That Not So Fresh Feeling

They’re filming a movie near my office. It’s affectionately referred to by IMDB as “Untitled Kevin James Comedy.” I’m betting on it being a huge hit for a couple of reasons:

• It is written by *and* stars Kevin James
• It is also written by Salem the Cat
• It also stars Jayma Mays
• It is being filmed in Burlington, MA. At the Mall.

I smell a hit.

Anyway, they’ve apparently set up a production office right behind our building, and as I was walking over to talk to someone on the other side of the office, I saw some guy go zipping down a zip wire. I tried to get my camera in time, but missed any other awesome festivities. I did, however, take some awesome pictures of the amazing movie production set.

A ramp and a crane. No idea what they’re for, but they’re obviously super cool.

Some dudes and some metal stuff that looks like they’re about to have a steel cage match.

What movie would be complete without a Segway scooter-thingy.

Sadly, I missed the casting call to be an extra, I think. But that’s ok, I’m sure they’ll grab me from the Apple Store and decide to make me a leading character, ideally with magic powers and a talking cat (who once tried to take over the world).

Last week, I tried out Amazon Unbox downloading to the TiVo for the first time. The experience went pretty smoothly, though I’m pretty certain it won’t replace Netflix or OnDemand in my usage.

I finally had a chance to actually watch the movie, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. The quality wasn’t too bad, and I was able to even stretch it out to fill my 16:9 TV. The quality was about what you’d see on digital cable, which is better than what I normally get on TiVo, but obviously worse than DVD. But, for a movie like Idiocracy, it was perfectly acceptable.

Given that I’ve still got some money left on the initial $15  credit, I’ll probably keep grabbing cheap movies where visuals aren’t important. There’s still slow download times (I’ve got an older TiVo and an older wireless adapter, so I don’t get great transfer rates) that mean this isn’t instant gratification. But, it’s not a bad thing to grab a movie every now and then to watch when I have some free time.

Honestly, the worst part about the service is probably the Amazon end, where the search and navigation is nauseatingly bad. It’s impossible to quickly browse and easily distinguish TiVo-compatible movies from those that aren’t available for the TiVo. That’s going to be something that needs some refining if this is going to catch on with more than the early adopter crowd. The iTunes Movie Store interface is far easier and significantly more attractive.

iTunes + Apple TV are probably going to defeat Amazon + TiVo in the long run, as the Apple combo has better quality, faster downloads, and a nicer interface. But, since I’m not shelling out another $300 for Apple TV, I’ll probably stick with Netflix and BitTorrent, which, for me, is the best of all options.

One last thing tonight: I’d been reading about the integration between TiVo and Amazon’s Unbox service, where you can download a movie or TV show from Unbox and have it delivered to your TiVo. TiVo has sort of lost me as a user, as their HD DVR is way too expensive, and as bad as the Comcast/Motorola DVR software is, I can record HD and do pretty much everything I need to do. The TiVo has been relegated to backup recordings and occasionally streaming some music.

However, TiVo and Amazon are offering a $15 credit, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I signed up for it today–it was very easy, you just sign into Amazon, then type in your TiVo account info, and you’re done–and scanned through for something to download. I didn’t want to get a TV show, so I grabbed a rental of the recent Mike Judge movie Idiocracy. It cost about $4, which leaves me a good amount of credit to rent a few more movies or TV shows. The rental last a few days after download.

Now, after about an hour, it’s only downloaded about 1/3rd of the movie (I’ve got an older wireless adapter), which means this isn’t going to replace On Demand for instant gratification. On top of that, it’s not in HD, so I’ll probably never use it when I could use On Demand or Netflix.

But, for stuff that I’m not worried about being timely or high quality video, it’ll be worth playing around with. Frankly, I doubt that this will take off. I just don’t have much of a desire anymore to watch stuff in crappy TiVo quality. I’ve got a laptop that I can download movies/shows in high quality, or watch them online in high quality, and I can access them faster than the TiVo can get them from Amazon.

So, it’s sorta cool technology, but I think it’s a little bit of “too little/too late” from the TiVo camp. I don’t think this will compete with Apple TV; I don’t think this will compete with BitTorrent and a laptop; I don’t think this will compete with On Demand. It doesn’t win on price, quality, or convenience.

Well, at least I don’t think it does, since I haven’t had a chance to watch it, and it won’t let me start watching it until it’s fully downloaded.

My friend Greg has started posting again and running his movie on his website, Project Working Stiff. It’s a funny movie, more of a romantic comedy than you’d expect from the subject matter. It has a couple of literal laugh out loud moments, and some really great indie rock/pop music.

Go watch it. If you like it, post about it, or tell someone else to watch it.

Heck, I might setup a little spot on this here site for you to watch it (except it means I need to setup a Brightcove account, which I don’t have time to do right now … but stay tuned).

So, Working Stiff just keeps on plugging along. Greg Joyce’s attempt to get his movie some visibility online is working.

10000 views of the trailer. That’s a lot. You can make it 10001.

I’m interested in this for a few reasons:

1. Greg’s an awesome guy.
2. Working Stiff is a funny movie (really! I have it on DVD and have even seen it in a theater. And I actually did some advertising for it …. which I’ll link to someday).
3. I’m utterly interested in the idea of turning conventional media on its head by leveraging the internet. Here’s a movie that played a few times in the Boston area and I think once out in LA. It’s a small, independent film with out a single name attached. It’s not uber-trendy, nor shocking. It’s a straight up romantic/workplace comedy. It’s better than 90% of the Nora Ephron-esque tripe that gets released. But, it simply will never get seen via conventional means. But now, via the ‘net, it’s viewable online. You can subscribe and get chunks of it automatically downloaded to your computer or iPod to watch when you want. I have no idea how many people are actually viewing the movie via the Podcast, but anyone who’s subscribed is getting a chance to see a movie they never would have otherwise. That’s pretty cool.

Thanks to a little tool called FlixQueue, I’m able to see at a glance that I’ve returned 195 movies to Netflix since I signed up.

The first movie I returned was Underworld, on January 19, 2004. Sure, not the most amazing movie to have at #1, but sometimes you need some cheesy action (2 and 3 were The 25th Hour and Rashomon, slightly more upscale). The last movie I returned was Hustle & Flow on May 31, 2006.

In between I’ve returned 193 other movies for my grand total of 195. Making the math easy, I started in January 2004 and last returned a movie in May 2006, which is 29 months. 195 movies over 29 months is about 6.7 movies per month. Not too bad — I’m on the 3 out/$18 plan, which means I’m at about $2.70/movie. That’s far less than I’d pay at Blockbuster (I think … I haven’t walked into a Blockbuster in over a year), so I think I’m getting my money’s worth.

Over the weekend, since my DVRs are pretty much empty (nothing new on TV), I cleared out the three movies I had out (#196 = Bubble, 197 = The Devil’s Backbone, 198 = All the Real Girls). If all goes well, I should be getting my next 2 or 3 movies on Tuesday. That means that rental #200 will either be Good Night, and Good Luck or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

This isn’t really a milestone … but it felt interesting to write about. Plus, given that I’ll get through 200 movies in approximately 29 months, it means I’ll get to the end of my Netflix Queue, assuming I don’t add any more movies, sometime in 2008.

Maybe I should be more selective …

My friend Greg Joyce made a movie a few years ago when we were working together. It’s a little indie romantic comedy called Working Stiff.

It’s quite funny.

However, being that Greg is neither a Hollywood bigwig, nor related to one, he busted his ass to get as many people to see it as he could. Local film festivals, showings at theaters in Belmont, Arlington, and Newton, and DVDs. The movie was well received and pretty much enjoyed by everyone, but still, if you didn’t know someone, or stumble into the theater on one of the nights it was showing, you never got a chance to see it.

Now you have that chance.

Greg has just opened up Project: Working Stiff, his website/blog devoted to getting the word out …. and letting you watch the movie. The movie is going to be released in bite size chunks via an RSS feed–a video podcast, in other words. Even better, it’s all nicely formatted for the iPod Video. You can also watch it right there on the web page. Brilliant. Flat out brilliant.

Go check it out. Check out the trailer. Go post comments on the blog. Mostly, just go check it out because the movie is worth seeing.

I just finished watching The Aviator, which I’ve had via Netflix for about 3 months. What can I say, I’ve been busy. While the movie was quite good, the absolute best part of it was Cate Blanchett’s performance as Katherine Hepburn. I don’t think there is another actress today who can so seamlessly flow from one performance to another, never making you say “hey look, it’s Cate Blanchett playing a role” but always making you believe the part.

It’s quite stunning, really. From Elizabeth where she played the titular (heh … titular) character, to The Gift where she played a southern mother, to The Aviator, she simply outacts everyone around her.

Of course, I’m a little behind as she already won the Oscar, but I felt like sharing.