer is allright. Friedkin had already let success go to his head so the film is packed with self-indulgence and self-importance (like those character vignettes), but if you cut through all that fat there's a fine thriller in there.

I certainly enjoyed it. But then, I already knew basically the story before I saw it. My wife did not, and I didn't spoil it for her; so her reactions were interesting ("what does a Mexican shooting someone in Mexico have to do with a French Banker accused of fraud in France?"). Friedkin's insistence on not explaining anything at any time means that the average audience member has no idea what the movie is about, even approximately, until it is halfway over!

Another note: one of my wife's only true phobias is --- driving over bridges. She absolutely hates doing that, to the point of planning her route so it does not involve driving over a bridge. She is irrationally afraid of the bridge collapsing, or the car sliding off of it.

This may not have been the best choice of viewing for her.   

[Josquius]

Imho Netflix will come crashing down like a house of cards, these financials don't make much sense 8 hundred million of debt just to finance programming? Doesn't look sustainable to me.  Although stranger things have happened in the past.

Netflix's problem is as they become more popular other providers become more and more reluctant to give them licesnses and up their prices quite dramatically.
If traditional media wanted to kill netflix they could pull the plug in an instant.
That's a big part of Netflix's thinking with making so many of its own shows, avoiding these licensing costs and building up its own library. Plus of course the "only on netflix" factor.
It's quite interesting how much analytics work netflix puts into deciding which shows to green light.

[Duque de Bragança]

Second, the movie begins with a bunch of vignettes taking place in various foreign countries, the significance of which are not explained. With a bunch of subtitles. Many walked out, thinking they had accidentally wandered into a foreign art film.

I took them as a way to introduce the characters through their past actions.  I thought it was obvious.

(Allegedly, the director, dissatisfied with his special effects guy, brought in a real life arsonist named "Freddie the Torch" for this; it was typical of this production - whenever he could, it appears, he liked to employ real-life criminals. Some of the actors in the New Jersey scene were actual criminals, too; half his crew was kicked out of Mexico for drug offences, when he tried filming there).

Typical Friedkin, he did too for To Live and Die in L.A.

All in all, a great Friedkin movie. Not the most original one since it is another adaptation of the Wages of Fear, but is innovative enough to be much more than a remake.
Watched not long ago since it had a theatrical re-run in a glorious restored version, in DCP.

[Malthus]

I took them as a way to introduce the characters through their past actions.  I thought it was obvious.

I certainly got it. But then, I already knew, more or less, what the story was about: a group of guys down on their luck taking on a seemingly impossible mission to earn their way out. So it was obvious (to me) that these vignettes merely introduced the reason each of these guys were down on their luck - they are all being hunted for their crimes.

If you didn't already know the basic plot of The Wages of Fear, you would not have a clue until the movie was partway over.

Typical Friedkin, he did too for To Live and Die in L.A.

All in all, a great Friedkin movie. Not the most original one since it is another adaptation of the Wages of Fear, but is innovative enough to be much more than a remake.
Watched not long ago since it had a theatrical re-run in a glorious restored version, in DCP.

I envy you that. This is a movie I think would really benefit from seeing it in a theatre, particularly in a restored version.

[celedhring]

Imho Netflix will come crashing down like a house of cards, these financials don't make much sense 8 hundred million of debt just to finance programming? Doesn't look sustainable to me.  Although stranger things have happened in the past.

Netflix's problem is as they become more popular other providers become more and more reluctant to give them licesnses and up their prices quite dramatically.
If traditional media wanted to kill netflix they could pull the plug in an instant.
That's a big part of Netflix's thinking with making so many of its own shows, avoiding these licensing costs and building up its own library. Plus of course the "only on netflix" factor.
It's quite interesting how much analytics work netflix puts into deciding which shows to green light.

Yeah, going all-in on original programming was Netflix's reaction when licensing companies began jacking up the prices once Netflix's streaming service started to be massively successful. The idea here is to weaken the big media provider's hand and get such a critical mass of customers that these companies just can't avoid doing business with Netflix, in Netflix terms, if they want access to millions of customers. I just don't think it can be sustained, the expenditure is too massive and the economics involved work against Netflix (in short, they get much less return from the money they put in their shows that say, HBO gets from GoT).

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Which reminds me: for all the psycho nutcase nonsense the 2nd Amendment types fucking freak the fuck out on when it comes to their autistic bullshit when it comes to the definitions of magazines and clips, you would think they would lose their shit with the sound effects used in movies for weapons, particularly for handguns.
Why does virtually every movie made semi-automatics sound like they're rattling every time they're moved? You'd think those monkeyfucks would get more pissed off over unrealistic portrayals.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoisyGuns

I have reached the point where I physically cringe a little at sparking bullets.

[The Minsky Moment]

Imho Netflix will come crashing down like a house of cards, these financials don't make much sense 8 hundred million of debt just to finance programming? Doesn't look sustainable to me.  Although stranger things have happened in the past.

Netflix is a public company, you can look at their SEC filings and find out whether the finances work.

Net income for the last three reported years was: 112M, 267M, 123M.  Let's be conservative and say they have sustainable income flow of about 120M.  They have been borrowing at about 5.5%.  Apply that to 800M in debt and the annual interest charge is $44M.  So they can cover that pretty easily.

That's the simple picture, but the bigger picture is understanding the unique nature of this business.  In 2015, revenue was $6.8 billion and expenses were $6.5 billion.  The single largest expense, however, is amortization of streaming content, at $3.4 billion. That is a non-cash charge.  That is: Netflix is pocketing all that $3.4 billion but making a paper entry deducting it from revenue to reflect an estimated diminution in the value of its streaming content assets (mostly licenses).

What this means is that Netflix is a cash generating machine, pulling in billions of cash every year.  But the only way to keep the cash machine going is to keep plowing a lot of the cash back into acquiring more content assets, so people will still be content to stick with Netlfix and pay their fees.  One way to acquire content is let others develop it and then pay license fees.  Another is to create your own.  Netflix is betting that by cutting out the content middleman, they will achieve efficiencies and keep more of that cash flow bonanza for itself.  The costs of production, while significant, are outweighed by the billions saved in licensing fees if they had to pay for that content from others.

[The Brain]

DG, tell me what you think of The Accountant.

[celedhring]

[snip]

I actually have a 16 page report on Netflix sitting on my desk, I know most of that. 
But here's the key part:

But the only way to keep the cash machine going is to keep plowing a lot of the cash back into acquiring more content assets, so people will still be content to stick with Netlfix and pay their fees.  One way to acquire content is let others develop it and then pay license fees.  Another is to create your own.  Netflix is betting that by cutting out the content middleman, they will achieve efficiencies and keep more of that cash flow bonanza for itself.  The costs of production, while significant, are outweighed by the billions saved in licensing fees if they had to pay for that content from others.

Yet this is significantly more risky than licensing content. Licensed content is "proven", you may pay a lot for the rights of blockbuster X, but you know there's people out there that will want to watch that. And you can very easily plan your business model around that. But when you move most of your business proposition towards original content (at a much higher cost per minute than licensed content, has to be said) you're taking a gamble. If your shows fail, people will lose interest and drop your subscription. Of course the upside is exclusivity. Netflix hedges the risk of shows bombing with volume; they are now producing a staggering amount of shows and movies, many more than i.e. HBO.  They are also forced to do that also by the bingewatching model. HBO gets 3 months out of a GoT season, Netflix only gets one month. So they burn through shows at a frantic pace. Those shows also don't have much in the way of ancillary revenues since Netflix is a "end of the way" broadcast window (Netflix doesn't license its shows to anybody else). And how does solve Netflix the problem of escalating costs and limited returns? By going global. It makes sense, but it's a very risky bet. So far, international is still losing Netflix money.

Now I hope that I'm wrong and they succeed, because I love what they do. But I'm bearish on they getting the critical mass needed to sustain that staggering amount of production, without having to take more and more debt.

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't think there is a choice for them.  If the AT&T deal goes through they will launch a competing platform, and they will have control over HBO content as well as Warner Brothers.  There is no guarantee Netflix will be able to license a sufficiently broad array of content on reasonable terms indefinitely and has its own production arm.  Plus, there is Amazon who also has deep pockets for acquiring content rights.  That makes two strong competitors developing their own material.  Doubling down and going for scale is probably Netflix's best move.