Netflix
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Ridiculous Netflix: Sterlin Harjo Discusses Netflix and Adam Sandler’s Ridiculous Six
“The movie has ‘ridiculous’ in the title for a reason — because it’s ridiculous. It is a broad satire of Western movies and the stereotypes they popularized, featuring a diverse cast that is not only part of — but in on — the joke.” So comments Netflix in the wake of the recent exodus of a dozen Native American extras from the set of Adam Sandler’s Ridiculous Six, its first film in a four-movie deal with Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions. The comedy features characters with names like “Beaver’s Breath” and “No Bra,” so, yes, “ridiculous” certainly seems to be the […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 14, 2015 -
Eight Thoughts From the Pitch Round Table at Hot Docs Forum
From April 23-May 3, Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival spread its wings across the theaters of Toronto. Against that backdrop, the 16th Annual Hot Docs Forum and Conference Market featured another opportunity to glimpse the inner workings of documentary film funding and pitching. With 19 scheduled pitches (and one project picked out of a Mountie’s hat), I was once again given the chance to take the pulse of the documentary marketplace. Below are several thoughts culled from the front row at those pitch proceedings. 1. Get Your Trailer in Order So you’ve been chosen to be one […]
by Eli Brown on May 11, 2015 -
Is Netflix’s Move Towards Traditional Distribution In Favor of Filmmakers, But Against the Theaters?
The notion of boycotting day-and-date releases seems a bit extreme since it’s a widely practiced distribution strategy for several years running, but that’s just what AMC, Regal, Cinemark and Carmike are planning with Cary Fukunaga’s Netflix-acquired Beasts of No Nation. The exhibitors informed Variety that they will not screen the film for the sole reason that “they do not want to provide screens to films that do not honor what is typically a 90-day delay between a theatrical debut and a home entertainment release,” thus conflating the latter, last step in the release process, with the more preliminary day-and-date. Their reasoning, however, speaks to the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 4, 2015 -
There’s Still Hope for Cinema: Ted Hope in Toronto
On a chilly night earlier this week at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox, Ted Hope addressed a capacity audience of filmmakers to wax about the future of film. For 90 minutes, the former CEO of Fandor and producer of indie classics 21 Grams, Happiness and In The Bedroom held a Socratic, existential discussion that (unsurprisingly) dismissed Hollywood’s traditional blockbuster-based mentality. “We’re stuck in a rut of legacy practices,” he declared. Hope urged new distribution and marketing models, yet failed to offer a framework in its place. Instead, Hope and SampoMedia’s Michael Gubbins engaged in an abstract dialogue that inspired many filmmakers in […]
by Allan Tong on Jan 16, 2015 -
CES Roundup: 4K TVs are Great, But Pay Attention to What’s Going on in Streaming Platforms and Services
As expected, 4K has dominated the TV news at CES, with manufacturers announcing models that are bigger (Samsung) thinner (Sony) and have even higher resolution than 4K (Sharp.) But while the manufacturers continue to build bigger and better displays, it’s in platforms and streaming services that the real changes seem to be happening. Platforms Back in June Google unveiled Android TV, a platform to compete with the likes of Apple TV and Roku. Sharp, Sony and TP Vision have all announced TVs based on Android TV. The platform will also be coming on a set top box from Huawei and […]
by Michael Murie on Jan 7, 2015 -
“Be Patient and Try Not to Hold Grudges”: Marjon Javadi on Acquisitions and Production
I am at Mystic Journey Bookstore in Venice during my very first trip to Los Angeles, feeling appropriately like a Lost Angel. My close friend Marjon has fled New York, not for beachy weekends but for a career opportunity. With our trendy Intelligentsia coffees in tow, we pore over astrological renderings on the back sofas of Mystic Journey, and conversation takes a familiar turn. The Sheryl Sandbergs and Sophia Amorusos of the world may be providing smart macro-level discourse on workplace age, sex, and gender politics, but there’s an equally vital conversation, I am discovering, happening between young women confronting […]
by Taylor Hess on Oct 28, 2014 -
The 20 Best Non-Fiction Films on Netflix Instant
Netflix’s ever-shifting catalog is subject to sudden deletions and additions, the latter skewed far more to recent fare than a balanced sampling of all film history. Still, careful mining reveals a decent selection of titles to catch up on if you’re one of the company’s 35 million+ U.S. subscribers, including some relatively slept-on films. I cleared away the underwhelming underbrush to find (in alphabetical order) a semi-idiosyncratic selection of the 20 best non-fiction films available for current streaming on Instant. The Act of Killing (2012) Joshua Oppenheimer’s elegantly disturbing investigation into the determinedly suppressed legacy of Indonesia’s 1965-66 mass killings […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 26, 2014 -
Sylvia Earle, Mission Blue, and Netflix’s Push into Social Issue Documentary
With Netflix in the midst of filming Orange Is the New Black‘s third season and putting $3 million into new content this year, the paradigm seems to have permanently shifted from the service being seen primarily as a content distributor to an established content creator. In other words, its continual production of scripted programming is no longer novel, which is why its push into the exclusive acquisition of nonfiction material is no less remarkable. Following the success of films like Jehane Noujaim’s The Square (a 2013 Oscar contender), Greg Whiteley’s Mitt, and the Holocaust-themed short The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life earlier […]
by Randy Astle on Aug 15, 2014 -
BuzzFeed: The Next Netflix?
The New York Times broke the news this Sunday that BuzzFeed received $50 million in funding for their Los Angeles-based Motion Pictures arm. Recognizing the massive revenue generated by the company’s video content, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti hired Ze Frank, “web video pioneer,” to produce a “rapid-fire” stream of everything from “six second clips made for social media to more traditional 22-minute shows” under the new banner. Eventually, the company will look to produce feature-length films and TV series, not unlike Netflix. Another thing BuzzFeed Motion Pictures has in common with the online streaming paradigm is an unsurprising affinity for data science. In […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Aug 13, 2014 -
Streaming More Eco-Friendly Than DVDs, Study (Sort Of) Says
A study published last week in the journal Environmental Research Letters under the self-explanatory title “The energy and greenhouse-gas implications of internet video streaming in the United States” looks at numbers from 2011 to conclude that streaming services and servers have become much more energy efficient. As a result, streaming consumes significantly less energy and emits less carbon dioxide than the manufacture and distribution of DVDs. (This is all explained in plain language here and here). The easy-to-extrapolate conclusion is not only that streaming is the increasingly dominant distribution platform of choice but that that turns out to be a […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 3, 2014
