FilmStruck

[michaelladisch]

So far, I have not been very impressed with Filmstruck. I have been using it for about 2 weeks now through our Roku. The streaming quality is not very good (watching it on our 55" Plasma TV) most of the time, and it is difficult to find stuff. You can't do a search by director or year. You also can't search by Criterion release number in the Criterion Collection section. I'm not sure how good the app is on the AppleTV, but the app on the Roku just seems very buggy. I realize that Filmstruck is a new venture, and Netflix had it's issues when it first started too. But it seems like Filmstruck is starting from a vantage point where streaming is a new concept or technology or something. We are new to all this streaming stuff (we got our first Roku about 6 months ago), so maybe we have unrealistic expectations. However, both of our Netflix and HBOGO apps work great and we have never experienced problems navigating through their apps or with their picture quality. When we signed up for Filmstruck, I was under the impression that I may never have to buy another Criterion release on Bluray again... but it seems like this will not be the case. The picture quality of a Criterion Bluray disc looks better than any streaming Criterion movie we have seen so far. Oh well...

FilmStruck is my favorite streaming service and though there is always room for improvement, I'm very happy with it.
Just a few thoughts:
Actually, you can search by director, cast or year. I just typed in Mifune and then Chabrol - got all their films available on FilmStruck and/or Criterion Channel; searched for 1936 - got all films they have from this year.
I use Apple TV and it streams fine. Quality might depend on your internet speed. I also have Apple TV directly wired to my modem because using wi-fi can lower the quality if the signal is not strong enough.
Having said that, I noticed that when I use FilmStruck on my laptop in a place with weak wi-fi (hotels for example), the streaming can be choppy. Then I would watch a movie on Prime or Netflix which usually work better. Yes, please improve, FilmStruck.
Picture quality on my smaller 50" TV is pretty good when the film is in HD. Note that not all films are in HD and some are indeed in very bad shape. But this is due to the available copies I guess and not FilmStruck's fault.
FilmStruck has only a selection of Criterion films on streaming at any given time. If you want to see more CC titles you should extend the subscription to the Criterion Channel. Most film that were released on disc have also the extras available for streaming. But there are some CC disc releases that are not on the Criterion Channel. It is probably a licensing issue.

At the end of the day the satisfaction with such a service depends on what you are using it for. I'm watching German silent films and NY Independent Cinema as well as Japanese New Wave and Classic Hollywood. So, I'm not worried that I'll run out of films in the foreseeable future.

[D50]

commentary added to La ronde
2 supplements added to I Married a Witch

[D50]

commentary and 2 supplements added to Grand Illusion

[D50]

Criterion Channel:

Young and Innocent

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

As well as new Godard, Fellini and Wong Kar-wai

The Wong isn't a surprise but they're also adding some of the non-WKW Jet Tone titles. The Eagle Shooting Heroes and Chinese Odyssey 2002 were previously with Kino but I don't think Miao Miao (a slight film distinguished by William Chang's art direction and a rather weird Sandrine Pinna performance) has ever had U.S. distribution before. Perhaps they got all of the undistributed Jet Tone productions, in which case we might see them add Joe Ma's Sound of Colors and Eric Kot's wackazoid WKW parody/pastiche First Love: The Litter on the Breeze. (Artificial Eye released Chris Doyle's Away with Words in the UK as part of their "Wong Kar Wai Jet Tone Collection," but as far as I can tell neither Wong nor Jet Tone were actually involved with it.)

[D50]

Criterion Channel:

commentary and 2 supplements added to Grand Illusion

[Ribs]

Non-Criterion:

Dirty Cops
The Usual Suspects
Insomnia (1997)
Shoot First, Die Later
Flic ou Voyou
Brave Men's Blood

Directed by Robert Altman
The Long Goodbye
The Player
The Delinquents
Buffalo Bill and the Indians...
Secret Honor
Vincent and Theo

Early Otto
Laura
Daisy Kenyon
Fallen Angel
A Royal Scandal
Forever Amber

Starring Franco Citti
Accattone
Mamma Roma
Black Jesus
Kill Them All and Come Back Alone

The switch to updates being on Friday night probably happened some time ago but I've only just realized this at least means the expiration dates should actually be right now.

[michaelladisch]

I'm keeping a list of collections in FilmStruck where I can see when films were added, when they expire and, most important of course, which one I have seen or want to see. I can trace it back to the Chahine Collection (added 12/9/17, expired 6/8/17), but I don't have some of the collections from before on my list, especially the ones available when FilmStruck was launched.
Now I wonder if there are other people as nerdy as me, who could let me know what the first collections were. I easily remember Fritz Lang and John Ford in the 1930 as well as The Beauty of Italy or the Arturo Epstein films. But then there was a collection about elections, one about artists (with three Van Gogh bio pics) and a bunch of movies about food; and I don't recall all the films that were in there.
Any help would be appreciated.

[Oxidized]

I didn't include start date, end date or banner name when I started my spreadsheets, so this is pieced together by memory and a bit of help from IMDB, but:

Written by Horton Foote:
1918, Courtship, On Valentine's Day, The Trip to Bountiful, Tomorrow

Music on Film:
Wattstax, Woodstock, Don't Look Back, Monterey Pop, Gimme Shelter, Louie Bluie

Animation for Adults:
Alice, Belladonna of Sadness, Book of the Dead, Fantastic Planet, Fire and Ice, Heavy Metal, Persepolis, Watership Down

Artists (I can't remember the exact name of the banner):
Basquiat, Andrei Rublev, Lust for Life, Van Gogh, My Left Foot, Mystery of Picasso, Pollock, Vincent and Theo, Goya's Ghosts, Imber's Left Hand, Rembrandt, La Main du Diable, Moulin Rouge (not sure about the last 2)

Food on Film
Babette's Feast, Eat Drink Man Woman, Famous Nathan, Finding Gaston. Seems like there were more under this banner...?

I'll ponder some more.

[flyonthewall2983]

Is the director's cut of Betty Blue better than the original?

[MichaelB]

If you prefer Jean-Hugues Anglade to the insufferable Béatrice Dalle, yes, absolutely.

Although I'd prefer a different two-hour cut that reduces her involvement to the absolute minimum: watching the three-hour version, I was thoroughly enjoying the new material but constantly going "oh shit, I'm going to have to sit through another five or ten minutes of histrionics, aren't I?" whenever something familiar came into view.

[domino harvey]

Her Wikipedia entry took me on a wild ride

Interviewed on the French TV programme Divan in 2016, Dalle said that, when she used to work in a morgue, she and friends sold body parts of corpses. She also admitted that, while on acid, she once ate a dead man's ear.

[DarkImbecile]

Her Wikipedia entry took me on a wild ride

Interviewed on the French TV programme Divan in 2016, Dalle said that, when she used to work in a morgue, she and friends sold body parts of corpses. She also admitted that, while on acid, she once ate a dead man's ear.

[michaelladisch]

[quote="Oxidized"]I didn't include start date, end date or banner name when I started my spreadsheets, so this is pieced together by memory and a bit of help from IMDB, but:

Great! Thanks!
I did some "detective" work (looking at FilmStruck Blog, search for FilmStruck images on Google) and came up with quite a few more collections that were available at launch or shortly after:

Food on Film was actually called Food for Thought - it included in addition to the ones you listed; The Bakery Girl of Monceau; My Dinner with Andre; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; Chocolat; Mostly Martha, Tortilla Soup
The artists collection was called Strokes of Genius.

Other collections were:
The Masters: Akira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, Chantal Akerman, Charlie Chaplin, Francois Truffaut, Michaelangelo Antonioni
Icons: Marcello Mastroianni, Ingrid Bergman, Yves Montant
Cinema Passport: Australia, Spain, Israel, U.S.S.R.
Directed by: Guy Maddin, John Cassavetes, Pedro Almodovar, Arturo Epstein, Mike Leigh, Kevin Smith, Jane Campion, Bernardo Bertolucci, Takeshi Kitano, David Mamet
Deals with the Devil
War and Peace (the Bondarchuk epic)
Starring Paul Robeson (everything form the Criterion box set)
Music by Michel Legrand
Sun Tribe Films
British New Wave
Early Kubrick
Cinematography by Henri Alekan
John Ford in the 1930s
Starring Glenda Jackson
Made for the UN
Neo Noir
Seventeen Moments of Spring (Soviet TV series - was really good)
French Poetic Realism
Pedro Costa's Fontainhas Trilogy
Starring Sabu
Visions of Cuba
The Beauty of Italy
Native People, Native Lands
Serious Allen (Woody Allen)
Mark Donskoy's Gorky Trilogy
The City of Love (films about Paris)
Movies about Movies (not sure about the collection title)
Music on Film (not sure about the collection title, concert films and music documentaries)
Growing Pains (not sure about the collection title, coming-of-age films)
Mothers and Daughters (not sure about the collection title)
Morris Engel/Ruth Orkin films (not sure about the collection title)
Existentialism in Film
Political Documentaries
Banned in the USA
The Good War Revisited
Love for Sale
Elections (not sure about the collection title)

Did I miss anything? In most cases I have also the list of films that were included in the collection (and happy to provide), but for some, especially the last 10, I don't)

[D50]

First Man Into Space (MGM opening) + commentary and 3 supllements

[D50]

Criterion Channel adds:

What Did the Lady Forget?
Sincere Heart
The Princess Yang Kwei Fei
The Third Shadow Warrior
The Graduate + 10 supplements - it's there, but the film won't play, nor any of the supplements

[Ribs]

New non-Criterion additions:

King Vidor (!!!)
The Big Parade
Bardelys the Magnificent
Stella Dallas
The Crowd
Cynara
The Wedding Night
The Fountainhead

Scores by Dave Grusin
The Graduate
On Golden Pond
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Heaven Can Wait (1978)

Icons: Alain Delon
Le Samourai
Rocco and His Brothers
Purple Noon
Spirits of the Dead
Chrstine
L'Eclisse
Farewell, Friend
Le Cercle Rouge
Un Flic
Deux hommes dans la vile
Swann in Love

[dustybooks]

I had to break out my VHS copy of The Crowd in order to rewatch it just a few months ago. I know it's a long shot but I hope this bodes well for an actual physical release of it. Either way, so thrilled this is finally accessible enough for me to recommend it to people.

[Omensetter]

Those are...substantial additions that have definitely altered my weekend viewing. I've been waiting for years to see some of those Vidor films.

Also: Rocco and his Brothers. I have no idea when Milestone plans to release this, if there'll even be a DVD, etc., but the restoration looks predictably great and is definitely tonight's viewing.

[D50]

Criterion Channel adds:

Samurai Saga
Ornamental Hairpin

[jtarvainen]

I find it interesting that the Yakuza Papers series is now on Filmstruck. I wonder if this means that they've struck some sort of licensing deal with Arrow?

[Ashirg]

Streaming rights maybe with another studio - maybe with original Toei...

[Ribs]

Nope, Arrow's got US digital rights as well (it's on Prime as part of their streaming deal, along with most Arrow US titles).

[D50]

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff added to the Criterion Channel, with 1 supplement, Painting with Light.

EDIT

also the Tuesday short: Asparagus

[miless]

not sure if there's a way to search filmstruck without subscribing (I've been trying but haven't found a way yet), so I'm just going to ask: is Bresson's Lancelot du Lac on the site?
if not, is it streaming anywhere?