Starz Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Xbox and Netflix Taste Great Together
Filed under: Home Entertainment »
I've ranted once or twice about some of the geekier goodies I've found through Netflix, but somehow this one got by me. It'd been a while since I'd visited Hacking Netflix, which is an excellent blog by the way, and it was there that I read ... huh, what's this? I can now view ALL* my "Watch Instantly" titles through my Xbox 360? Really? Well I just had to check that out.My system needed to update to the jazzy new 360 dashboard, but introducing my Xbox to my Netflix queue was remarkably easy. Now, you can't exactly browse through the Netflix website -- in fact the 360 system only accesses your WI queue. But I watched two episodes of Heroes (Season 3) and the whole of Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (starring James Caan AND Robert Duvall!) in one enjoyable sitting. (Yeah, I'm a good sitter.) Just another reason that Xbox is cooler than Playstation ... says the guy who plays games with his console maybe five times a year.
In other Netflix news, I've discovered a few more obscurities that might be worthy of note: In addition to the aforementioned Peckinpah film, I recently watched a few Gene Hackman ones from 1977: March or Die and The Domino Principle. Both uneven, but dang I love Gene Hackman. Other recent flicks include George C. Scott in The Hindenburg (meh), Marooned (more Hackman!), and THX 1138 (more Duvall!) And I finally saw the mega-weird Spider Baby. Sheesh. Frankly the Netflix Watch Insantly service has improved exponentially since they partnered up with Starz. Now there's NO excuse for me not to have a movie on at all times.
(* Nope, not all. Some of your queued titles will NOT be available via your 360. According to the HN blog, looks like it's all the Sony-owned titles.)
Discuss: Is Roku's Netflix Player Tempting You Yet?
Filed under: Disney », Sony », Home Entertainment »
You might recall that I bought a Roku player a few months ago to make it easier for me to watch high-quality versions of Netflix's Watch Instantly offerings. My biggest complaint about Roku and Watch Instantly was that the selection was pretty slim -- mostly we've used it to watch old TV shows, and even then I suspect we watch more TV on Hulu.com. Watch Instantly has a great selection of low-budget independent features and documentaries, and even some short films, but if you want Hollywood blockbusters you're better off with the DVDs.Fortunately, the Watch Instantly pickings are starting to improve. Netflix has just partnered with Starz Entertainment to offer more than 1,000 movies that Starz has licensed for its own video-on-demand services. Starz already has deals with Disney and Sony, so these movies include a lot of (relatively) newer Hollywood big-budget films, like Ratatouille, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, No Country for Old Men, and Superbad. These still aren't as recent as the films you can get mailed to you on DVD from Netflix (or rent at your local video store), but it's a significant improvement over the previous Watch Instantly offerings for recent mainstream movies. In addition, Netflix also signed deals last month with the Disney Channel and CBS to add some of their TV shows to the Watch Instantly lineup, like Hannah Montana and CSI. Those aren't movie-related deals, but I got excited because I can now watch the Disney TV show in which a cousin of mine plays an amusingly bad-tempered chef.
Starz Promotes Badness of 'I Know Who Killed Me'
Filed under: Drama », Thrillers », Sony », Home Entertainment », Movie Marketing »
While I've neither seen Showgirls nor I Know Who Killed Me, I imagine the latter of the two stripper movies is not destined to be the same sort of camp classic as is the former. From what I gathered from the reviews and audience response, IKWKM is just plain bad -- not funny bad or entertaining bad or any other kind of bad that would be of interest to viewers of any kind. Nevertheless, the cable channel Starz is promoting its pay TV premiere of the Lindsay Lohan movie as something of a not-to-be-missed phenomenon of trash.The ad, viewable in full over at Defamer, celebrates the movie's eight Razzie Award wins, particularly its esteem of being named Worst Picture and having Lohan named Worst Actress (Twice). Also included are quotes from negative reviews from Variety, eFilmCritic, Flick Filosopher, Quad City Times and the New York Daily News. Of course, the blurbs kind of say that IKWKM needs to be seen to be believed, which makes it sound like the movie is indeed entertaining bad. The eFilmCritic review (from Peter Sobczynski) even flat out claims the movie may be entertaining under the right circumstances.
Two things the ad misses, though, are the fact that the movie's eight Razzies was a record amount and the Rotten Tomatoes score of 8%. The former would aid in its cult-hopeful celebration, while the latter would put those reviews in more honest context. Also, as Stu at Defamer brilliantly points out, considering all of Starz Entertainment's many channels, the movie would be better suited for a new channel to be called "Flopz."
I Know Who Killed Me airs on Starz this Saturday, June 14, at 9pm.
'Crash' Will Become a TV Show
Filed under: Drama », Home Entertainment », Remakes and Sequels »
This year, television is going to get one heck of a drama! It's got all the ingredients for a hit. Sex. Dysfunction. Car Crashes. No, no, no. I kid. While I'd love a series based on David Cronenberg's Crash, especially if Elias Koteas was in any way attached, this is about that other one -- you know, the Crash that won the Oscar. Yahoo reports that the adaptation will be cable station Starz's first original drama series, with 13 one-hour episodes planned.The series even has handful of the film's names coming back behind the camera -- Paul Haggis, Bob Yari, Don Cheadle, and Mark R. Harris. As for in front of the camera -- no cast members have been picked yet, although production is scheduled to begin in the spring.
Now, I'm one of those people who actually really dug the movie. I thought it was interesting, thoughtful, and entirely gripping. I was happy to see it win the big statue. That being said, I wonder how this will play to audiences. Many people have noted it's heavy-handedness, so what will that mean for a weekly series? A few hours of it, sure, thirteen hours -- not so sure. What do you think?
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