Sean triumphantly returns (physically) to the room. (He never left verbally, of course!) We update our taxonomy of haters and methodology of avoiding becoming such. And we run down the week in geek, including having some fun with the Netflix/Q*ickster split, taking in some sweet new Riddick 3 news, speculating on what we’d do if we had ten grand to have dinner with George Lucas, and wondering what all will change in the new Robocop reboot.
A very, very worthy topic – and that’s not even because of my position on positivism, “acceptance not just tolerance”, and the like. Looking forward to listening immediately, and hoping there’s some mention of the recent discussions on this very subject that both the beloved Ms. Day and honored Mr. Wheaton have been posting a lot about recently.
Because, sadly enough…
If it’s possible for Audra to have a crush on Oliva Wilde, I would have to say that my G.Chrush would be V.Diesel esp in the riddick role. I’m suriously thinking about dressing up as riddick for halloween as long as i can get the googles and contacts. Need to work alot on the traps though. Voice is deep enough me thinks :)…
Anyway Riddick 3 - Big Girlie Squeal - The artwork looked cool esp the one where Riddick is on a mountain/hill with the monsters crawling at him.
Sean - Did you see the one where he’s walking with his dog…That looked awesome.
People are always going to hate, it’s the nature of the world. I rib my wife about liking all things vampire, teen (90210,etc). However, she does it to me with other related stuff. The difference is that we know where the line is and more importantly we don’t give a fig. We just enjoy what we enjoy.
As Chuck pointed out there are several levels,
- People hate for no reason other than other people are hating it (Avatar, Twilight)
- The vs. camp (Star Trek vs Star Wars)
- The ones that are not haters but just don’t really enjoy the genre.
- The hate the movie but can articulate why
- The hate the movie but can’t put the finger on why they hate it.
I think the line is if you encroach on someone else’s enjoyment.
IFC has an interview with director José Padilha regarding the new Robocop:
[RoboCop] is a man who’s been transformed by technology for certain purposes. And so that premise alone touches so many interesting subjects. What does it mean to be immersed in automated systems and deprived of free will? What does it mean to be used by corporations for certain purposes? How does the media spin things around to make certain interests accepted by the public? Those are all things you can see in the first ‘RoboCop,’ and those are all things that are coming closer and closer to being real. Science is taking us there. And so that premise alone is really interesting to me.
I have cool parents who turned me on to TOS Trek and Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Outer Limits, as well as old movies and musicals, etc. I used to hang out with my Grandma and share an orange while watching reruns of old movies and stuff. When she passed, I couldn’t eat an orange without getting sad for years.
Most important, my parents never made me feel weird for digging scifi and related stuff. How many kids got movie soundtrack albums for christmas before they got rock albums (Wrath of Khan!!!)? I sure did! My Pop took me to see the Kikaida show when I was a kid!
I remember a bit of teasing in high school, but not too much. I was shy then and kept to my tight circle of friends.
Those who either intentionally or inadvertently choose to dump on the joy of another would do well to remember that manners matter. If you’re stumped about what to say, or have a tendency to blurt (like myself)- good manners will always get you through. I’ve retaught myself this lesson, recently, as it is never my intention to harm the feelings or sensibilities of another. I’d rather laugh at myself first!
Manners. They work.
In my opinion, that’s what it comes down to.
it’s funny that the topic is “don’t be a hater” and the first thirty minutes or so of the podcast is hating on Netflix because of their PR gaffe. Personally, this new pricing scheme is saving me money because I haven’t watched a disc in about a year–if I lived in an area that didn’t get good Internet streaming then I’d switch to the disc-only option, again saving me money.
the root problem is that movie industry required Netflix to charge more. For some reason the internets are aflame with people crying “netflix is greedy! whaaa!” but that’s not the case. They simply got boned in the eye of jupiter.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/09/26/netflix-copyright
could they and should they have handled their PR better? sure. does this require so much spleen venting? no. Let’s move on.
“Fear leads to anger,
anger leads to hate,
hate leads to suffering,
suffering leads to the Dark Side.” – Yoda
You … me … them?
Everybody … Everybody.
Oh Robocop - That scene where he gets dismembered is a bit of a urgh moment for me when I was younger, only a few films have been like that (The other film that affected me deeply was When the wind blows).
Chuck, I agree with you that all video media is going digital, but for those of us that want to own copies on our drives the amount of storage space commonly available in today’s PCs which most consumers own in their homes is limited to maybe 2TB at best. That is not large enough to store all the digital media I want to own. Certainly not enough for HD quality video. Maybe in a few years the amount of storage will increase to 20TB or more, but it definitely isn’t commonly available now.
Cloud storage will only work for those that are urban and have access to high speed data connections. Plus it will be an extra monthly bill that I am not interested in paying.
So I agree that the transition from DVDs and Blu-rays (aka physical video media) will take a long time. In the meantime I just want to be able to continue to rent physical video media from whatever source that continues to provide It the most cost effective and easiest way possible.
~Shooter Out
Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk
Maybe I’m super esoteric, but as someone who consumes a fair amount of foreign film - this split is making me not happy. It goes along with how Netflix has been getting fewer of the films I’m interested in (or they’re “Saved” and they never get them :() - and I was lucky for 6 years to have access to a university library with a decent film collection, Netflix that used to be good for a lot of foreign films, and regular travel to supplement that. As the films I’m interested in get more international acclaim, they oddly enough become more difficult to see for people in the US who don’t live in New York or Miami - they’re not getting distribution in a meaningful way outside of certain urban centers. I want to pay for content, so the content creators get paid.
This also makes me wonder what’s up with Netflix internationally, because they’re currently huge in the news as they expand services (mostly streaming) to new countries. Honestly, I wish I could get access to (country of research interest)'s film and television milieu. Sigh.
How does the split affect that at all exactly?
This. A million times this.
Netflix was one of the few places distributing the films in the US. I bring it up because movies that I can’t get access to here are licensed through Netflix for streaming in their country of origin… I’m jealous. That said, there is an odd collection of films that are available streaming, and it’s ever changing. The lack of a link between the two just doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like Netflix doesn’t want me to use it, or something.
But seriously, and I know you disagree with me on this, access to those films is important to my research. Since I don’t live in a city that gets the limited releases of these films, nor are they generally available for sale in the US, the rental distribution network’s generally the only way (or libraries). Now I guess I’ll have to rely on libraries, once they kill Qwikster. (and given the different lending practices? I haz a :()
Uh no I’m still confused. Everything that was on Netflix for mailing is on Qwikster for mailing. Everything that was on streaming…is on Netflix Instant watch. You didn’t lose anything by it being split…
I lose the connectivity that made it easier. And the ever-decreasing international catalogue 
Since it seems the split is a move to kill the DVD service (or so it’s been read, argued, etc.), well, how else am I supposed to get legal access to these things?
On the hater issue, since Sean and I disagree quite a bit on Citizen Kane.
Yes it is OK to disagree and have differing opinions, but I feel one has to make those opinions very clear to not be labeled a “hater” and make a logical argument about it.
I won’t bring up Kane (which I love and watch at least once a month - it is that good to me) nor Transformer 3 which I think is the worst movie I’ve seen this year so far (not bashing on it because it’s "popular, I have some serious issues with the story and film making with that one) but must discuss what I consider a poor analogy between Kane and Birth Of A Nation.
Now BON was directed by DW Griffith and proved two things in cinema, that you could get an audience to sit for two hours to watch a movie, and that you can move the camera around and use multiple cameras and intercuts to create visual drama. Griffith adapted the very popular novel of his day “The Klansman” to make what is both a storytelling and technical game changer in cinema. Yes it is an abhorrent story and in truth much like another ground breaking film, Leni Reisenthal’s Triumph Of The Will should really only be approached from a purely academic standpoint. The film was highly controversial for it’s day due to the subject matter, causing near riots in some cities. Since Griffith himself was not a racist this deeply affected him. So he made what I consider his greatest film Intolerance right after it, a film where he basically perfected the visual language of cinema today after creating it in BON.
Kane however is a film I think everyone can enjoy. I disagree with both Chuck and Sean that it lacks in character development and story. These were it’s primary innovations as far as cinema history is concerned. The technical aspects are famous as well, but most folk gloss over the story when saying they did not like it. Most who have said that in my experience have been forced fed the movie in art school. Kane much like 2001 doesn’t spoon feed you the story, it makes you think about it, and in truth is quite amazing. I don’t want another pro vs anti Kane thread running here but would relish a chance to actually discuss this with both Sean and Chuck.
What connectivity do you lose? You look on one site to see if it’s on instant if not you go to the other and order it. And it’s not like it’s gonna disappear tomorrow it’s gonna be around awhile and the decreasing library has nothing to do with the company split
One tangent that was touched upon, but not really dissected to any great degree because of its slightly different angle, is what I can only describe (before my morning coffee) as a “Fan Bully”, or an individual with such fanatic devotion to a work, a genre, (a religion,) or what have you, that anyone without the same degree of fanaticism (or even a sightly dissenting opinion) will be attacked with the same vitriol and wrath as one who climbs atop the negativity soapbox.
I consider this equally destructive, equally detrimental to rational, constructive discussion and debate, but it comes to the table with a “holier than thou” mantle that can often be more stinging than the wide-brushstroke haters who cut down the art itself. This, on the flip side, is nothing but a personalized attack on the individual for their lack of assimilation, their choice to dissent, and heaven forbid, their ability to articulate why.
A little reversal on the roles and relationships, but in my estimation, absolutely equal in its harm to the sort of rationalized, educated, detail-and-example oriented discussions we so often have here on the forums, tweet-streams, hangouts, meet-ups and the like.
damn dude . .that’s a whole lot of Kane love. 119 minutes a month?
I’m not sure I spend that much “quality” time with Mrs. Oddball in a month’s time (give or take).
But hey, whatever turns your crank 
Kidding aside, Kane is a great movie, no doubt about it. But the relentless grind of time has removed it from the Oddball family rotation.
Not an indictment of the flick, just the reality that we all only have so many ticks on our clocks before the game is called on account of inevitability.
enjoy your haystacks.
I try to watch one DVD each day. Sorta of relaxation for me as well as giving me ideas for what I do professionally. Kane is just awesome for that lol! I do watch a lot of stuff that I’ve never seen before though. I have a burgeoning collection of DVDs here.
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