At this rate, by the end of 2008, you’ll have a whopping twelve reviews to read. So try not to fall behind.
Sure, it’s a little sparse, but I’m rusty. Actually, had I written it last night after seeing the film, it would look more like a fit of Tourette’s than a film review, so it’s good that I took my time to settle down a bit first. Moore had really fallen below my radar, so it’s good to see that he came back firing with both barrels while also remembering that people will actually be watching this, thus making things entertaining as well as informative.
There have also been a couple other films that I’ve seen lately, in the depths of Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” of all places. The first was Helvetica, a documentary about a typeface (used here if you have it installed) that graphic designers will get a real kick out of. The other, Chalk, a fun little mockumentary about grade school teachers, a la lower budget Christopher Guest. Both are worth your time.
Time to start Deadwood now. (Unless Will is a liar and it sucks.)
Manny Sucks January 24th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Deadwood took me about four or five episodes to really get into it because with all of the violence it really is kind of a downer. I learned to love the characters towards the end of the first season though.
John January 25th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I see what you mean. One hour in and we’re already feeding dead people to pigs under cover of darkness? That crazy Wild West…
todd January 25th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I love “Watch Instantly”. I’ve been working my way through Red Dwarf again. I did see Helvetica was available and it’s on my list. They need a separate queue or play list for the instant stuff. There are things I’d like to see but don’t have a couple of hours right now, and I’ll never find it again.
Also check out AOL: http://www.in2tv.com/ (annoying quirky bugs in the flash player coding) and Hulu http://www.hulu.com (solid performance, but you have to sign up).
John January 25th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I totally agree on the second queue. I know that you can look through the Watch Instantly list based on things that are in your queue, but then once you watch them online, you have to find and delete them manually out… It’s a pain in the ass.
AOL looks a tad too old-school ridiculous for me, but I put in my email address for the Hulu beta. See how that goes, can’t be any worse than TVTonic. (Ugh.)
todd January 25th, 2008 at 9:43 am
A demo of Hulu (it’s also embeddable):
http://www.southend.org/St+Elsewhere
AOL doesn’t always work that well, but they have the Warner Bros. catalog that no one else does (e.g. Man from UNCLE). Once you maximize the screen, it’s okay. The problem is they haven’t figured out how to incorporate the ads into the show and it always manages to screw up there. But both Hulu and AOL are flash players, so there’s no DRM and nothing to install.
John January 25th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Neat. Maybe one day they’ll let me play too.
John January 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Here’s a weird one. I’m looking at my Recently Viewed list on Netflix, and Chalk is now listed as Unavailable for Watch Instantly.
“Some instant watching titles are available for limited time periods. As a result, you may see titles that are no longer available for watching listed as ‘unavailable’ in your instant watching history.”
If they’re going to offer and then rescind titles, that could end up becoming a real pain.
Manny Sucks January 25th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Crap. I only got a half hour into Chalk last week. I was going to finish it this weekend.