So to watch what is just released and new, the little that is still somewhat good to excellent material and what you would like without subsidizing the remaining, utter crap Hollywood spews out via the myriad of subscription streaming services (other people can cover that and if it all ends anyway, so what?):
A VPN like SurfShark for $2/month to prevent strongly-worded, nagging DMCA violation emails when they pick up on your IP address (using IPv6 only also takes care of this but limits the sources)
A bitorrent client like Deluge
kat dot rip
eztv dot re
You’re all set.
I came upon an internet ad this AM for some film involving DiNiro that is apparently about Big Oil and the people behind Big Oil. Hollywood on Big Oil? No sale. Canceled the ad as a matter of course.
Streaming Killed The Video Star.
All of the steaming services with the exception of Netflix and possible Amazon are bleeding money. Disney + alone has lost $13 Billion since it started in 2019 and cannot get any traction to grow and add subscribers, in fact they are losing them in droves.
One of the sticking point in the WGA-SAG strike is residual payments, well without Ad revenue there is no extra money for those payments. So expect all of the Steaming Services to go to AD based platforms to some degree, which there will be a subscription fee or you can get a premium level for no Ads.
There is very little public sympathy for this strike and no one seems to really care. WGA has a terrible negotiating team right now and have no idea what they are doing and they have no Strike Fund to speak of. The Studios are now in the position of being able to cancel a number of projects as well as a lot of expensive production contracts and Deals with actors to save money.
The Rock just lost a lucrative production deal at one studio and Disney is cutting back right and left to save itself.
Hollywood is probably going to fundamentally change and maybe for the better. The DEI and Woke thinking is destroying them. Even the Comic books film are now failing on a massive scale. All of the studios are losing money especially Disney and Warner Brothers.
“and some movies (such as Spider-Man: No Way Home and Top Gun: Maverick) had explosive success”
Side note: The entire climax of Top Gun: Maveric was exaclty the entire climax of Star Wars: A New Hope with a more diverse cast.
The problem with Hollywood is that it *is* Hollywood. You meet three kinds of people there: those who grew up in the industry (i.e., Carl Reiner) and don’t realize what a weird little bubble of alternate alien reality it is; those who have some moral principles and basic human decency (i.e., Kevin Sorbo) and are keeping their mouths shut about the madness around them because they want to keep their jobs (but they generally don’t last very long); and then enormous numbers of people who have migrated *to* Hollywood, because they hate the town they came from, they hate the schools they attended, they hate their parents for making them go to church, and they see Hollywood as the place where they can express all that hate and get back at everyone they despise.
Hollywood is full of people whose hearts are full of hate. Just listen to what they say when they’re being themselves and not reading a script.
The last time I went to a movie theater was in 2007 when I took my then 12 year old son to see the first Transformers movie and back in the mid 90s I took my daughter to see The Santa Clause and The Lion King. Before that was in the late 80s when my wife and I did a “double date” with a best friend and his girlfriend.
Since 1981 I have seen nine movies in a theater and have no wish to see another at any theater. Since I lived that life and thus see no need to hurry I’ll just pick up a copy of Oppenheimer when it is on Blue Ray, used, on EBay.
There is nothing that Hollywood produces that is compelling enough for me to go see. There are no more actual movie stars other than two or three who have done pretty well. They are now the worst, most pathetic, human beings on the planet and have zero acting skills and the writing and scripts are horrible. They have resorted, until the Me Too crap, to flagrant nudity, gore, and CGI when the old movies used good writing and acting skills to convey the same.
No longer is a script and the actors good enough to insinuate a sex scene without any nudity or graphic details. Now they have to show everything to keep the viewers in their seats as the script and acting are worthless. They use CGI to create monsters when a good script would create the monster in your mind, which is scarier than anything they can come up with themselves.
They have also resorted to no more than dredging up comics (I have always hated comics) and using CGI to create a mess of a film instead of finding grown-up themes in which to deal. Since they no longer have the ability to think they just create a remake of a hit then wonder why it failed miserably.
Hollywood can go take a flying leap. Oh, it looks as if they already have.
I watch Brit mysteries on BritBox and The Grand Tour on Prime. The last few movies I tried really sucked. Some streaming content is totally top notch like The Expanse.
I watch Brit mysteries on BritBox and The Grand Tour on Prime. The last few movies I tried really sucked. Some streaming content is totally top notch like The Expanse.
Hollywood wants to cater to the pedophiles and socialists.
Turns out there isn’t an audience for that.
Read later.