Caught this news first in my email, courtesy of Google. They are ditching Google Play Movies & TV and putting your library of purchased movies & TV shows, if you have any, under your YouTube account. I just checked and our half dozen or so movies are there already.
Does this mean Google Play is going away completely or is it being kept only for apps and games? The word “play” doesn’t really invoke movie watching, it sounds much more interactive and fits games better. You can’t buy movies and TV shows on Steam, so maybe that is the direction Google Play is headed competitively.
Google is no stranger to moving and shutting down its services. Just do a simple Google search and you’ll see how many services they’ve shut down over the years (Wikipedia maintains a Discontinued Google Services page). Again, this isn’t a complete shutdown, just reorganization of content from one service to another and Google Play will remain, only not for movies & TV. YouTube is more logically suited, especially since they have the YouTube TV streaming live TV service they are selling. Our guess is what this is about, to keep these services together and to not require their customers to app skip to watch movie and TV shows in their libraries.
Still, when I think of YouTube, it is user-created video content, podcasts and the like, not Hollywood movies and TV shows. You? Maybe this is my own hangup. Keep in mind we have our own YouTube channel for Just Left Theateer Movie Reviews — so we obviously support YouTube. If you haven’t subscribed, please do. Every movie we see in theater we record a video as we leave the theater — or as shortly thereafter as we can.
Feel free to speculate or share what you know in the comments below.
The cellphone carrier said Monday it will wind down the service, called TVision, on April 29 and steer its wireless customers toward Google’s YouTube TV instead.
Rival online video packages from Sony Corp. and others have shut operations or raised prices on live-TV service to keep up with programmers that continue to raise their fees.
Live TV on streaming is an ever-changing landscape and prices are moving. Just speculating here, but T-Mobile probably jumped in before realizing that the bottom is falling out of the Live TV marketplace. I saw another article recently that focused on just how many people are getting rid of Live TV for streaming options. That’s the market TVision was looking to get into, but there are a boatload of options there already, the strongest that might be those that are ad-supported (Tubi, Philo, Xumo, the list goes on).
In the pay Live TV space there’s Hulu and YouTube TV, among others. We don’t pay for any Live TV. None. With a bunch of paid streaming channels we subscribe to, AMC A-List Stubs for watching new movies in theaters, plus an active interest in playing videogames, sleep and work — ahh, yes, the biggest devil in the details of time spent — there’s just not much left for watching Live TV. The occasional live sports event might be our only time to turn anything live.
How much Live TV are you watching these days? No change? Some, none, less, more (that would be interesting!)?
Like a ragtag group of Rebels taking on a Death Star, angry Star Wars fans who are furious at Disney / Lucasfilm over the firing of Gina Carano from The Mandalorian are absolutely thrashing the official Star Wars YouTube channel.
Nearly every new video posted to the Star Wars YouTube channel is met with a massive amount of downvotes and comments expressing support for Carano.
Am not a fan of the term “toxic fandom” but will admit that obsession over anything is problematic. At the same time, I agree that The Last Jedi was a terrible movie and wish Disney would have found some other way to deal with Gina Carano than cutting off all business contact with her (Disney Has Had Enough – Gina Carino Out From The Mandalorian over Social Media Activity). It is a terrible optic, regardless whether you agree or not with Carano’s political beliefs, especially when Disney took the extra step of stopping Hasbro from making Cara Dune toys, Am not sure I agree with Carano that she was bullied (see: Gina Carano Tells Her Side, Claiming Disney Bullying, in Interview With Ben Shapiro) but do see how reasonable people could come to that conclusion.
What should Disney have done if they didn’t want to work with Gina Carano any longer? The answer is obvious. Don’t offer her a contract for more TV show appearances as the character. Behind the scenes, it sounds like they’d already done that. But they didn’t need to come out with a public statement distancing themselves from Carano. I think this last PR move poured salt in the wound.
As previously stated, I wasn’t that excited about Cara Dune, the character. She might have been popular for more hardened Star Wars fans but she was to me at best a very minor character in The Mandalorian. If she never appeared in the series again, that wouldn’t have been something I found disappointing. Will she appear in The Mandalorian pinball game? I don’t know, but if she’s there or not, I’m cool with it.
I’m not going to Disney’s official Star Wars channel to downvote the video. The number of videos I’ve downvoted on YouTube can probably be counted on both hands. That’s since YouTube first started many years ago. I would rather promote than downvote, so I will thumbs up videos I like more than actively downvote those disliked. If I dislike something, I don’t engage with it, stop following, stop paying attention to it.
This brings back Star Wars Pinball. I bought that table because I love playing the Zen Studios FX3 pinball tables and liked the design of that table. This was before Gina Carano’s fallout with Disney. When the table comes I’m going to setup and play. The only thing that’s going to impact how often that is played is how much fun the games are on the table.
Not going to tell Star Wars fans how to spend their time, so if they want to spend those minutes of their life downvoting videos on Disney’s official Star Wars channel have at it. That seems to be important for some (many?) of them right now. Disney is the enemy for distancing themselves from Carano, I get it. My guess is in time this Carano situation will blow over. Is it reminiscent of what happened to Luke Skywalker’s character in The Last Jedi? I don’t think so. The comparison is being made, but Cara Dune was never Luke Skywalker.
If people want to be mad as Star Wars fan, it’s more understandable being upset about Luke Skywalker than what happened with Cara Dune. The character Cara Dune didn’t have anything negative happen except the actress that plays her won’t be Gina Carano (according to Disney as of this moment in time, but who knows what the future holds?) could still be recast and maybe will in future shows. Luke Skywalker’s character arc is pretty much ruined, unless they go all Star Trek and parallel universe or retcon what happened to him in The Last Jedi.
If you love a franchise, whether it be Star Wars, Jurassic Park, etc, you don’t have to love everything involved with it. That’s what I’m taking from this. It’s not blind loyalty to the franchise. I don’t like everything Star Trek has done, in fact most of the newer Star Trek by Alex Kurtzman hasn’t been to my liking. Have voted with my feet. Not watching it. Maybe I’ll give it another chance someday. Maybe I’ll like something new Kurtzman does with Star Trek, but so far his record is abysmal with me.
How wrapped up as a fan do you get in something you like? What do you think Disney should have done if they didn’t want to do business with Gina Carano any longer?
A new Chromecast just launched from Google officially on September 30. They are going after Roku competitively by including a remote and a menu a la Android TV. The device offers 4K and is priced at $49.99 USD.
A limited promotion is being offered for those interested in paying for at least one month of YouTubeTV ($64.99 USD).
Google is giving away a free Chromecast with Google TV device to everyone that signs up for YouTube TV before the end of the year. As the terms of the deal explain, you need to be a first-time subscriber to the streaming TV service to take advantage of the offer, and at least one monthly payment has to be processed between October 15th and December 31st, 2020. This offer is only available to US residents.
We haven’t tried YouTubeTV but with the election coverage, NFL sports in action and the end nearing of the baseball season, this is a good time to have a month of live TV. We’re probably going to go in on this deal.
On Thursday we went around to a few local stores (Walmart, Best Buy, Target) and nobody had the new Chromecast + TV in stock yet. We already own the Chromecast Ultra (see: Tired of Waiting For Roku, 7+ Year Customer Buys Chromecast Ultra to Stream HBO Max to TV) but the downside to that is having to use your phone. Kara has never liked it and I’ve had a hard time getting used to the phone as a remote. It’s a good idea in theory, but it’s just not as handy as having a remote and using a Roku-style menu on the TV.
Glad to see this new version of Chromecast. Are you interested? Happy with Roku? Or using something else?
Weekend #23 of 53 – 6/5-6/7/2020 for 2020 Picks By Streaming Service
The first of the month is here and talk about overload — in a good way — of new movies hitting all the services.
I’ve picked out a few from several different services, but there are a bunch of good to great to amazing movies available to watch, not to mention a weekend of new movies and TV shows hitting.
It’s pretty much impossible for any one person who doesn’t make this their job (we both have full time jobs that have nothing to do with this) to stay on top of what’s new on all the streaming services, so I’m thinking the current strategy is to just try and be aware of what’s out there by hitting the top 10 lists and seeing what the buzz is from social media, movie and TV bloggers and the news, plus of course word of mouth from others you know.
If there is something great you want to mention that is available this weekend, please use the comments below to talk about it. We need to help each other sift through the massive amount of content changing, rotating and coming out new.
NOTE: If you’re coming to these posts weeks or months later, some and/or all of the picks listed below may no longer be on the streaming services indicated. Anything marked as “Original” typically doesn’t expire on the streaming service.
KEY *Title with asterisk – newly released Title is linked and has star rating – already watched, rated and reviewed Title bolded – on our schedule to watch/rewatch, rate and review (or in progress)
NETFLIX Movies
*The Last Days of An American Crime
Our House
The Show
The Healer
NETFLIX TV
*Fuller House – Season 5 – 18 episodes Comedy – Original
This weekend is your last chance to catch the virtual film festival, so if you’re interested in catching what’s being screened during the even, be sure to check out this weekend.
*The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs Season 2 Episode 7 Horror films double-feature with host commentary Friday June 5, 2020 @ 6pm PST (GMT-8), 9pm EST (GMT-5) Discord chat via reddit/shudder group
*Love Life – Season 1 – Episodes 4-6 Anna Kendrick, romance comedy – Original
I May Destroy You – Season 1 – Episode 1 “Eyes, Eyes, Eyes, Eyes”
Looney Tunes Cartoons (2020) Animated
Watched Love Life starring Anna Kendrick the first three episodes last week and it covers her adventures trying to find and secure love. It’s an awkward and unusually paced TV show.
Not sure how much or even if I like it or not yet, but it manged to keep my interest through the first three episodes (it’s just comes off as an unusual way of watching someone trying to fall in love). The next three episodes (4-6) are dropping to check out, so will see how that goes.
DC Universe TV
*Harley Quinn TV Series – Season 2, Episode10: “There’s No Place To Go But Down”
*Stargirl – Season 1, Episode 4: “Wildcat” (6/7)
Stargirl and S.T.R.I.P.E ready for action in episode #3, episode 4 airs Sunday 6/7 @ 9pm PT (GMT-8)
These online events are among the very few social (potentially, anyway) film viewing options available during the pandemic.
We Are One: A Global Film Festival is being produced and organized by New York’s Tribeca Enterprises. The YouTube-hosted event will feature programming from 20 top film festivals including the Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and Venice Film Festival.
Movies, Movies, Movies 