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FilmStruck Streaming Service

Fiddytree

Fiddytree

Neocon Elitist
DP Veteran
Joined
Jul 9, 2008
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The fine folks at Turner Classic Movies (TCM) have partnered with a number of independent studios and the Criterion Collection to launch their own streaming service. Criterion Collection is a great company that does the best to ensure that films look and sound as great as they can, while they have the rights to the title. They tend to specialize in older foreign films, but have a modest number of contemporary films as well. You have to be picky with what films you buy from them, because they usually cost you at least $30 a pop. As a result of Filmstruck, Hulu lost the Criterion Collection films. This has sort of underscored the need to talk about the elephant in the room: a lack of film content on streaming video services.

Netflix has steadily lost contract after contract-some because the rights holder wanted to create their own service, or because Netflix wanted to place greater emphasis on Original Content. Hulu has always sucked at getting its mits on film and only seemed to gain some measure of a film niche with the Criterion Collection archives. Amazon has had the best luck at being both a subscription service with films as well as a video-on-demand service with a large number of films. But it too has been lacking and has spent much of its time trying to become a player in television series.

That's why I killed my Hulu account and went to FilmStruck. At the moment it's a relatively modest service-focusing on older Warner Bros catalog and the scores of features yet held on by Criterion. However, already the selection is above what I was getting with Hulu when it came to the CC titles. Its device support is yet limited: Apple TV, Amazon FireTV, iOS and Android mobile devices and computers, but will expand to Roku, Chromecast, PS4, and Xbox One throughout the next year (well, this year, if you discount the next several hours).

There's a free 14 day trial, with three tiers of payment. One (or $6.99/month) is merely access to Filmstruck, which although occasionally gets you overlap with films Criterian has, tends to be a lot smaller than the 2nd and 3rd tiers. The 2nd and 3rd tiers get you additional access to Criterion's archives, but will charge you either monthly (at $10.99) or annually ($99), respectively.

Last night I used it to play The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003) - IMDb which hasn't had a wide non-VOD streaming presence up to now. It was all good fun watching some low-scale sword carnage.

https://www.filmstruck.com/

Here's to hoping that streaming won't just be the land of TV series.
 
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Fiddytree said:
The fine folks at Turner Classic Movies (TCM) have partnered with a number of independent studios and the Criterion Collection to launch their own streaming service. Criterion Collection is a great company that does the best to ensure that films look and sound as great as they can, while they have the rights to the title. They tend to specialize in older foreign films, but have a modest number of contemporary films as well. You have to be picky with what films you buy from them, because they usually cost you at least $30 a pop. As a result of Filmstruck, Hulu lost the Criterion Collection films. This has sort of underscored the need to talk about the elephant in the room: a lack of film content on streaming video services.

Netflix has steadily lost contract after contract-some because the rights holder wanted to create their own service, or because Netflix wanted to place greater emphasis on Original Content. Hulu has always sucked at getting its mits on film and only seemed to gain some measure of a film niche with the Criterion Collection archives. Amazon has had the best luck at being both a subscription service with films as well as a video-on-demand service with a large number of films. But it too has been lacking and has spent much of its time trying to become a player in television series.

That's why I killed my Hulu account and went to FilmStruck. At the moment it's a relatively modest service-focusing on older Warner Bros catalog and the scores of features yet held on by Criterion. However, already the selection is above what I was getting with Hulu when it came to the CC titles. Its device support is yet limited: Apple TV, Amazon FireTV, iOS and Android mobile devices and computers, but will expand to Roku, Chromecast, PS4, and Xbox One throughout the next year (well, this year, if you discount the next several hours).

There's a free 14 day trial, with three tiers of payment. One (or $6.99/month) is merely access to Filmstruck, which although occasionally gets you overlap with films Criterian has, tends to be a lot smaller than the 2nd and 3rd tiers. The 2nd and 3rd tiers get you additional access to Criterion's archives, but will charge you either monthly (at $10.99) or annually ($99), respectively.

Last night I used it to play The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003) - IMDb which hasn't had a wide non-VOD streaming presence up to now. It was all good fun watching some low-scale sword carnage.

https://www.filmstruck.com/

Here's to hoping that streaming won't just be the land of TV series.
Click to expand...

The Blind Swordsman is the Beat Takeshi film? Any good?

Unfortunately, I am on my tablet, so it wants me to download their app to see what movies they have, but if they have the Warner Brothers movies from the 40s, 50s and 60s, I am sold. I also noted they had Kurosawa, and I have not watched any of his movies in forever...been kinda wanting to rewatch 7 Samurai since the Magnificent 7 remake kinda thing. Thanks for the heads up.
 
Redress said:
The Blind Swordsman is the Beat Takeshi film? Any good?
Click to expand...

It was good, but it was a bit odd. I haven't seen the original films, so perhaps that was the intent all along. Basically, it was an action movie, but comic relief everywhere up through the very end. Perhaps unintentionally, that relief also came from the liberal use of really bad CGI during combat scenes. One wonders why not do what the old samurai films did and just let folks play along that so and so got sliced up, without the blood splatter or the sword poking out the other side of the back telling us. But anyways, there was plenty of time dedicated to letting us know these folks are wanting to have fun. A bit like Sonatine in that regard.

Unfortunately, I am on my tablet, so it wants me to download their app to see what movies they have, but if they have the Warner Brothers movies from the 40s, 50s and 60s, I am sold. I also noted they had Kurosawa, and I have not watched any of his movies in forever...been kinda wanting to rewatch 7 Samurai since the Magnificent 7 remake kinda thing. Thanks for the heads up.
Click to expand...

I haven't scoured too much yet of WB and MGM's contributions, but they seem more B-sideish...but really good b-sides all the same. They just won't really be the ones that make the average person go "oh yeah, I remember that movie!" Right now Mad Max seems to be the exception to that. But there seems to be the thing with the Filmstruck side of the package where movies will rotate a la Netflix, rather than stick around constantly like CC did with Hulu. I'm presuming CC will just have their stuff stay put.

But basically, if you are a Kurosawa guy--or even know who the hell that is, then you may want to dig a bit into the service. The browsing of the catalog itself won't trigger a request to subscribe, so you should be fine there, even with a tablet.
 
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The Beat Takeshi Zaitochi movie is less bloodier and a less serious version of the originals, but is nevertheless a very good movie (as are most of the Japanese samurai movies). I have a number of Criterion DVDs in my collection and I would rather have the physical copies than any streaming service.
 
PoS said:
The Beat Takeshi Zaitochi movie is less bloodier and a less serious version of the originals, but is nevertheless a very good movie (as are most of the Japanese samurai movies). I have a number of Criterion DVDs in my collection and I would rather have the physical copies than any streaming service.
Click to expand...

I'd rather do that too. When I am done rebuilding my home theater set-up, I'll gradually chip away at some of the ones that got away, like Z and The Confession.
 
Fiddytree said:
The fine folks at Turner Classic Movies (TCM) have partnered with a number of independent studios and the Criterion Collection to launch their own streaming service. Criterion Collection is a great company that does the best to ensure that films look and sound as great as they can, while they have the rights to the title. They tend to specialize in older foreign films, but have a modest number of contemporary films as well. You have to be picky with what films you buy from them, because they usually cost you at least $30 a pop. As a result of Filmstruck, Hulu lost the Criterion Collection films. This has sort of underscored the need to talk about the elephant in the room: a lack of film content on streaming video services.

Netflix has steadily lost contract after contract-some because the rights holder wanted to create their own service, or because Netflix wanted to place greater emphasis on Original Content. Hulu has always sucked at getting its mits on film and only seemed to gain some measure of a film niche with the Criterion Collection archives. Amazon has had the best luck at being both a subscription service with films as well as a video-on-demand service with a large number of films. But it too has been lacking and has spent much of its time trying to become a player in television series.

That's why I killed my Hulu account and went to FilmStruck. At the moment it's a relatively modest service-focusing on older Warner Bros catalog and the scores of features yet held on by Criterion. However, already the selection is above what I was getting with Hulu when it came to the CC titles. Its device support is yet limited: Apple TV, Amazon FireTV, iOS and Android mobile devices and computers, but will expand to Roku, Chromecast, PS4, and Xbox One throughout the next year (well, this year, if you discount the next several hours).

There's a free 14 day trial, with three tiers of payment. One (or $6.99/month) is merely access to Filmstruck, which although occasionally gets you overlap with films Criterian has, tends to be a lot smaller than the 2nd and 3rd tiers. The 2nd and 3rd tiers get you additional access to Criterion's archives, but will charge you either monthly (at $10.99) or annually ($99), respectively.

Last night I used it to play The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003) - IMDb which hasn't had a wide non-VOD streaming presence up to now. It was all good fun watching some low-scale sword carnage.

https://www.filmstruck.com/

Here's to hoping that streaming won't just be the land of TV series.
Click to expand...

Good post, i like all the background information. Movies have been heavily lacking on streaming services.

They also need to address the issue relating to search-ability. We wanted to watch the Shaun the Sheep movie the other night, after failing to find it on either Netflix and HBO, hope had worn thin, but Amazon Prime had it.

Sadly, my better half isn't terribly interested in the movie medium, she far prefers television, so i may not sign up for this yet.
 
Absentglare said:
Good post, i like all the background information. Movies have been heavily lacking on streaming services.

They also need to address the issue relating to search-ability. We wanted to watch the Shaun the Sheep movie the other night, after failing to find it on either Netflix and HBO, hope had worn thin, but Amazon Prime had it.

Sadly, my better half isn't terribly interested in the movie medium, she far prefers television, so i may not sign up for this yet.
Click to expand...

This isn't the most helpful tip, since it's not free, but The Roku has a system-wide search feature that's pretty dang handy with the fragmentation of the streaming market.
 
Fiddytree said:
This isn't the most helpful tip, since it's not free, but The Roku has a system-wide search feature that's pretty dang handy with the fragmentation of the streaming market.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, that's exactly what i've been thinking they've needed!! Thanks!
 
Absentglare said:
Oh yes, that's exactly what i've been thinking they've needed!! Thanks!
Click to expand...

It may depend on the model still. But it's been long enough where I think it's a standard feature in almost all of their products.
 
Fiddytree said:
This isn't the most helpful tip, since it's not free, but The Roku has a system-wide search feature that's pretty dang handy with the fragmentation of the streaming market.
Click to expand...

The Amazon fire TV has a voice search across all services that's really handy.
 
Winchester said:
The Amazon fire TV has a voice search across all services that's really handy.
Click to expand...

Have they finally expanded their search results to cover other services besides Prime and their Instant Video services? It used to be that Amazon's devices would conveniently ignore Netflix or Hulu results.
 
Fiddytree said:
Have they finally expanded their search results to cover other services besides Prime and their Instant Video services? It used to be that Amazon's devices would conveniently ignore Netflix or Hulu results.
Click to expand...

Yes they have. When you search it gives you all options for the video, including netflix, hulu, hbo, showtime whatever.
 
Winchester said:
Yes they have. When you search it gives you all options for the video, including netflix, hulu, hbo, showtime whatever.
Click to expand...

Alright then. Good job Amazon.
 
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