Streaming Video Power Rankings: Week 18

1) Hulu: It's still slow in Huluville, but they did something really cool last week: They offered a free preview of Showtime with full seasons of shows and the whole current Showtime movie library (or pretty close to it). It was way better than the cable free previews because Hulu's controls are so much better than on demand. Bravo, Hulu! (I mean "well, done," not "get more Bravo shows, Hulu")

2) Netflix: "Stranger Things" is really cool! At least, the first episode is. I look forward to watching each installment weekly, the way God intended us to watch television. I might be able to get my kids to tear themselves away from Disney Channel reruns to check out the new series based on the movie "Home." There's a reality show about college football that I heard was decent. It's official that the "MST3K" revival will be on Netflix with a generous helping of episodes. A new trailer for the upcoming Ricky Gervais "Office" spinoff movie debuted. "Bokack Horseman" season 3 premiered last week.

As usual, all the buzz is with Netflix. I think they are throwing away a hell of a lot of money on stuff I don't like, but I admire the original programming diversity--just in sitcoms alone, they provide "Kimmy Schmidt," "The Ranch," and "Fuller House." What other outlet offers that kind of range these days?

3) YouTube: Where WWE Network fears to tread (providing old content), YouTube uploaders rush in.

4)  Pub-D-Hub: Sometimes it pulls in stuff I never heard of or just totally off the wall content, like this week's add of an old John Chancellor report on British teenagers. Pre-Beatles, but you got plenty of Tommy Steele (or at least his manager)!

5) Shout! Factory TV: I'm hoping for a nice fat update on Monday, but in the meantime, the MST3K shorts are great time wasters.

6) TuneIn: One of the better radio aggregators on Roku, it has some great stations, including Alan Haber's Pure Pop  and an Arizona-based "Deep Oldies" station that, believe it or not, actually plays some deep oldies. I strongly recommend TuneIn, but one thing it lacks is an automatically refreshing track identifier, which is annoying if you just want to leave a station on and not have to refresh to see what's playing.

7) Crackle: Another week, another "Fantasy Island," but a rather lackluster one. Still, Crackle isn't crashing my Roku anymore, so it's got that going for it, which is good. Plus I just noticed that it has some "That's My Mama" reruns. I know it's a free service, but I'd really like it to offer more full seasons and not batches of 5 or 10.

8) Warner Archive Instant: I dropped it, and it is on another cold streak of no content (I thought it might add something in time to brag about it at Comic Con), but it seems cold to drop it all the way out. That'll be next week.

9) Amazon Prime: Hey, a "Man in the High Castle" Season 2 trailer! I might have to sign up for a month of Prime once season 2 is complete.

10) SeeSo: The other night, I tried to watch two things and got "video unavailable" both times. This service is still unreliable.

Vault of Coolness: The good old days: When an unknown adult male and a young boy could bond over guns

Ah, the innocent 1950s--a simpler time when if a fella wanted to escape a roomful of pesky girls at a birthday party, he could wander through the house into a den and find a sympathetic adult male.

In "Leave It to Beaver" episode "Party Invitation," the Beav does just this, meeting the birthday girl's dad. Played by Lyle Talbot, this friendly figure offers him refuge away from the gals in his den.

And here's a great thing about that era: It was always a den, not a man cave. The man of the house didn't have to make a big show out of building a separate room for himself or taking over the garage and stuffing it with pinball machines and flat-screen TVs. No, each suburban house had a DEN, it was understood that the man would retire there after dinner, and he would pack it with cigars, animal heads, maybe a pennant from his alma mater...and guns!

Just look how Beaver and this man bond over a shared fascination of (possibly loaded) weapons!

"I think about this one when Mr. Campbell asks me to redo my quarterly report."

"Now, now, son. That's not a good idea.. You might get your jacket dirty."



"Now, Beaver, these are dangerous, which is I why I always keep them in this unlocked cabinet."

"I think of this one every time Myrna complains about my lodge meetings." 

 

I don't even think Ward has such a tender moment with the Beaver in this episode.

"Maybe Myrna and I could try one more time for a son."

File this in the Scenes You Would Never See Today folder.

TV Time Bonus: The Munsters...IN COLOR!

I fell way behind on sharing some screencaps from my recent (is it still considered recent? It was this year, anyway) TV Time look at movie adaptations of classic TV shows. Today let's take a look at the Munsters in glorious Technicolor.

Not a bad movie, all in all

Herman suave as ever on the Munsters' boat trip to England

Grandpa and Lily looking good as well

These next pics just show the colors in the movie. Plus Herman's spectacular pajamas.

Poor Pat Priest was replaced by Debbie Watson because they wanted someone younger. Priest was pushing 30 at the time.

 

Now the moment we've all been waiting for: The romantic lead of the picture, the dashing, the elegant, the debonair...Mister Robert Pine!

 

Did I mention he affects an accent, too?

 

One of the highlights of the film is the big road race:

 

 

Herman Munster = One baaaaaad dude

 

Time for the young lovers to exchange farewells...for now.

"Ah, Marilyn, I'm so glad you aren't 30 and blonde like I was afraid you'd be."

"What the..."

Watching the young lovers is the proud uncle or...other kind of uncle?

"If Ponch is behind this, I'm gonna kill him!"

Let's go with proud uncle, but this kind of disturbs me.

Streaming Video Power Rankings: Week 17

Well, Wall Street clearly does not take stock in these rankings, as the share price of Netflix plummeted despite last week's #1 spot. Hey, Wall Street, I don't take stock in YOU. I mean that literally. I really need an investment strategy. But anyway...

1) Netflix: Why did Netflix stock decline? Because it didn't do as well as was forecasted. It added 1.68 million subscribers last quarter. Think about that. But "Wall Street" forecasted more, so increased revenue and growth wasn't good enough because it wasn't ENOUGH enough.

Hey, wouldn't it be cool if  the original "Wall Street" was on Netflix so we could all go watch it now? It's not.

So why is Netflix #1? Because I am defying Wall Street and the MAN, folks! Also because it garnered Emmy nominations for various projects, "Stranger Things" continues to get good buzz, (including a strong thumbs up from my sister), plus I got back into "Cheers" reruns this week.

2) Warner Archive Instant: One glorious final week high in the rankings on the strength of how entertaining "The Lieutenant" is. Will WAI get its act together and entice me back? Let's see if it adds anything in time for San Diego Comic Con, as it did last year with the Golden Harvest film titles. Adding something it can tout, like 'Gilligan's Planet" or even "Super Globetrotters" or "Tarzan" or "Shazam!" would be a nice signal that someone is still paying attention.

3) Hulu: Summer doldrums continue, but I'm curious about the "Showtime Free Preview" starting Friday. Last time, I believe it was just a collection of debut episodes you could sample. Hulu is coasting, but it still provides better value than many other sites.

4) Shout! Factory TV: When I drop WAI, it's gonna be prime time for Shout again. This week it was all about variety for me, with Cavett and "Black Omnibus."

5) YouTube: All I'll say is there has been a lot of great sports content on here lately. I get more than my money's worth (0$) each week.

6) SeeSo: Two things make me happy about SeeSo this week. One, it is picking up the pace on original content, with the new series "Harmontown" the latest example. Two, my free beta trial has apparently been extended and I will be watching more stuff on here for a while. I have to admit the second thing makes me happier than the first.

7) Pub-D-Hub: Unspectacular update this week...but still an update!

8) Crackle: Hey, guess what? Crackle is still annoying with its auto-start ("Comedians in Coffee" right now), but it may have redeemed itself somewhat by adding "Fantasy Island." Sadly, it's only 5 episodes and not even the first 5 in order, but it's something. It's something I have no business watching, but I did, and I got through an entire episode without a reboot, a buffer, or any interruptions beside the frequent commercials. I think Crackle may be making progress!

9) MLB.TV: The Pirates are in the Free Game of the Day tonight, and longtime readers know what that means. So do first-time readers after I tell them: It means MLB makes it into the top 10!

10) Weather Underground: It's been very hot and very humid. For some reason I get a kick out of turning it here and seeing a number. I know it's hot, but HOW hot? Kudos again to WU's unassuming Roku channel.

Tom and Jerry: Gene Deitch Collection--Review up at ClassicFlix! (Shameless self-promotion dept.)

A bit of shameless self-promotion, if you will allow me: My latest review at ClassicFlix examines the divisive Gene Deitch era of Tom and Jerry. This excellent set collects all the "episodes" Deitch's studio supervised in the 1960s and includes extras that contextualize the run.

Are these the best Tom and Jerry cartoons? No, but in many ways they are more interesting to me than the Chuck Jones shorts that followed. These ones are low-budget and sometimes low-animation, but as I say in the piece, they are worth seeing.

I posted this interesting screencap a while back, saying that these toons are not known for their subtlety:

This comes from "Mouse Into Space," which provides an...interesting setting for the boys:

One solid aspect of this series is the inventive title cards:

 

 

And some of the backgrounds are sparse, but some are unique and even kind of cool:

 



And probably the most popular of the Deitch series is the self-mocking "Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit":

Yet these cartoons can also frustrate. The characters look a little off sometimes:

And there are gags that don't make sense, like in "Landing Stripling." The idea is that Jerry and this bird are foiling Tom's plan to flush them out, so they pinch the hose...

But it somehow affects the other end of the hose, where the water is coming out of some unknown pipe under the ground.

 There are also elaborate setups that don't pay off, like this one in the same short:

Yet for all its quirks, these are definitely worth watching at least once, and Warner Brothers did a great job with the collection. Check out my review for a lot more words and a lot less pictures, and tell 'em Cultureshark sent ya!

Brooks on Books: Filmish

"Filmish: A Graphic Journey Through Film" by Edward Ross is an amazing read. The Scottish writer/artist uses a graphical storytelling format (it's like a comic book!) to explore film theory. It's like all the highbrow parts of your college Intro to Film Study but with a ton of kick-ass illustrations.

Actually, I am being way too flip describing the book like that. This is a compelling and enlightening work with much to appeal to novices and scholars alike. Ross provides a clever structure by looking at the medium through 7 distinct aspects, each one given its own chapter: eye, body, technology, sets, time, power and ideology, and voice and language. The non-chronological approach is a great way to dive into the possibilities of the medium.

"Filmish" reminds me of Scott McCloud's seminal works on comic books--a narrator whom we see in the pages takes us through the "story" and offers much food for thought while explaining the foundations of film theory. Ross covers everything from Hollywood to Nollywood and includes a broad range of cinematic works in his panels. He scatters interesting bits of trivia throughout as well. There is meticulous documentation for everything so that we not only see where the quotes come from, but if we don't recognize a shot or person in the artwork, we can easily find out its origin.

I think even serious cineastes who know the works cited here will appreciate the way Ross synthesizes all this material. Newcomers should get a real kick out of it. I found the chapter on power and ideology particularly provocative. Ross doesn't try to force his own opinions through, but he does ask many questions while challenging the reader to consider all sorts of issues that are easy to overlook when sitting in front of the tube with a bowl of popcorn.

I should emphasize, though, that while the book covers some serious ground with its discussion of issues like sexism and racism, and it draws on many academic perspectives, it's a lot of fun. I highly recommend "Filmish" to lovers of movies, comics, and especially both.