Tag Archives: streaming

Colossal

Posted on by Bill Chance

“You’re going to have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood.”

—-Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray on being cast in King Kong

Table of tiny monsters, Clarence Street Art Collective, The Cedars, Dallas, Texas

OK, to prove I am serious about my streaming Movie Recommendations – tonight when I came home from a bike ride (having narrowly missed today’s thunderstorm) I sat down, dialed up HBOMax, and watched the first item from my list – the Science Fiction film, Colossal.

I’ll keep this spoiler free – it stars Anne Hathaway as an alcoholic mess of a New York party girl hitting rock bottom and a giant monster stomping on Seoul, Korea. And yes, the two plot strands are very related.

That’s all I’m going to say (these plot points are revealed in the first minutes of the film) except… someone who is very famous recently for playing the best of all good guys turns out to be… something else.

A very good movie – different, but not weird, serious, but not maudlin, and not too long. Worth your while.

I’m not even going to link to the trailer… it gives away too much.

Flash Fiction of the Day, Live Stream by Kaj Tanaka

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.”

― Marilyn Monroe

A couple kissing, an engagement photo shoot I assume, in front of everyone waiting on a concert. Reflecting pool in front of the opera house, Dallas Arts District

Sometimes the internet is a time machine – a melancholy and distorted one.

Live Stream by Kaj Tanaka

Kaj Tanaka stories

The Criterion Collection

Posted on by Bill Chance

I don’t know about any of you, but over the past year I have become less and less happy with the selection that Netflix has streaming online. More and more, I have been going over to Hulu+ which I began paying for a while back. I bought Hulu+ for the television shows. I have been so busy it has been almost impossible for me to sit down and watch an entire film, so I have been diving into the shallow pedestrian seas of TeeVee – both current and classic. Hulu has always been a good place for that. Hulu, however, doesn’t have the best interface in the world and I have been having trouble finding what I wanted.

So a month or so ago I sat down and did some work figuring out the site structure and how to find what I want. While doing this I discovered a staggering fact.

Hulu+, starting in February of 2011 started streaming the entire Criterion Collection of movies online. The entire collection.

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So what? – you must be asking. What the hell is that? Criterion Collection? Who cares?

Criterion is a company that is dedicated to putting the best films of international cinema onto digital media (DVD, Blu-Ray, Streaming) and doing an amazingly bang-up job of it. Their catalog is up to somewhere around eight hundred films now, with more every day.

If you know me, having access to something like this, from my roku box on the television, to my laptop computers (Hulu+, unlike Netflix, will even work on Linux), to our Kindle Fire…. well, that’s like dumping a big ol’ pile of Heroin in my lap.

Where to start? Well, first off, I found the Criterion Selections after stumbling across a film, I’m embarrassed to say, I’ve been looking for for a while – In the Realm of the Senses. This Japanese film, banned in Japan, has a notorious reputation of being nothing more than high class pornography, with a horrendous, vile, and violent conclusion.

After actually watching the thing, I can report honestly, that the reputation is well earned. So, on to the next film.

What next? I have seen a lot of these over the decades and want to watch them again – but there are a lot that I have never seen… and a few I’ve never even heard of.

I can watch these great classic movies while I’m riding my exercise bicycle. Wait, let me get my list of New Year’s Resolutions out….

Here’s a list from Paste Magazine of ten recommended films, this looks good:

  • The Kid (1921)
  • George Washington (2000)
  • The Seven Samurai (1954)
  • La Jetée (1962) (source material for 12 Monkees)
  • Jules and Jim (1962)
  • The Blob (1958)
  • The 400 Blows (1959)
  • Wild Strawberries (1957)
  • M (1931)
  • The Vanishing (1988)

I’ve seen all but two of these… but it is a worthy list.

Here’s a recommendation for:

  • Knife in the Water (1962)
  • Lord of the Flies (1963)
  • Ratcatcher (1999)

This guy is blogging his way through the whole thing. So is this guy… and this guy too, and this guy.

So many films, so little time.

Any suggestions, please leave a comment.