Cordkillers 274 - Plex-ibility
How to watch your shows while traveling. Plus, a trailer for Mulan, Quibi gets BBC money, and Hulu gets a "yada yada yada" button. All this and more on Cordkillers!
Next week on It's Spoilerin' Time: Chernobyl (105) and Extras (104).
CordKillers: 274 - Plex-ibility
Recorded: July 8 2019
Guest: None
Intro Video
Amazon's All or Nothing, The Carolina Panthers
Primary Target
Watching your shows while traveling
- Tom tried Delta's new high-speed tier that lets you watch Netflix and HBO. $10 for an hour or $34 for the 4 hour flight
- Watching HBO in a Canadian airport
- Other geoblocking issues
- Downloading shows in advance (Starz never expires their videos)
- What screen should you bring?
- Why Tom will still watched an on-demand movie rom the plane's internal system (spoiler: battery)
How to Watch
Hulu has added a shuffle option to Seinfeld on Hulu. The button is labeled Yada Yada Yada. It starts a playlist of 180 episodes in random order.
What to Watch
The First Mulan Trailer Teases a Sweeping Warrior's Adventure
-The first trailer for the live-action Mulan is out and it looks like a serious Mulan legend retelling more than a remake of the animated movie. There's no dragon and no songs (yet). Mulan comes to theaters March 27
Disney Has Found Its Ariel for the Live-Action Little Mermaid
-The Little Mermaid "live" remake has cast Halle Bailey as Ariel. She's one half of the sister duo Chloe x Halle and co-star on Grown-ish. This remake will most definitely include songs. More casting coming but the odds are on Melissa McCarthy as Ursula and Awkwafina voicing Scuttle.
Rian Johnson’s Star-Studded ‘Knives Out’ Trailer Debuts
- The trailer for Rian Johnson's Whodunnit movie "Knives Out" hit theaters ahead of Spider-man. Daniel Craig and Lakeith Stanfield play detectives investigating the murder of an 85-year-old man played by Christopher Plummer. Johnsons describes the movie as Alfred Hitchcock meets Agatha Christie. The movie also stars Toni Collette, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Katherine Langford and Jaeden Martell. Coming November 27.
Amazon Prime Video Scores Landmark Soccer Doc Series ‘This Is Football’; Starbucks, Joe Roth, UK’s October Films & Spain’s Brutal Media To Produce
- Amazon Prime Video will run a six-part series on soccer called "This is Football" starting August 2. The documentary series is produced by former Disney and Fox chairman Joe Roth, coffee chain Starbucks, Barbarians Rising producer October Films and Spanish firm Brutal Media. This Is Football is written and co-created by journalist and author John Carlin.
In Disney's Latest Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Trailer, Love and Villainy Are in the Air
- A new trailer for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is out. Angelina Jolie is back challenged by a new character played by Michelle Pfeiffer. Basically Aurora wants to get married and Maleficent doesn't like it much. Coming October 18.
Eyes On
Brian: Pleasantville
Tom: Stranger Things, I Think You Should Leave
On the Lookout: The Casketeers
Front Lines
Netflix Sets Up UK Production Hub At Pinewood’s Shepperton Studios
- Netflix is setting up a production hub at Pinewood’s Shepperton Studios. A fantasy movie called The Old Guard with Charlize Theron and Chiwetel Ejiofor will be the first production there. Pinewood Group is opening 22 new sound stages to accommodate all he movie-making business it's been getting from Netflix and others.
This Chrome extension lets you disguise Netflix as a Hangout to slack off at work
- Mschf (pronounced Mischief) Internet Studios has published a Chrome extension called Netflix Hangouts. It puts what you're watching on Netflix in the lower right of four video boxes. The other three have fake conference call participants.
BBC Studios Becomes Latest Investor In Jeffrey Katzenberg & Meg Whitman’s Short-Form Digital Service Quibi
- Quibi keeps looking better on paper. BBC Studios is the latest investor in the company, joining Disney, Sony, Warner Bros, Viacom, MGM, eOne, Liberty Global, Alibaba and ITV. Last week BBC's Natural History Unit signed on to make a nature show for Quibi. Quibi plans to release video series in shorter chapters. So an episode might be 10 minutes or less and a whole series tally up at a couple hours
Disney TV Studios Eyes New Profit Participation Model As Industry Continues To Pull Away From Traditional Backend Deals
- Deadline reports that Disney TV Studios is floating a new compensation model for broadcast, cable, and TV series. Among the changes would be paying people, particularly talent, fixed cash amounts that vary based on how long a show runs, how it performs and how many awards it gets. There would be no profit participation on syndication, which often complicates digital distribution. This isn't new for digital series-- Amazon already does something like this-- but would be a big change for broadcast TV. Warner Bros TV is experimenting with a similar model.
Netflix says its originals will kick their smoking habit
- Netflix says it will no longer show characters smoking in TV-14 or PG-13 productions, except in cases of factual accuracy. It will also try to avoid showing smoking or e-cigarette use in adult-oriented projects, "unless it's essential to the creative vision of the artist or because it's character-defining (historically or culturally important)." The Truth Initiative says 12 of the 13 overall most popular TV shows among people aged 15-24 prominently feature smoking. Including Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Hulu's Gap Year.
MoviePass has shut down for ‘several weeks’ to update its app
- MoviePass shut down services to customers as of July 4th at 5am. According to CEO Mitch Lowe, the shut down will last several weeks to complete work on a new app. During this time, the service won't accept new sign ups or charge existing customers. Subscribers who have already paid for the month will be automatically credited for downtime once MoviePass resumes service.
Dispatches from the Front
Dear Cordkillers Hosts, Producer and Guest:
... I have been using Locast since February, when it became available in the Washington D.C. market. While I'm in that market, I'm unable to receive any over-the-air television signal because of geographic barriers. Years ago, my local cable company started charging a 'local surcharge' to bring me the Washington network affiliates, [I use] DirecTv Now ..however, I missed PBS and CW because neither are carried by DirecTV Now in Washington. Locast brings me those and more.
It took Locast about several months to get fully up to speed. Now that most of the startup and ISP issues are worked out I'm very pleased to give them $5 a month donation for bringing me OTA television.
Just this past week, I learned of FitzyTv, an application / service that serves as a wrap around / aggregator application and DVR service. This allows me to record Locast for later viewing, It is not perfect, but I can say it is as good as (if not better than) the beta DVR DirecTv Now provides. FitzyTV is $5 a month for 25 hours of video recording and larger plans are available at FitzyTV.com. ...Currently, FitzyTv is only available for Fire TV and Andriod mobile (compatible with Chromecast), and they promise an iOS application soon. ...
Cheers from Western Maryland.
- Howard
Hey guys,
Thought I chipped in with movie the cinema discussion. I'm 29 years old and a millennial/Generation Y. But I really really love going to the cinema.
I pretty much agreed with everything your guest said. I just love the communal experience of watching the movies in addition. This is especially true for movies with a lot of comedy in it, where the laughter of the audience has amplified the experience of watching. I would say the effect is similar to how laugh tracks works in some sitcoms, where they create a psychological.
Around 2 years ago, there was a movie I went and watched 25 times in the cinema (I'm not exaggerating, thats the actual number). What I found was that ignoring for personal variables like already knowing the plot, the crowd played a huge role in my enjoyment of each watch. The movie has some comedic elements in it, but nothing that is too out of the ordinary for a non comedic. Yet the reactions of the audience and knowing how invested they are in the plot plays a huge role in my enjoyment, IE there's a huge correlation between the number of audience and type of audience and my enjoyment.
But most damning is that I can never recreation the experience at home. Some of my most favorite movies ever, when I rewatch them at home, theres not the same effect. And I said earlier, I can enjoy rewatches with no issues if I have a good crowd.
I watched Men In Black International with a full house hall last week and that movie was both great and hillairous. Everyone was laughing for most of the movie at the jokes (that movie was harshly reviewed IMO, but neither here or there).
I also agree with your guest about how dedicated the movie watching experience is. There are no disruptions, no pause or rewind button. It is also hard to drop, because you paid for the experience for that one view and everything is dedicated to that, you tend to be more focused.
Because of this I don't think I'll ever be onboard with Brian's karaoke booth cineplex experience. Sure dedicated focus is important but its the combination of factors as exolaines by your guest that makes it.
Can cinemea experince be negative? Yeah, loud noisy kids will do that, so will a really bad boring movie, and the effectiveness of the type of movie. But I think cinema will always be the best movie experience. So go Steven Spielberg!
And get off my lawn!
- Yaru
Hello again, Bryce, Tom, and Bryan,
I thought Brian's metaphor of movies (and other media) as various mechanisms to download stories into our brains was spectacular. In General Semantics, the epistemological discipline created by Alfred Habdank Korzybski which teaches us non-aristotelean, non-euclician, and non-netonion modes of thought, one of the main points involves realizing that the map is not the territory. Brian's clever separation of the
""map"" of movies from the ""territory"" of stories was masterful.
- Steve
Thanks to Tom for the rendition of O Canada on the most recent After Talk on Canada Day. I won't knit pick (but I guess by writing this I am by definition knit picking) that we recently changed our lyrics to be gender neutral. It still throws me when I sing it or hear it sung.
True patriot love in all our sons command
Has changed to:
True patriot love in all of us command
As a publicly stated monarchist, Tom you might be interested in an recent episode of The Big Story (Frequency Network) podcast entitled "When the Queen dies, what happens next?". It was a good general discussion on what happens once the inevitable happens to the Queen who for most of the planet and roughly 85% of Canadians is the only Monarch they have ever known.
- Tim
Hello Tom, Brian, Bryce (and guest???). In the past many have extolled the virtue of the local library for various digital content - books, audiobooks, newspapers, movies, and even music. I noticed today in my local library’s monthly update email that they I can access Acorn TV through their website. I’m not sure if this is new, or has been around for a while, but while I might not want to shell out the monthly $ for Acorn, if I can access the content for free then I might be willing to give it a look.
If you haven’t checked out your local library for streaming content, I recommend taking a look.
Your boss,
- Mike
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