Movies
whither, blockbuster
Oct 7th
As I’ve discussed previously, I’m a fan of Netflix in part due to their ability to stick it to Blockbuster. Years of usurious late fees and tacit censorship ensured that I will never support their business, even if they evolve a new business model around renting free self-help videos to under-served 3rd world nations.
Apparently I’m not alone in my Blockbuster dislike. Herr rental chain is going to miss their subscription target of 2 million online users for Q1 2006. For comparison, Netflix tallied 3 million customers in Q1 2005. BBI stock has been on a continual skid in the face of an industry-wide 12% decline in store-based revenue, and this news is unlikely to turn things around. Awwww …
Over a year ago, Motley Fool suggested that Netflix would hang around due to its advantage of engaging customers and satisfying their need to rent a broad variety of titles in addition to the latest releases. They were right; the NFLX stock has risen steadily over the past six months. And Netflix has recently boosted that capability by adding the “Friends” feature, by which you compare queues, ratings, and recommendations with other select Netflix users. I recently linked up with TJ, and I’m hooked. It adds a whole new dimension to see where you and friends agree or disagree about movies, providing a much-needed “community” angle to online rentals.
DVD rentals will eventually loose share to streaming video. But, like Amazon, Netflix has tapped into the need for additional context around transactions. This infrastructure and information will go a long way towards protecting their existing business, and allow them substantial leverage should they eventually partner with a content provider.
Are you paying attention, Blockbuster? What Netflix does well is called “branding” and “customer relationship management.” In case BBI execs are wondering, that’s different than “short-term revenue maximization.”
snatch’d off
Aug 28th
I just had an epiphany. Rachel and I watched a British movie, Brassed Off!, a couple weeks back. Not overly memorable unless you can’t get enough of the plucky British working class, using their grit and quirky determination to overcome their dour lot (see: The Committments, The Full Monty, et al). Or if you really like marching bands. Or Ewan McGregor’s butt.
Anyway, a bit non-speaking player had looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Two weeks later, my unattended brain figured out that the quiet brute from Brassed Off! was also the slow-witted brute, Gorgeous George, from Snatch. IMDb says both roles were played by a boxer-cum-rugby player named Adam Fogerty. So how about that.
Why this processing power isn’t dedicated to important things like world peace or a unified theory is beyond me.
battle of the recycled concepts
Aug 26th
If you wanted to find a single show that changed the landscape of television, it might be All In the Family. But that would be boring, so I’ll say it was Battle of the Network Stars. In the Good Ol’ Days, TV stars were pretty much untouchable icons who played their roles and maybe showed up on Mike Douglas every once in awhile. Then ABC Executives had an epiphany that people might want to see Lynda Carter and Adrienne Barbeau jumping around in swimsuits. But how to make it happen? Ah yes … the American staple of athletic competition. And thus was born a TV institution that paved the way for reality TV and further entrenched T&A as a viable ratings booster.
In Hollywood, no idea (good or bad) goes uncopied, so we now have, not one, but two new versions of this classic show on the way. The less interesting doppleganger is spat up by Bravo Network. In its continuing bid to alienate its core audience of smart people with taste, Bravo is promoting Battle of the Network Reality Stars. This makes no sense, because there is no cross-over appeal; we’ve already seen these “stars” in their “real” persona, so the voyeuristic component is mild compared to seeing Farrah Fawcett mucking about in a muddy tug-o-war for the first time. Most of these competitors have already appeared naked in their shows or Maxxim magazine, so the T&A novelty has passed as well. My only curiousity is how they’re going to juggle the multitudes of network teams, now that we’re dealing with substantially more than the Big Three.
Slightly more intriguing is a movie concept based on the show. According to CHUD, it goes like this:
The film is being seen as a comedic Ocean’s Eleven, filled to the brim with comedy stars. The plot would center on a disgraced network executive who must win the Battle to get his job back. Which makes no sense.
So there you have it; two non-sensical interpretations of classic celebrity exploitation. And this time, Robert Conrad won’t be around to keep things real.
couldn’t happen to a nicer site
Aug 8th
There are very few big ideas that I could claim to having on my own, regardless of who ultimately got credit for it. I suppose if anyone starts selling a Diet Coke-flavored Pizza I’ll have grounds for suit, but the closest I’ve come otherwise would be Metacritic.
Some movie reviewers offer consistently skewed perspectives. Or more accurately, their ratings are predictably high or low for certain types of movies. If you took a reviewer’s entire catalogue, it would be easy to account for the persistent biases in their ratings; you could ratchet scores up or down based on positive / negative leanings, or go even deeper and adjust based on things like movie type, foreign origination, MPAA rating, or the presence of Brendan Frazier. Ultimately, you could create standardized movie ratings that give a “true” critical read across reviewers.
The main hurdle is that many top reviewers do not provide quantified ratings, which means you either exclude those reviewers from consideration, or come up with a process of assigning ratings based on their qualitative review. Hassle > payoff, so I tanked the idea.
Oh, that and I found out that Metacritic already does most of the work. They don’t correct for biases or any such nonsense, but they did the tough part of quantifying the top reviewers, which really solves the bias issue because it comes out in the wash if you can consistently average across 25 national reviews. Despite my crushing disappointment and rampant jealousy, Metacritic has become one of my favorite sites.
More recently, they’ve expanded into ratings for music, games, and books using the same methodology. It’s really a handy resource to get a quick read on the critical gestalt for any of those media. The site has apparently been rewarded for its insight and persistent, getting purchased by C|Net. Since I also read C|Net regularly, I suppose this is a good thing. Both sites offer consistently good content, although I’m not sure I see an obvious fit between them. I just hope that the “big money” of C|Net doesn’t tarnish the pure heart of Metacritic.
Now if only we could get Paul Tatara in on the deal, things would be perfect.
more fast food drama
May 31st
I was a bit surprised to hear that Rick Linklater’s next project will be a dramatization of the all-too-real Fast Food Nation. The book is a sprawling exploration of cultural and economic issues surrounding the McMeal, so it was hard to imagine how this would play out. From a recent interview with the UK’s Empire magazine, it’s beginning to sound a little like Slacker with more meat, so to speak. Money quote:
Eric Schlosser and I, we wrote the script, kind of based on a town in Colorado where all the various sides are represented. It’s sort of the human effects of that industry; I guess that’s how you’d describe it … it’s the teenagers who work at the fast food places, and immigrant labourers who come across the border, working in the packing plants, and an executive.
Linklater is skilled with character-driven narratives (see: Tape, Before Sunset), and there’s no idea too big for him to film (see: Waking Life), so I’m guessing this could really work. You go, Rick.