Cash In The Attic

The Munsters

 

I always thought "The Munsters" were way cooler than "The Addams Family" show. I remember once they had The Standells play in their living room. Wow! 

Marwencol (2010)

 

 

Marwencol (2010)

I fell asleep and missed this. I heard its really good.

Heavy Petting (1989)

Some of the old footage in "Heavy Petting" was pretty neat, but the interviews about various celebrities' sex lives not so much. Meh. 

South Park

This character was wrongfully blamed for a fire that disfigured an elementary school teacher who now exists silently in a motorized black box. The "South Park" kids pointed the finger at this guy, a bad kid (a.k.a easy target) and so he was sent off to Juvenile for a few years.

Lemon Popsicle (1978)

"Lemon Popsicle" is a teen flick set in 1950's Israel, but made in 1978. It's spoken in Herbrew language, but unfortunately overdubbed in English. Subtitles might've made for a better translation. I would say that "Popsicle" is similar to "Porky's", but this movie actually predates it by 3 or 4 years. I think "Porky's" is kinda bad anyway. Funny enough, 1982 is the year that "Lemon Popsicle" was remade for America as "The Last American Virgin" which is by the same director as the original, Boaz Davidson. Would you believe that there are 8 or 9 of these "Lemon Popsicle" movies? The third one in the series is "Hot Bubblegum", which came out (again) in 1982. That seems to be the only other one available via streaming at the moment.

This movie was crude, but also kinda sweet and funny at times. It went from one extreme to another. There was more nudity than any American movie would have shown at the time. For instance, during some scenes of undressing, you can casually see someone's weiner, while back in American (a few years later), you can hear Amy Heckerling being told that "Fast Times.." character, Damone's penis is too "aggressive". How odd.

There was a ridiculous amount of 1950's era music crammed into just about every scene in this movie. In my mind, I kept getting "Puppy Love" and "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" mixed up. Then I thought about the Doug Clark & The Hot Nuts parody which was something like, "Put your legs 'round my shoulders". ha. "Baaay-Bee".

Futurama

Pow! To the moon! 

So it has come to this...

Hello everyone! I'm taking this opportunity to drag out my soap box and share some of my own commentary on the latest in Netflix.

As you can see in an earlier post, I spoke about the new pricing and plans that Netflix unveiled much to the masses' absurdly negative reaction. Well, because of all the pouting and quite frankly, childish ranting about the plan increasing to a still WAY cheaper price than cable, about $17 (For one DVD at a time and Streaming), we now have a blog entry/email from the CEO, as follows:

Dear Kristin,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

p.s. I have a slightly longer explanation along with a video posted on our blog, where you can also post comments.


That is the email version I received in my inbox this afternoon. So now because everyone was up in arms about the whole thing, Netflix is actually splitting their website in two separate entities. This is crazy. Maybe Netflix shouldn't listen to their customers so much, because the majority of them can't seem to give up 4 or 5 $4 Starbucks coffees to pay for their Netflix subscription. I wouldn't exactly call myself a misanthrope, but I just find that a whole lot of people should probably keep their opinions to themselves, or at least stop jumping to conclusions. That may be battle scars from working retail and hearing people vent their frustrations at complete strangers (us, retail workers) who I guess are seen as beneath them.

At the moment, I'm keeping my subscription until the end of the year when I'll be out of town for awhile (my account will be on hold so I don't have to pick out my movies all over again). I'll have to wait and see how this new separate sites for DVD's and streaming service works out. That may be my suggestion for everybody, basically freaking out over this: why don't you wait and see how it goes before you make a such a quick judgement about it?

By the way, Red Box SUCKS.

Edge Of Seventeen (1998)

"Edge Of Seventeen" is a pretty good, coming of age movie. I love almost anything "coming of age", so this is up my alley. Its about Annie Lennox obsessed Eric (Chris Stafford) who can't figure out if he's gay or straight in 1984 Sandusky, Ohio. This movie was made to look old, like it was actually filmed in 1984. Its not exact, but pretty close with its nice and grainy film lines. There's some kool costumes and a pretty good New Romantic/New Wave soundtrack with lots of A Flock Of Seagulls. Tina Holmes (who I remember from "Six Feet Under" whose character name is Maggie in both of these) is his adorable best friend/girlfriend. 

This is the second gay related movie/TV show I've watched lately. The last being my DVD Netflix rental of "Queer As Folk", the last season. I'm glad Rosie O'Donnell didn't become a permanent character. 

Heart Of The Beholder (2005)

Wow-wee, "Heart Of The Beholder" was pretty bad. It was filmed like a made for tv movie, except there's lots of swearing and awkward sex scenes. Really off-putting. I added this movie to my queue after watching the super violent "Kick Ass". "Heart" was Chloe Moretz first movie. I thought the "based on a true story" was pretty interesting even though it was poorly made. It's about a video store that faces backlash from the religious community about the videos they rent in their store in the 1980's. Namely, "The Last Temptation Of Christ". I had to laugh at the scene where a woman claims that "Splash" is a movie about bestiality. Who knew? There was a reporter who says "This is Mike Deetz On The Streets" so many times its almost at drinking game status. Also, the lead actor who plays the store owner looks so familiar to me, but I couldn't find what movie I had seen him in. I did find out though that he was Mike Love in the fantastic made-for-tv movie about the Beach Boys called "An American Family". 

The Basketball Diaries (1995)

As you can see, I had a lot of stall outs with trying to watch "The Basketball Diaries". I think it added an extra half hour or so and I nodded off during the last 40 minutes of the movie. 

I was prompted to put this movie on (since I've never seen it) because I'm rereading "Please Kill Me" and Jim Carroll (whose book this movie is based on) has a few comments in it. He talks about his poetry readings with Patti Smith, the time he was thrown in jail and missed a performance of theirs and how he was "terrible hustler". He was referring to a time when he was 15, and turning tricks on 53rd and 3rd (which many Ramones fans know the song about Dee Dee's experience there) in New York City.

So, I thought maybe the movie was about that period in his life. Nope, I guess not. Sure, there were drugs, but I don't recall seeing him (I mean, Leonardo Dicaprio portraying him) as a prostitute (maybe I missed that part). I mean, he nearly breaks Bruno Kirby's nose when he starts coming on to him. I barely know anything about Jim Carroll and I still feel like I don't from watching this movie.  

I always knew of the "People Who Died" song, but I didn't really hear it beginning to end so it didn't stick.  I remember hearing it referenced in a song by Detention called "Dead Rock'n'Rollers". Now it seems out of date because poor Jim died in 2009 of a heart attack.

I was really annoyed with the time setting in "Basketball Diaries". You know that its supposed to be the 1960's, but its obviously not. I mean, a Terminator reference and an "IHOP" (Not International House Of Pancakes)? What am I, an idiot? Maybe the filmmakers thought that it was irrelevant? Or maybe they just didn't care? It could have been a better movie. 

Youngblood (1978)

I unfortunately missed most of "Youngblood" by falling asleep. I'll probably update this entry sometime soon. 

Man Vs. Food

I'm pretty sure this episode was in Puerto Rico where there seemed to be lots of crazy pork dishes. I've never been to Puerto Rico, but I like Davila 666 who are from there. 

Jeffrey and I have gone to Munchie's in Sarasota after seeing it in an episode. We were there to play a show at Pasttimes Pub across the street. The first time we went, he had a...

 

and I had a 

I think after getting through half the sandwich, I felt pretty terrible, like I had eaten too much salt or something. Even so, we still went back again a year later. They're actually pretty good, just not all the time of course. 

The Dick Van Dyke Show (1962)

That's the adorable Rose Marie telling Mary Tyler Moore about her date with an old high school classmate named Bassfinder. I only recently started watching "Dick Van Dyke", so I'm completely uninformed about its widely known history. The only things I've heard about it were how people thought Dyke and Moore were really married and how unusual it was for her to wear pants most of the time. That's really cool and everything, but why wear pants when they had so many amazing dresses in the early 1960's? I also luv Marie's hair bow (which apparently is her signature) since I tend to wear one on the same side myself. 

This particular episode talks about women being single in their 20s, 30s, or 40s. Its funny to think that people would look at you a certain way if you weren't married. To each their own. I think they try to show both sides, but you still can't help the time when this show was made. Women's lib and feminism was probably in its infancy. 

Fat, SIck & Nearly Dead (2010)

There has been this crazed obsession with diets, lifestyle choices and veganism in the last few years that I've come in contact with. I wouldn't say my own diet is deplorable, but so far today I've eaten a bowl of Cheerios, two cups of coffee and a couple of handfuls of Cheez-Its (both Colby and the Parmesan Garlic kind). Sure, I guess you call my eating habits fairly bad. This of course doesn't reflect every single day and its about 4:30pm, so I haven't even had dinner yet.

"Fat" explores what it would be like to eat, excuse me, drink nothing but fruits and vegetables via a juicer and a whole bunch of produce. Lately, it seems that we're being told that just about everything we eat is harmful to us. At least it sure seems that way. I recall hearing about the fake flavor "packs" in orange juice and the writer of the article saying that its absurd to think that every carton of juice tastes exactly the same. Well, now that you mention it...

Anyway, Joe Cross, an Aussie man with an awful disease that causes crazy hives decides to take a 60 day fasting challenge. Its fortunately NOT in your face, preachy or sorta mean-spirited in the sense that if you're not doing the same, you're less of a person. I've had these sort of altercations with friends and acquaintances throughout the years. Since I eat meat and cheese, I've had people tell me that "oh wait, you eat dead things", or that I'm a "flesh-eater" and such. Frankly, its not very nice or open minded. I definitely don't judge people based on what they eat, its insignificant. Maybe one day I'll quit eating meat or cheese, but that's my decision. What can I say? I love cheeseburgers (although the fake ones are pretty tasty too). You might as well stick a Bowler hat on my head and call me Wimpy. Well, maybe not that extreme. My favorite food is actually french fries which can be both vegetarian and (I think) vegan friendly. Probably depends on what kind of oil they're cooked in.

Bandwagon (1996)

I must've missed this one, growing up with a cable subscription that included the Sundance channel. As nauseating as that channel can be, I recall seeing some great films I may not have otherwise known about, such as "Smithereens" and "Going Places".

"Bandwagon" basically follows a band from beginning to somewhat end. It's real simple, not ground breaking or anything, and pretty enjoyable. Just make sure to go in not expecting much and not being too judgmental about its "Indie Flick" type of filmmaking. Hey, the songs aren't that bad either and its pretty funny in some parts. Why not indulge in the latest trend of once again experiencing the 1990's? You know, when Kevin Corrigan seemed to be in everything? haha.