"He sees policemen in his soup."
Hello kids and welcome to another week of entertainment fun. I assume some of you paid attention to the Oscars last night. Stacie and I chose to skip it once again. I just can't seem to get all that interested in it anymore. Part of it has to do with the fact that I see so few movies in the theaters these days so I hadn't seen any of the big nominees. I'm sure there's some good stuff in there that will be worth a rent on BD. The other thing is my weariness of the whole awards business. I'm just tired of it. I don't have a huge problem with it per se, but don't really find it all that compelling. Guess I'm just gettin' old.
Now for a rant about a business I *do* want to gripe about: cable/satellite TV. You may want to skip this part as I've ranted about this a lot before!
In a few months I will rip the Directv dish off my roof and another will not take its place. I've been a customer of theirs off and on since the late 1990s and have had enough. Our family had cable while I was growing up in Rapid City so we could get a few Denver stations to supplement that weak local channels we had. Needless to say I've found some value in cable for a long time. My specific problem with this company is the fact that I got an HD box from them a while back and a service commitment was part of the deal. I don't really remember agreeing to it at the time, but I'm sure it was there in the fine print somewhere. Okay, so I find that I'm not really watching it and want to cancel. When I call to do that this past year, I am told that due to the commitment, I either have to continue service through January 2009 or pay a nasty cancellation fee. Hmm, that sucks but I choose to ratchet down my service to the cheapest service with the intent of canning it when January came around.
Quick break in the saga: this cheap package, which they offered up when I complained that I was spending $60+/month for a couple of channels I watch on occasion, was their so-called "Family" package. This package has all the kid channels (except for Cartoon Network, natch), all the home shopping channels, all the religious channels, and a couple of misc. channels like Food Network and National Geographic. This does not include *any* cable news channels. The local channels are there, but they cost me zero dollars over the air (and look better with the new Digital TV signals). Also, they make me pay a $10/month "HD Access" fee since I have the HD box. They don't let you opt out of that if you have the HD box. So it's $40/month plus a bunch of fees and taxes for the Food Network (I don't count the locals which cost me nothing). Yep, that has been the only channel I watch on this lineup. Wow, some bargain. They would offer another package that has channels I'm interested in (something besides kids/god/infomercials), but it's at least $25 more per month, which is back where I was when I decided the service wasn't worth it. I simply do not have enough time, even with a Tivo, to watch enough for it to be worth money. This is far form typical in the cable biz. The entertainment companies set it up this way and it appears that an a l'carte system of choosing only the channels you want will probably never happen the way things are structured. It isn't really a technical problem since all satellite and much of cable is already digital with remote-addressable boxes that can do this; it's how they charge you for only HBO and not Showtime. The problem is that the whole cost model is based on packages with "big" channels like ESPN (which accounts for ca. $14/month of the average cable bill) are thrown in with all the niche channels that hardly anyone watches. Take away the bundles and a lot of the small fry will go under. I'm really sure that isn't such a bad thing. ABC Family is a throw-away channel that is probably inferior to some other kid networks, but is artificially kept alive by it being bundled with ESPN and other Disney stuff.
I've read into this a bit and the consensus is that a lot of channels would go dark if I have my way, including some which represent niche and minority interests. Well, that may be unfortunate, but it just says to me that the business model is out of date. This stuff should be on the Internet and while not everyone can afford good Internet, it costs less than your average cable bill.
Which brings me to another point: I am looking forward to the Internet destroying the classic cable tv business model. I really am. The stuff I want to watch that happens to be on cable can easily be sold to me via the 'net. I can get much of it right now, but the companies make it cumbersome and more expensive to do so. The obvious example is TV shows on iTunes. Sure, I can download episodes/seasons of Top Chef, a show I like on cable, but I am being sold it to purchase (at least $30 for a season-15 episodes). Stuff like that for me is disposable: I won't probably want to watch it again. So, why does iTunes rent movies and only sell TV? It has to be the content companies not wanting to have people ditching cable to get the shows they like online. They are discouraging people from having their choice and picking just the shows they want by making it expensive. It's the same kind of tactic that they're using to help BD against downloads. You can only rent HD movies, but you can buy standard def movies. If you want to own a movie in HD, you have to buy it on disc. It's all about choice: I want to choose whether I want to rent or own a movie, TV show, or whatever. That's the problem I have with the system. The obvious solution is to just avoid it altogether (or use less than legal means). Yes, TV is not a necessity and no one is forcing me or anyone else to subscribe. I know a number of you who have done exactly that: just stopped watching the channels (but still catch some content on DVD). I can also believe that some, if not the majority of people out there use cable tv enough to find it worth the money. Getting that same content over the 'net is possible, but much less convenient, by design. This will change and I hope Directv ends up in the same boat as satellite radio.
OK, so where was I...oh yeah, so January comes around and I call them back to cancel. I ask them to confirm that as of that date, all I owe is the current month's programming charges and that's it. The rep says yes, I am clear to go and closes the service for me. I then have to ship the HD receiver back to them. Yes, when you "buy" a satellite box at a store, you don't really own it. In the old days (through 2004ish) you bought the dish and boxes at a store and you just paid for the service. Now they have you buy the box and pay a lease charge. When you terminate the service, they get the box back. Hmm, sounds like cable where you lease a box forever, but at least with cable, they bring the damn thing out to you and don't charge you to "buy" it. Hmm, OK, so I agree to do that (after all, what am I going to do with a Directv box?). A couple of weeks later I get a statement from them saying I owe a $160 "early cancellation fee." WTF? So when I call them to ask about it, they say that the reps got it wrong and I still have three months left so I was hit with the charge. I talked to several people and they would not budge on this. They did not care that they made the mistake and that by the time I knew this, I'd already gotten on the roof and disconnected the dish and boxed up the receiver. Not one dime was offered in discount and I had the choice of paying the charge or turning service back on for 3 more months, which ends up being the same money anyhow. So here I am back with the $40/month Food Network. If Directv had lifted one finger to help, even just cut the fee slightly, I would have just paid it and not bothered to write this (but still think the business model is messed up). They don't give a rat's ass about it, so may their satellites fall from the sky in fiery blazes of doom! (that's showing 'em!)
OK, sorry about that (but why write a blog if you can't go off like that sometimes?), on to this week's new stuff:
Badland (2007)
The French Connection (1971) New to BD this week. The director did some interesting color changes with the film. Worth a look for film geeks and the good DVD Savant review found here.
FTA (1972)
Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder Also on BD.
Ironweed (1987) First time on DVD for this one.
The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice (2008) Yes, another one.
Sex Drive (2008) Also on BD.