Warner Brothers are destroying film history.

Film  It's Warner Brothers 100th anniversary so I decided to celebrate by watching a selection of films from this grand old studio.  Except with over three thousand titles to choose from, or at least a quarter of that available on home media or streaming, I needed to find a limit.  I needed to find a list.  

In 2013, Warner Home Video released the "Best of Warner Bros 100 Film Collection" which looks suitably impressive from the list available on Amazon and although I've seen a few of them recently would offer enough ideas to work through over the next couple of months.

Except, I very quickly began to notice some discrepancies in that Gone With The Wind,  Citizen Kane and Seven certainly weren't originally Warner Bros films, hailing from MGM, RKO and New Line respectively.  What's going on?

Over the years, through a series of complicated purchases, mergers and licensing deals, Warners has acquired the film libraries of those studios plus dozens more including the pre-1982 Orion Pictures library, Lorimar productions, United Artists and post-1987 Cannon films.

In other words what they claim on the box to be the "Best of Warner Bros" is actually the "best" of Warners, MGM, RKO and a few others.  Here is a break down of the films in the set by the originating film studio:

Best of Warner Bros

Warner Bros. Pictures (59) 300, 42nd Street, A Clockwork Orange, A Face in the Crowd, A Star is Born, All the President's Men, Batman, Blazing Saddles, Bullitt, Caddyshack, Casablanca, Cool Hand Luke, Dark Victory, Dirty Harry, Dog Day Afternoon, Driving Miss Daisy, East of Eden, Enter the Dragon, Full Metal Jacket, Giant, Goodfellas, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Interview With the Vampire, L.A. Confidential, Lethal Weapon, Mildred Pierce, Million Dollar Baby, National Lampoon's Vacation, Natural Born Killers, Rebel Without a Cause, Risky Business, Sherlock Holmes, Superman: The Movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Big Sleep, The Blind Side, The Bodyguard, The Color Purple, The Dark Knight, The Departed, The Exorcist, The Fugitive, The Goonies, The Hangover, The Jazz Singer, The Life of Emile Zola, The Maltese Falcon, The Matrix, The Outsiders, The Public Enemy, The Right Stuff, The Searchers, The Shining, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Wild Bunch, Unforgiven, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (24) Broadway Melody of 1929, Grand Hotel, Mutiny on the Bounty, A Night at the Opera, The Great Ziegfeld, Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, The Philadelphia Story, Mrs. Miniver, Gaslight, Anchors Aweigh, An American in Paris, A Streetcar Named Desire, Singin' in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Gigi, North by Northwest, How the West Was Won, Viva Las Vegas, Doctor Zhivago, The Dirty Dozen, 2001: a Space Odyssey and Clash of the Titans.

New Line Cinema (4) Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King and Seven.

RKO Pictures (3) Best Years of Our Lives, Cimarron and Citizen Kane.

United Artists  Around the World in 80 Days and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Paramount Pictures Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Allied Artists Cabaret

Allied Stars Ltd / 20th Century Fox Chariots of Fire (Note: Distributed in the US by WB through The Ladd Company)

Orion Pictures   Amadeus

Columbia Pictures The Shawshank Redemption

A few notes.  The studio now owns New Line but when those films were produced it was a separate company.  Warners acquired Willa Wonka and Shawshank when the distribution rights lapsed at those originating financing companies.  

Nevertheless, of the 100 films in the set, only 59 are full blood Warner Brothers films.  The rest originated with other studios.  If you were someone who's not really interested in such things, this was excellent value with a great number of canonical films included.

Why does this matter?  Because it erases film history.  Warner Bros now owns the film libraries of two of its rivals in the original "big five", MGM and RKO and in this set are acting like the victors in many similar conflicts and passing those assets off as their own.

It would be like Disney producing a boxed set celebrating their hundred years and including the Fox musicals from the 1950s, Planet of the Apes, The French Connection and Independence Day.  Except they keep everything separate.  When Heat was released on 4K last year, the Fox logo was on the spine.

That was at the 90th anniversary.  What about ten years later?  Warners have release a number of boxed sets in various configurations and I've itemised those too.  Although the results are somewhat better - different Warner titles have been introduced, some are still hanging around.

There are fifteen films included the three "5 film collection" released in the UK.  Here they are amalgamated together:

5 Film Collection

Warner Brothers (10) Casablanca, Rebel Without A Cause, The Goonies, Gremlins, Enter The Dragon, The Lost Boys, Goodfellas, Unforgiven, Elvis and Training Day.

MGM The Wizard of Oz and Singin in the Rain.

RKO Citizen Kane

Paramount Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Columbia The Shawshank Redemption (Columbia)

There is also a 30 film collection, "100th Anniversary Studio Collection" which promotes itself as being the first time many of these titles have appeared in 4K

100th Anniversary Studio Collection

Warner Bros. Pictures (23)  A Star is Born, Argo, Batman, Beetlejuice, Blade Runner, Casablanca, Cool Hand Luke, East of Eden, Elvis, Enter the Dragon, Goodfellas, IT, Mad Max: Fury Road, Rebel Without a Cause, Rio Bravo, Superman: The Movie, The Exorcist, The Goonies, The Maltese Falcon, The Matrix, The Shining, Training Day, Unforgiven,

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (4) 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Singin’ in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz.

RKO Pictures Citizen Kane

Paramount Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

Columbia Pictures The Shawshank Redemption

Now the big kahoona, this anniversary's equivalent of the 100 DVD boxset, four sets of 25 films separated across "genres" - Award Winners, Comedies, Dramas & Musicals, Fantasy, Action & Adventure and Thrillers, Sci-Fi & Horror.

WB 100th 25-Film Collection

Warner Bros (74) 300, A Clockwork Orange, A Star is Born, A Streetcar Named Desire (the Original Restored Version), All the President's Men, Annabelle, Aquaman, Argo, Batman, Birds of Prey, Black Adam, Blade Runner: the Final Cut, Bonnie and Clyde, Bullitt, Casablanca, Constantine, Cool Hand Luke, Crazy Rich Asians, Dune, Empire of the Sun, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Full Metal Jacket, Goodfellas, Gravity, Gremlins, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Her, Inception, Interview With the Vampire, Invictus, It, Joker, Judas and the Black Messiah, Justice League, Key Largo, Lethal Weapon, Little Shop of Horrors, Man of Steel, Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Natural Born Killers (the Director’s Cut), Ocean's Eleven, Pan's Labyrinth, Practical Magic, Purple Rain, Rebel Without a Cause, Risky Business, Selena, Shazam!, Supergirl *, Superman: The Movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Bodyguard, The Color Purple, The Conjuring, The Dark Knight, The Departed, The Exorcist (Extended Director’s Cut), The Goonies, The Green Mile, The Hangover, The Iron Giant, The Maltese Falcon, The Matrix, The Neverending Story, The Outsiders (the Complete Novel), The Shining, The Suicide Squad, Twister, Unforgiven, V for Vendetta, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Wonder Woman.

MGM (11)  2001: A Space Odyssey, 42nd Street, A Star is Born, Ben-Hur, Children of the Damned, Doctor Zhivago, Grand Hotel, Mrs. Miniver, Mutiny on the Bounty, Singin' in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz.

United Artists  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

New Line Cinema (10)  A Nightmare on Elm Street, Boogie Nights, Dumb and Dumber, Elf, Friday, Hairspray, The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King and Seven.

RKO  Citizen Kane and King Kong

Columbia Pictures  The Shawshank Redemption

* Although Supergirl was produced by Warner Bros, the Salkinds fell out with them after the underperformance of Superman III and they ultimately gave the distribution rights to Tri-Star.

As you can see, this isn't as negligent as 2013 list,  although it leans heavily on recent releases, particularly from the DCU.  Including Dune in there, which is effectively half a film is pretty ridiculous and either of the Justice Leagues are noticeable by their absence. 

But they're still pretending they originated the Lord of the Ring films, and King Kong now too.  The whole thing seems based on the premise of having a bunch of good films even if it doesn't accurately represent the history of the Warner Brothers studio.

None of which would matter if the text on the box didn't include the phrase "join us in celebrating 100 years of Warner Bros" which should more accurately says "join us in celebrating 100 years of Warner Bros along with the other film libraries we've acquired".

With everything which is happening at the company right now, film history seems like its the least of their worries.  I'd be fascinated to know how the accompanying booklet squares all of this, although I'm not prepared to shell out the hundreds of pounds to find out.

Lovefilm RIP.

Film In case you were wondering this gap between blog posts is because I'm having something of a life laundry, deciding which books I really want to keep and reorganising my dvd collection.

 Sidebar: I'm ditching the chronological approach to classification by the date in which everything is set in favour of alphabetical order so I might have have chance of finding a film without having to consult a bloody database.

 Yes, I did spend a lot of time curating that database and yes, I wish I could tell the younger version of me to watch more of the them rather than many the many minutes it took trying decide whether a particular western was set at the beginning or end of the 1880s. But I'm through the tunnel and out the other side.

This interruption to my sorting schedule, is to mark some time. This morning Amazon sent its loyal Lovefilm by Post users an email advising that the service is to close on the 31st October this year. Happy birthday to me.

As you know, other than for a brief gap last year, I've been receiving discs from some version of this company since 2002, over fifteen years, starting with ScreenSelect then to Lovefilm when they merged and finally on Amazon's website.

Honestly, I knew this would be happening soonish. Streaming has entered primacy, with physical sales of films dropping massively and even blu-rays showing signs of serious discounting.

Which isn't to say I wasn't pretty devastated. The key reason why I returned to the service was because if you're interested in something other than the newest releases or the popular canon the available catalogue on subscription streaming is a joke and I can't really afford to pay for everything separately.

But it turns out there's a further option, the cutely named Cinema Paradiso, whose website has some of the old school charm of ScreenSelect and also seems to have titles that Amazon doesn't even have in their database yet (and now we know why).

So I'll be migrating over there and see what happens.  If it's rubbish, I haven't lost anything.  But for all they say that they're not closing and investing in new titles, I suspect I'm putting off the inevitable.  We'll see.

Now, back the book mountain.  We'll speak again soon.

Screen Select Lives!

Film As you know, I recently signed again with Lovefilm-by-post having become tired with the tedious wait for the few films I actually want to see to be uploaded to one of the streaming services (as opposed to those entertainments which I'll watch because they're there). Surprisingly they'd retained my previously viewed items from the six months before back to 200 titles.

I've always been slightly cheesed off about brevity of that list. Back when Lovefilm had its own website and before that ScreenSelect, it was possible to look backwards right through the archive, be able to check if you'd seen a title before. Now, it seemed, anything before 200 was dropping off, just a year or two going backwards.

Well. Idling online late the other night, I was startled to discover that the entire archive is still there. Amazon still retains the entire list of everything I've watched either via shiny disc or streaming right back to 2004, albeit in their own format.

For the three people reading this for whom it'll be of interest, here's how I found it.

 At the top of the page under the search box it a link for "Stuart's Amazon" replacing my name with yours. Click this.

Now you'll see a link for "Improve Your Recommendations". Click that too.

Log-in. That brings a page which defaults to items you've purchased. To the left there's a link called "Videos you've watched". Click that.

You'll now see a list of all the discs you've had by post and watched through Amazon Prime in reverse chronological order.

This is where is gets a bit tricky. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see a yellow "next" button with 1-15 to the left. Click that.

At this point I assumed that this would just take me backwards through the two hundred. But I was wrong.  It went even further.

 Now, look up at the address bar. You might need to scroll a bit but it should contain something like the following text:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/yourstore/iyr/ref=pd_ys_iyr_next?ie=UTF8&collection=watched&iyrGroup=&maxItem=30&minItem=16

As you can see at the end, there are instructions to tell the website which section of the dvd list the show, fifteen items, in this case items 16 to 30. This is the tricky part.

Feeling myself backwards, I first tried to look at the page with items 185 to 200. So I changed the numbers thusly:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/yourstore/iyr/ref=pd_ys_iyr_next?ie=UTF8&collection=watched&iyrGroup=&maxItem=200&minItem=185

That worked. So decided to go further.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/yourstore/iyr/ref=pd_ys_iyr_next?ie=UTF8&collection=watched&iyrGroup=&maxItem=2000&minItem=1985

And was amazed to find a series of items from the Lovefilm era, from Michael Clayton to Spider-Man 3. How far backwards did this go?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/yourstore/iyr/ref=pd_ys_iyr_next?ie=UTF8&collection=watched&iyrGroup=&maxItem=3000&minItem=2985

Produced a blank page indicating I hadn't watched anything, so I began working backwards in 50 item intervals until, magically I reached:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/yourstore/iyr/ref=pd_ys_iyr_next?ie=UTF8&collection=watched&iyrGroup=&maxItem=2604&minItem=2590

And the start of my viewing list, right back in 2004, the ScreenSelect days with the "previous" button at the bottom of the list allowing me to go forward in time.  A record of my dvd viewing for the past decade and a half, beginning with my French New Wave obsession.

There they were, the first discs I ever rented, Keanu Reeves actioner Chain Reaction, The China Syndrome and anthology series "Perfect Crimes" with its episode by Steven Soderbergh.

Much of this first year is recorded already on this blog in the ultra tedious Review 2004, but everything after that is like a diary of my viewing tastes which have always been eclectic and reminded me that back then I was just as likely to watch something archival or back catalogue as something new.

That's something I'm trying again.  To be continued.

Hello again, LOVEFiLM.

Film Back in March, you'll remember with all your long memories, that I cancelled my Lovefilm account after twelve years and wrote inevitably about this big moment here and here with dates and solemn recording of the final films I received and the implications this has on the future of consumer entertainment. I said:

"The combined catalogues of Lovefilm, Amazon Prime and NowTV amounts to over six thousand items and even taking into account the dross and Disney repetition, that should be more than enough films and television installments to keep me busy especially with their rolling catalogues. Yes, I'll have to wait three to six months or longer after the shiny disc release to see some films, but at this point I barely pay attention to release dates anyway."

All of which is true.  But the intervening six months, the following became apparent:

(1) Those extra three to six months can be interminable if it is a film you'd actually quite like to see and didn't manage to catch at the cinema

(2) It's sometimes even longer because you're also at the whim of when the streaming service decides to upload the film based on metrics and marketing. Items aren't uploaded as soon as the streaming window is closed. Sometimes they'll wait until the end of a month or even the following month. In the case of NowTV, because television is the primary outlet for the films they'll save some of the big ticket items for a national holiday or some other reason why people will be in the house at a weekend.

(3) Six thousand items seems like a lot, but it's not plenty. There are massive gaps, especially in the independent and world cinema areas to a degree I simply hadn't noticed or realised until that was all gone.  I'd glancing longing through Sight and Sound Magazine at everything that would not be there.  Not to mention when a film has been recommended online, in print, broadcast or by a friend but it's not in any of the streaming services or at least without paying extra.

(4)  Adding MUBI didn't help.  MUBI now and then has films which are still at cinemas or will have a rare film like Downhill Racer which hasn't had a UK dvd release but it's useless to anyone who already has a decent dvd collection and/or access to any of the other streaming services.  Their selection this past week has been The Odd Couple, Petty Persuasion, IF..., The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Munich, Great Expectations and The Parallax View.  All fine films but not quite what I was expected when I signed up for my year's subscription.  I mean it's fine -- if I manage to watch two or three of their films per month -- the stuff which isn't available elsewhere, I'm probably getting my money's worth but it's no substitute for Lovefilm.

(5) I missed the randomness, of having the decision as to which film I'd watch next taken out of my hands. Sometimes this became a reality:



With so much to watch, you really don't know what to watch next.

(6)  There's a huge difference between temporarily being able to access films due to licensing windows and just sort of having nearly of them there, albeit via the postal service.  Despite NewOn existing in the work keeping track of when a film was leaving and managing to watch it in time felt like real work.  Now if it drops off, I can simply add it to my Lovefilm list.

(7)  Of course, I'm also now back to making sure that I don't have items in my Lovefilm list that are currently available to see stream  and seeking out items which are Netflix/Amazon/MUBI exclusives to watch first.  Cameron Crowe's Aloha is on Netflix but hasn't had a UK dvd release.  Alex Gibney's Going Clear is only on Now TV.  But that bit of admin is a small price to pay. (updated: after writing that I decided to add them anyway - I simply can't be fussed with the admin)

This week I've worked through Knights of Cups, Room, Bridge of Spies and The Hateful Eight, finally and can't wait to see what'll be sent from my list next.

Findable.

Film Oh hello, Findable.TV.

One of the inherent problems with subscribing to three different streaming services, Amazon Prime, Netflix and the Faustian pact with the Devil, is that if you want to see if a particular film is there you have search all three sites separately and if it's not there then head off into the forest of pay services hoping for the best.

Oh hello Findable.TV, which searches all the services together then tells you where something is available and for how much. Not just subscription services, but the catch-up apps for terrestrial television and all of the rental and purchase options.

If only I'd had this at my disposable when I was searching for source for the items on the 1001 Films list.

It's not perfect. Brooklyn isn't listed yet despite being available on multiple services. Throwing my favourite five at it, Findable also doesn't notice that The Seventh Seal is available for rent at Amazon but was able to tell me that In The Bleak Midwinter is streamable from the ashes of BlinkBox.

But yes, wow [via].

Amazon Prime Studio, a list.

Film Almost this time last month, I wrote about how it was possible to find out which items a studio had available on Amazon Prime through the search box.

A month later I've realised I was overdoing a problem which Amazon had fixed themselves.

On this page it's possible to see all of the studios participating in their video on demand service.

Click each of those and it's possible to see all the films on offer from that studio.

From there you can also click to see what's available through Prime.

They don't have subscription streaming deals with all the studios (Netflix and NowTV and whoever having tied up the rights to others), but here's a list of everything on Prime by distributor, sorted by date added.

Disney

Entertainment One

Film Chest

High Fliers

Metrodome

MGM

Momentum Pictures

The Movie Partnership

MVP-Screen Media

NBC Universal

Twentieth Century Fox

Studio Canal

Warner Bros

WHE Orbital

As you can see some of them are actual studios and others are redistributors for other material.  Film Chest looks like old Hollywood stuff which has fallen out of copyright and the are classic home release distributors.

In terms of interest I'm not sure how useful this is other than as the digital equivalent of those booklets which fall out of dvds listing all the wares that studio has to offer and in at least being able to see which studios has done deals with for future reference.

The accuracy is interesting.  Hannibal is listed as the sole MGM release but is presumably here because Universal had the original UK domestic distribution rights.

Netflix sidebar:

Netflix is odd.  If you search for Disney or Netflix you get everything Disney or Netflix.  But search for Curzon or Artificial Eye or Paramount or any of the other studios whose content they have it treats it as a proper name.

Bye Bye Lovefilm.

Film This afternoon I cancelled my Lovefilm-by-post account, almost twelve years to the day from when I originally signed up for what was originally the ScreenSelect service on the 29th February 2004.

I've already written at length about the implications of this on the favourite film of 1960 post, with some facts and figures.

As I said there, being subscribed to three subscription streaming services and also having access to iPlayer and YouTube and Vimeo and ... simply made being sent dvds through the post seem gratuitous.

I need to get around to watching all those Netflix exclusives.  And Amazon Prime exclusives.  And whatever else there is on NowTV.

An update:

The last film I watched was as Osama, Siddiq Barmak's 2003 film about the implications Taliban rule in Afghanistan has for the life of a twelve year old girl. Often visually beautifully, it's also unremittingly grim but it seems fitting that my final hire should be something I wouldn't otherwise necessarily watch and is from a list (#1001films). I've worked my way through a fair number of lists of films I wouldn't necessarily watch across the years.

The final film I received was actually The Saragossa Manuscript but after belatedly looking at the duration and some reviews decided to send it back unwatched anyway. Which I've also done a fair few times over the years too.

None of which is to say I won't ever sign back up again. Popping the envelopes in a post box on my way to the supermarket wasn't much of an event. 

Nevertheless, It's going to be strange not receiving replacements.

For twelve years I've been in the rhythm of watching and posting these shiny discs, of almost always having post, and this is another activity which is going online.

On the upside I'll be able to choose what film I'm watching next in the evening.  On the downside I'll have to wait even longer for that film to be available to me (assuming I wait for it turn up on a subscription streaming service and don't simply rent a stream or some such).

Plus the danger is that I'll be more conservative with my choices and spend all my time watching Anna Kendrick films.

We'll see.

Amazon Prime Studio Search.

Film If you have Amazon Prime Video thingy, one of the slight annoyances is that you can't search for films via studio. Or so I thought.

Just typed StudioCanal into the search box at the top and sure enough here's everything on there from StudioCanal.

This seems to work for any studio. Here's Fox Searchlight. 20th Century Fox. Universal. Warners. Um, Film Chest. Content Film.

Why is this useful? Well, the licensing agreement with StudioCanal in particular means that there's plenty of European, notably French films which haven't had a theatrical release in the UK on the list featuring directors and stars which have had hits on our art house circuit.

But this is the more mainstream, genre fare which doesn't tend to be released here because it's less marketable than similar US material which won't be subtitled. The comedy trailered above starring Fanny Ardant for example has only otherwise been seen in France, Portugal, Greece and Hungary.

"Important changes to your LOVEFiLM By Post membership"

Film Uh-oh. With streaming in the ascendency particularly Netflix, I've been wondering just how long the Lovefilm outpost of the Amazon empire could survive and indeed how many people still use it.

So when I saw the subject line "Important changes to your LOVEFiLM By Post membership" on an email my heart sank to the inevitable that my ability to borrow silent films from the 1920s going to be curtailed and I'd finally be required to pay Murdoch money to watch newer television shows.

Happily it's not quite that but it's still a hit though interesting from a business perspective.

When Lovefilm was absorbed into the main body of the Amazon website and became an adjunct of Prime all but the unlimited per month offers were cancelled and the subscription charges split.  So whereas with Lovefilm I was paying £9.99 per month for two disc at home unlimited plus streaming, it became £4 for the discs and £6 for the streaming.

Realising I wasn't actually using the streaming, what with not having a decent app on my television I cancelled that pretty quickly which has meant for a couple of years I've been paying £4 per month to watch on average about fifteen discs a month.

Recently I signed back up to Prime after taking advantage of a special offer and so now the streaming's back and I have an Amazon Fire Stick so I can actually watch the odd thing if I want to but that's by the by.

Charging four pounds a month for that service was unsustainable and I imagine a lot of people will have done the same as me.  This must cost Amazon a lot of money, even taking into account people who subsequently signed up after the change and paid £7.99 per month for the same thing (£6.99 with Prime membership).

Now they've answered.  As the FAQ page about the change describes:

What are the new plans and prices going to be?
From February 2016, customers will be able to select from three membership plans: 2 rentals per month with 1 disc at home at £4.99 per month, 4 rentals per month with 1 disc at home at £8.99 per month (£7.99 alongside a Prime membership), or unlimited rentals with 2 discs at home at £11.99 per month (£9.99 alongside a Prime membership). If you would prefer to update your plan to one of these, you will be able to do this on your LOVEFiLM By Post membership page from February 2016.

Will I still get a discounted By Post package as a Prime customer?
Yes. Your LOVEFiLM By Post plan will be discounted whilst you also hold a Prime or monthly Prime Video membership. If you have an Unlimited rental membership, your plan will be discounted by £2.00 per month whilst you have a Prime or monthly Prime Video membership. If you have a light use plan with 4 disc rentals per month, your plan will be discounted by £1.00 per month with a Prime or monthly Prime Video membership.

The upshot at my end is that my charge is going back up to £9.99 per month thanks to having the £2 discount due to my Prime membership.

Even though that's a huge leap, I'm still keep subscribing.

In pricing terms it's an utter bargain when compared to actually having to buy films to watch them especially the older back catalogue titles.  Netflix and Amazon Prime function well as Blockbuster Video substitutes in supplying newer films but neither of those have a copy of Josef Von Sternberg's Dishonoured available, a film which hasn't been on terrestrial television since 1994 according to the BBC Genome.  A physical copy of this film which I'll probably only ever watch once is £6.18.

Psychologically, my approach is to think of it as paying for the past in the future, that having paid £4 per month for all this time and knowing full well that wasn't sustainable, I'm repaying a loan.  Or at the very least all of that postage.

Beyond that, what can this mean?

Well, first that Amazon aren't ready to leave the rental disc model just yet.  I can't think of another similar service now, not since Lovefilm went out and bought all of the competitors then was purchased by Amazon (always a bigger fish).  Blockbuster has gone too.

But the increase in price also suggests that there's a dwindling subscriber base and so it won't last forever which again is to be expected.  How long before dvds and blu-rays in and of themselves become scarce or films simply start skipping a physical release altogether?  That's already started with minor releases which haven't even seen the inside of a cinema.

I give it a year or two then ... don't know.  When the inevitably happens I won't suddenly have nothing to watch.  There's my own collection, Netflix and Amazon Prime albeit with the slightly long wait for films to go to stream.  If BFI Player+ gets its act together and actually has an app on more television platforms that looks like it could be fine.

Nevertheless, having used the service through its various iterations since 2004, it'll be a difficult habit to break.

Do they have those rights?

Film Because we all have our own addiction, because I can never have enough film, I'm still receiving shiny discs by post and maintain subscriptions to both Amazon Prime and Netflix. Something which is becoming an increasingly nefarious problem is navigating who has the rights to films from which companies, the reason being that all too often I've received a film by disc only to have it turn up on Netflix a week later (Frances Ha) which, now that I'm only receiving two discs at a time through the mail is a bit of a waste.

In an ideal world I'd simply cancel the dvds (finally!) but thanks to the segmentation of services and the Murdoch exclusivity problem, some films don't appear on other services at all or for at least a couple of years. Plus back catalogue is all over the place. After the Century of Chinese Cinema season, I'm planning to work my way through all of Bergman finally and not all of his work is available to stream. Studio Gibli doesn't appear on either services. Disney is patchy.  Oh and some of the Amazon Prime streams slightly ropey old dvd masters.

With that in mind I'm going to start compiling an ad-hoc list of companies I think have been carved up between Amazon Prime UK and Netflix on the assumption that if a film is from any of these companies I needn't add them to my by-post list. I'm posting the list here for easy access / editing. Just to add: these are the studio names as utilised by the database on "Lovefilm".  Plus, this is for pre-release.  If it's been released and isn't on the relevant streaming service, it's probably been and gone.

I've also noticed the odd StudioCanal thing turning up on Netflix after its first run on Amazon Prime, but I'm sticking with first run here.  Some back catalogue for Lionsgate and Disney turns up on both services simultaneously too.  Plus quite often, once its dropped from one of these services I'm back to shiny disc again.  Also just to confuse things, the same company's films can be split between the two depending on who which theatrical label they used.  E1 Momentum's stuff is at Netflix, just E1 is at Amazon Prime UK.  Blaawhhehh.

Netflix

Arrow Films (six months)
Artificial Eye (six months)
Brit Doc Films (near simultaneous)
Buena Vista International (not on Lovefilm)
Curzon Film World
Dogwoof Digital
Elevation Sales (not Anchor Bay) (including Chelsea Films)
Fusion Media Sales (four months?)
Independent Films
Kaleidoscope Entertainment (six months?)
Kotch Media (six months)
Lace Group
Lionsgate
New Wave (about eighteen months)
Masters of Cinema (new releases)
Metrodome (four months)
Momentum Pictures (six months?)
Paramount Home Entertainment (unclear - three to six months? A year?)
Universal (Vertigo)

Amazon Prime UK

Entertainment One
Lionsgate (Television only?)
Momentum Pictures
Showbox Media Entertainment / CineAsia
StudioCanal
Twentieth Century Fox (big delay possibly as long as eighteen months available for about six months)
Universal Pictures (big delay?) (also actually Universal Home Entertainment)
Warner Home Video (big delay?)

Elsewhere (only available by post)

Axiom Films
BFI
Entertainment on Film/Video
Network
Optimum
Peccadillo
Revolver Entertainment
Third Window Films
Universal Pictures (The Works)

I'll keep updating this with more information as and when.  You can hardly wait.  It is hard to keep an eye on because the studio name on Lovefilm's database doesn't always reflect the actual studio or has variety of synonyms (Entertainment One, E1 Entertainment, E One Ltd etc).

Plus some of these are under advisement thanks to release windows and the like (checkable by comparing adding dates on the streaming service to the availability date on the rental service).  Warner and Disney take an age to get to the Prime, so it's up to the viewer as to how quickly they need to see Dream House and such.  I'll try to add some accurate data on how quickly after the shiny disc release these as I can.

Gag Reel? Gag Reel?

Film Trawling through old emails this morning, I found the activation confirmation for my original Screen Select account sent 28/2/2014. As Review 2004 records, the first three discs I received were Chain Reaction, The Gingerbread Man and Fallen Angels: Professional Man with The 400 Blows, Les Enfants Du Paradis and A Bout De Souffle soon afterwards and so it goes. There's not much more to be said about this that you don't already know about how the access to film in general has changed radically in the ten years since and how apart from the MARVEL films because of spoilers and the odd special case here and there because of spectacle (Gravity), I barely go to the cinema any more, but paradoxically feel like I have a much richer filmic experience.

When I do receive a disc through the post, most of the time about the only extra I bother with is the gag reel. Often these unguarded moments tell you more about the filmmaking process than the documentaries designed for that purpose and certainly about the personalities on set and who's giving a performance and whose playing themselves. This example for Clones is typical, especially the exchange between Natalie Portman and Lucas in which she's giggling through her disbelief in what he's forcing her to do in the name of an action sequence which, as has become legendary, was shot in pick-ups because it was felt there was a lack of something, something in that part of the film. No wonder she thought the whole thing was a set up. She seems like she's joking, but there's also one of those significant pauses ...

Lovefilm FAQ.

Film Lovefilm have added an FAQ page about the switch to Amazon Prime Instant Video which makes a few things clearer, not least what happens if you have a Lovefilm by post and Amazon Prime account already. The former will be cheaper:

"I have a LOVEFiLM subscription including both LOVEFiLM Instant and LOVEFiLM By Post and I have an Amazon Prime membership

"After 26 February 2014, LOVEFiLM Instant will be called Prime Instant Video, and will be separate to your LOVEFiLM By Post subscription.

"As an existing Prime customer, your Prime Instant Video subscription will be included in your annual Prime subscription so you won’t see a monthly charge for this service. So as soon as you switch, and we can see which accounts are being combined, we’ll stop charging separately for your Prime Instant Video subscription Your LOVEFiLM By Post will continue as a separate part of your service and can be accessed at Amazon.co.uk.

"This means you will only see a reduced, monthly charge for the LOVEFiLM By Post part of your subscription. The great news is, this will mean you actually pay less, as the cost of your annual prime subscription will be less than the previous combined cost of your Prime membership and a year’s LOVEFiLM Instant."

The FAQ also seems to suggest that everything Lovefilm is being migrated to Amazon.co.uk including rental lists and the like, retiring the Lovefilm.com URL perhaps or turning it into nothing more than a redirect. As these things go, Wednesday's going to be an interesting day and it's all fine so long as they get the next Game of Thrones season 3 disc out to me in good time.

Lovefilm rebrands.

Commerce  Ever since Lovefilm, which is the primary way I watch films now, were bought by Amazon, I was waiting for the inevitable moment when it would rebrand.  The US logo appeared on envelopes was a pretty good indication and finally the announcement has been made and despite some initial fear that it would lead to the closure of by-post, as this Pocket-Lint primer indicates existing Lovefilm users will see no change other than the rebranding on the streaming app on the various devices.

There are some other changes.  A few years ago Lovefilm abandoned their experiment for streaming-on-demand newer releases and Amazon are bringing that back to, which is a bit of a concern because it might increase the lead time until they're available by post or "free" stream.  Studios are already delaying the rental release of some films often until months and months after they've appeared in the shop.  Man of Steel seemed to take aaaage (not that it mattered much in the end).

On the upside, now that it's practically the same service as on offer in the US it might mean that the Roku app from over there will finally migrate across.  The Sony app is fine, it does the job, but the picture quality is nowhere near as good as Netflix which is near blu-ray quality in HD even though they're both being delivered through the same broadband connection.

Of course, I'd be even happier if the Amazon Prime joy was spread in the opposite direction and bundled in with my Lovefilm subscription.  I just hope that it doesn't mean at some point Amazon simply abandon by-post as a dated anachronism.  There are still plenty of titles which are never streamed on either (now) Amazon Instant or Netflix and the availability gap would be even longer.  Sigh.

LOVEFiLM closing.

TV Tech Crunch reports:

"According to local press, LOVEFiLM Sweden sent emails to users alerting them of the service’s planned shutdown there. It will cease services and begin shutting down its website within the next 30 days, and has asked users to return DVDs."

Lovefilm's closing in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, which is worrying to say the least. Like the Greek government closing their version of the BBC, it's one of those stories which looks like something which couldn't happen here until you remember that nothing lasts forever. I imagine there's someone just like me in Sweden right now wondering how the hell they'll cope, just as I'll wonder the same thing should the worst ever happen.

Game of @Lovefilm.

TV Some more Lovefilm shenanigans:

Lately I've been watching the second season of Game of Thrones via the celestial archive on the medium of blu-ray.

As some of you will probably be aware, newer versions of the technology have embraced the idea of binge watching or box-setting television and instead of simply listing the episodes which are physically watchable on the disc, offer everything for selection, then asking the viewer to put the relevant other disc in if the chosen episode isn't available from the blu-ray in the machine.

Which is fine if you actually own the whole box. Here's the anomaly.  The by-post option.

The other, other night I watched episodes five and six of Thrones, from disc three, put the blu-ray back in the envelope and posted it back to Lovefilm.

The other night I put the next disc in, selected episode seven press play and was then advised to swap for disc three. The one which I'd just posted back to Lovefilm.

Here's what happened: the label on Lovefilm's website and envelope suggested that disc three contained episodes five and six and the silver id barcode label on the actual disc obscured the episode numbers and because the menu system lists all the episodes and I wasn't expecting episode seven to be there at the push of a button, I didn't.

I phoned Lovefilm. Seriously, if you ever have a problem with Lovefilm, phone Lovefilm. The number at time of writing is 0844 482 0123 (Mon to Fri 8am – 10pm, Sat/Sun 9am – 8pm). The verbal customer service is one the best I've come across (bar the occasion moments when there system is running slow and we sit waiting for it to open) and is in stark contrast to their email service which rarely seems to answer the question correctly.

After explaining the above to a gentleman who was a big fan of Thrones ("Season Three starts at the end of the month..."), he agreed to resend the third disc as a special extra dispatch. It's in the post. I'll hopefully receive it tomorrow.

All of which could have been avoided if film & tv companies didn't now make the process of watching some episodes of something so hopelessly complicated (why is the arrangement of episodes, 2-2-3-1-2?) so that when the person putting the information in the database at Lovefilm (is there a person or is the information sent by the film & tv companies?) doesn't make the usually correct assumption of how the episodes will be arranged (2-2-2-2-2).

Updated  12/03/2013 The disc has arrived so here's a photograph by way of illustration. On reflection, the comma instead of ampersand after the number 5 on the disc art might indicate an extra episode, but I paid more attention to the Lovefilm label:



Now I'm off to watch the thing. Finally.

Lovefilm will now be carrying Universal's back catalogue.

Film Back in March, I tried to get to the bottom of why Lovefilm weren't carrying Universal films and received the usually disappointing emails from Universal and Lovefilm highlighting intransigent disagreements over the usual stuff like money and money.

Recently there was some hope for change after Lovefilm signed an agreement for streaming rights to Universal's catalogue and I'm pleased to report that agreement seems to have been carried over somewhat into physical shiny discs things with a range of titles cropping up for rental.  So it looks like Lovefilm will now be carrying Universal's back catalogue.

They've not gone wide with this information yet (I only noticed when I was trawling through this month's Empire Magazine and adding title).  Paul's there now and One Day but not A Serious Man.  For someone who doesn't much go to the cinema this is excellent news.  Some of these aren't great films, but they are in a discourse I've need denied otherwise.

It seems to be occurring as stock is delivered.  Simon noticed Kick Ass was on stream last night and now it's available through postal media.  Only the dvd of Ridley Scott's Robin Hood's available which suggests to me they're waiting for the blu-rays to be posted to them or some such.  Note brand new titles are nowhere.  I'll check back in a couple of weeks to see if that changes.

Updated!  09/06/2012  A Serious Man is now available as the blu-ray of Robin Hood.  Lordy, lordy, lordy.

"something which used to happen quite a lot"

Film Yesterday, I commented on Twitter that Lovefilm, one of the few things which is keeping me sane lately didn't turn around a disc I sent back on Friday on Saturday, something which used to happen quite a lot and wondered if it was a service change which happened at Easter.

Because I used the entertainment emergency service's Twitter name in the message, @lovefilm replied with the following which you may find useful and or interesting:

"We have a limited warehouse service on Saturday. Allocations might happen, but no discs will go out till Monday."

"It's been like that for a while though. Nothing changed at Easter"

In other words, Lovefilm's weekend turnaround service is gooone and has been gooone for ages.  One the one hand I'm pleased that workers are getting something related to a weekend off (even if I don't).  On the other I do miss receiving the odd DVD on a Monday.

four or five days of solitude

Life Having established that I'm something of an introvert, you'll be unsurprised to learn that when I had the flat to myself last week, I really had the flat to myself. Once I returned home from the film preview, I didn't re-emerge into the outside world until yesterday morning because of work, a personally enforced captivity facilitated by having enough food in and putting my Lovefilm subscription on holiday so that I didn't even have to walk to the post box.

When I've tried to describe these weeks before, I've described them as hermitage weeks and I suppose it is a sort of retreat from everything, and that was especially true last week as I noted the chaos of extra expense on hot fast food bakery products and the fumbling communications of politicians leading to a fuel crisis through the audio prism of PM.  Judging by reports, it was impossible to travel anywhere because the roads were clogged with queuing cars and pasty will become a dish served cold.

As you will have noticed, last week was about Shakespeare.  As well as the books I've reviewed here, I enjoyed Silent Shakespeare (the BFI's release of early attempts at filming his plays replacing the text with grand gesture), Shakespeare Wallah (Merchant Ivory's fictual account of Felicity Kendall's family's life as touring players in India starring Felicity Kendall), Being Shakespeare (Simon Callow's one man show presenting a biography of the bard written by scholar Jonathan Bate).

The most fun was Thursday night when I cuddled up with the Radio 3 recording of A Midsummer Night's Dream from last September, recorded live in a real forest with Toby Stephens and Leslie Sharp's authoritative Oberon and Titania and Roger Allam's Bottom.  There's always something rather magical about audio versions of this play if listened to as night descends, Oberon and Puck's final words rattling about the mind just before bedtime ("Trip away; make no stay; Meet me all by break of day").

But mainly I enjoyed the silence.  Or should I say near silence since even the thick glazing on the windows can't mask the distant sound of cars of the main road, which were actually quite reassuring in their way.  Each morning, between the alarm going off and turning on the radio, there was always the possibility I was waking up into a recreation of The Omega Man or an episode of The Twilight Zone.  Luckily I have decent eyesight so at least I'd be able read.  No Henry Bemis like end for me.

Yes, I did talk to myself, but that's also a general side effect of being an only child, a youth spent trying to find something to do that doesn't involve siblings I don't have.  Not having anyone else to talk to just intensifies it.  Lord knows what it must look like as I find myself shouting at a passage in a book I don't agree with or as is most often the case the radio, its digital display impassively looking on as I try and conduct a conversation with whichever political ignoramus isn't answering Eddie Mair's questions.

Since this is real life, I didn't make many great revelations over during these four or five days of solitude other than confirming my love of Shakespeare and knowing full well that if I want to spend my life doing anything it's writing and researching, that all I've really wanted to do is write and research but that I don't have the first idea how to achieve that and sustain myself physically as a human being as well as spiritually.  Oh and that I need to have a proper holiday.  Once I can afford one.

Lovefilm's unable to carry titles distributed by Universal Pictures

Film Much as I love Lovefilm, one of its disappointing, annoying quirks is that unlike Blockbuster, Lovefilm's unable to carry titles distributed by Universal Pictures which are either missing from their database or else have a page which only has a link through to Amazon for the purchase of the title (and a hundred comments/reviews underneath asking why it isn't available to rent and what am I paying my subscription for anyway?).

A couple of weeks ago having ascertained The Thing prequel won't be available, a title I wouldn't necessarily want to buy, I shot off an email to Universal itself asking the big question.  They sent me this statement:

Dear Mr Burns,

Many thanks for your email.

Universal Pictures (UK) Limited is committed to producing and distributing high quality content for the viewing pleasure of as many UK consumers as possible. Films are very expensive to produce and represent a huge investment for studios. As a business, we are obliged to earn a reasonable commercial return on the value of our content. Whilst there are many new rental models in the market, some of these do not operate to provide a viable return on our investment. In those instances, Universal new release product is not available to consumers via these outlets, until we can agree mutually satisfactory trading terms.

Please note, however, that Blockbuster online have agreed terms with us and our product is therefore available to rent on their site. In addition there are various other retail outlets, both physical and online, where you are able to rent or purchase Universal product.

We hope you are able to continue to enjoy Universal's product and would thank you again for your email.

Kind regards

Universal UK

To which I replied:

"I would ask, in reply, in that case why every other major distributor has agreed to Lovefilm's terms, even if admittedly 20th Century Fox have agreed that only dvd copies have been supplied. I would also add that since I can no longer make it to the cinema and Lovefilm is the only rental service I can afford, I have been unable to enjoy any of Universal's product (especially the likes of Paul or The American) over the past few years and I'm not the only person who's in this situation."

No reply was forthcoming. I've also not had a reply from Lovefilm who I also emailed asking which of Universal's terms they wouldn't agree to and to speculate on what Blockbuster are doing right.

If it's simply that Universal have signed an exclusivity deal with Blockbuster they should say that.  Not that it can be that because it seems, as they suggest in their email, that they've signed with everyone but Lovefilm.

This is a bit of a first world problem I know, but I do wonder what the tipping point would be, how many customers would have to complain before Universal and Lovefilm start negotiating again and this could be sorted out.  Please.

LOVEFiLM have restructured their pricing options again.

Commerce I think this deserves a whole new blog post. LOVEFiLM have restructured their pricing options again. In this previous post, I talked about how Lovefilm had reduced the price of their packages so that we could received three discs at a time at the new price of £13.22 and how I'd had to manually go in and change it.

I've just phoned LOVEFiLM about something else and happened to ask why we'd not had any emails about it. The advisor said that emails had been sent out and while I was talking to her, I noticed I'd just had an email and that was fine then. But then I bothered to read it and ...

"We know our customers love renting our huge range of films and TV series. Now we're increasing the amount of choice you can have at home.

From the 14th of November we'll be giving you one extra disc at home as part of your package at no extra cost. This means from now on you can have 4 discs at home instead of 3 and you won't pay a penny extra. "

Four discs? No human could possibly watch that many. Still at £13.22. Are they mad?  Has anyone else had this email?