Plan B Forum

We touched on this in another thread, but I don't want to derail that discussion, so I thought I'd bring this over here (This is not comprehensive; just based on what we watch, and it only applies to channels that have original drama series...not Discovery, Nat Geo, History2, etc...)



"The Good..."

CBS, A&E, USA, BBC America....

All have their shows available in On Demand the next day after airing, and all allow for FF through commercials...


"The Bad..."

The worst of the worst is FOX...

I believe it's the only network that insists that you sit through it's full boat of commercials no matter how long it's in On Demand... (This is even worse than watching the program live, where you can use your clicker to flip over to another channel during the commercials...when you're in On Demand you're stuck...it's downright barbaric...welcome back to the 1970s... )

Consequently, when we've missed an episode of a show we like on FOX (like House or Bones) we've frequently waited till it showed up later in next season re-runs on USA or TNT...



"The Ugly..."

This is a mixed bag...

ABC makes you sit through their full boat of original airing commercials for three days, but then replaces them with just one minute of commercials between programming...(that seems fair to me; if a network wants to have one minute of promo time in exchange for being able to watch the programming whenever you want...a privilege you've already paid for...I can live with that...)

TNT does the same thing with it's original programming, but they will let you FF through the one minute...

SyFy has a really strange thing going on...(I don't know if they do it all the time; the only series we've watched on that station lately is Defiance )

You can watch the show the next day with the full boat of commercials and FF past them, but once they switch over to the one minute between segments format, you have to sit through that...

We normally end up by the DVD of anything good.

The Dead:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/movie ... at-87.html

I went to on demand once to watch something I missed. Don't remember the show I wanted to see. I went through the list of free offerings and IIRC nothing was listed that I was even remotely interested in. Judging from the nightly lineup I see, I'm happy to go to my AA meetings every night then hit the sack at around 10pm.

Luciano Vincenzoni, an urbane Italian screenwriter who worked with Billy Wilder, Dino De Laurentiis and other giants of film but to his dismay was best known for helping to write two spaghetti westerns starring a young Clint Eastwood, died on Sunday in Rome. He was 87.

Sorry to hear about his passing, but he certainly had nothing to be "dismayed" about....

The Good The Bad and The Ugly is the greatest western ever made; (Yeah, I know some people think High Noon is, but those people are what I like to call, "wrong"...) if that were the only screenplay he'd ever written, that would have been worth a whole career...

Maybe it's neurotic of me to think this way, but I feel guilty about fast-forwarding through all the commercials.

I do it, but I feel guilty while doing it.

Same for throwing away all the junk in my newspapers.

These advertisers spend a boatload of money to get their products out, and that money goes to pay the production costs for the programming. As a "beneficiary" of the production, I feel a slight moral obligation to hear and see what they have to say.

Consider "Pandora." If you don't want the commercials, then you have to pay. This seems eminently fair to me.

Lord Jim wrote:

Luciano Vincenzoni, an urbane Italian screenwriter who worked with Billy Wilder, Dino De Laurentiis and other giants of film but to his dismay was best known for helping to write two spaghetti westerns starring a young Clint Eastwood, died on Sunday in Rome. He was 87.

Sorry to hear about his passing, but he certainly had nothing to be "dismayed" about....

The Good The Bad and The Ugly is the greatest western ever made; (Yeah, I know some people think High Noon is, but those people are what I like to call, "wrong"...) if that were the only screenplay he'd ever written, that would have been worth a whole career...

I love The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Also love The Outlaw Josey Wales. (I pretty much like all of Clints movies)

(I pretty much like all of Clints movies)

Even this one oldr:





I'm a big fan of Clint's too...Most of his movies are the kind you can watch over and over and always enjoy them...

The Outlaw Josey Wales is an epic...

In addition to TGTBATU and the "dollar" movies, High Plains Drifter, Hang 'Em High, and Pale Rider are all classics...Unforgiven is a great flick too...(The only western he made that I'm not big on is Joe Kidd I thought that one kind of dragged...It seemed to me like he and Robert Duvall were kind of sleep walking through it...)

Also a big fan of all the Dirty Harry movies, and his war pictures, (Kelly's Heroes and Where Eagles Dare)

The Gauntlet is also a great Clint detective shoot em up...The Eiger Sanction is another classic...

I wasn't all that keen on the orangutang movies...

Eastwood would not be called a great actor, (though he probably could be called a great director) but much like John Wayne he created an appealing and iconic character that he played variations of in an entertaining and engaging way in numerous films...

And he actually has more dramatic range than the bulk of his work would indicate; The Beguiled and Play Misty For Me were excellent flicks where he didn't play some version of Dirty Harry/ the Man With No Name...(I believe The Beguiled is the only movie that his character ever died in.)




Of course I'm sure that Strop thinks that all of Clint's movies suck....

Lord Jim wrote: Of course I'm sure that Strop thinks that all of Clint's movies suck....

He'd lose his Guy Card if he did.

You can all lose a guy card. Unforgiven is the bestest, most intelligentest, most well actedest, most well-writtenest western ever made, by anybody, any time, period. (Oh I guess that's two periods). Wait - I should have said "film" rather than simply "western"

Anyone who says otherwisest is itching for a fight

Well, I agree that Unforgiven is an excellent film, (It's sort of the story of The Man With No Name after he retired and then comes out of retirement) but I don't see how you can possibly rank it above The Good The Bad And The Ugly

So I guess we're going to have to have that fight..:



(You get to be Lee Van Cleef... )

LordJim (or anyone else) tell me what movie that youtube clip is about. I get blocked here at work.

(Two mules for sister sara?)

The "Any which way...." series were a little silly but when you go into the flick knowing that, they don't really suck. But they are not near all his other films.

And don't forget the "Dollars" flicks. (Fistful..., A Few....)

Oldr, that clip is from the great final duel scene between Blondy, Angel Eyes and Tuco in TGTBATU...(every aspect and scene of that movie is incredibly well crafted; watching that clip reminded me that one of the many outstanding features of the film is the musical score)

And don't forget the "Dollars" flicks. (Fistful..., A Few....)

I mentioned those earlier...

A couple of more good ones have come to mind...

In The Line Of Fire, (great suspense thriller co-starring John Malkovich) and Blood Work (co-staring Jeff Daniels as a really creepy serial killer)

I have TGTBATU on DVD. And is a duel between three people a thruel?

"Now dig"

Lord Jim wrote:Well, I agree that Unforgiven is an excellent film, (It's sort of the story of The Man With No Name after he retired and then comes out of retirement) but I don't see how you can possibly rank it above The Good The Bad And The Ugly

Well I could be wrong (it might happen one day) but I was judging solely on story, acting, directing, cinematography, musical score, lighting, costumes, continuity, editing, colour, scenery, staging, key grip and best boy and maybe a couple of other things.

It certainly didn't have a lot of meaningful (ha!) pauses, lingering steely-eyed time wasting, cigars and Italians trying to look brave, long sloooooooow shots of deep spiritual significance, and racial stereotypes. Plus it didn't sound like it was recorded in a nissan hut in East Anglia

Maybe I misjudged them both

Meade

I'm with you MGM that Unforgiven is the "better" movie compared to TGTBATU, but there is no way its musical score is better. Ennio Morricone pretty much established a 10 with TGTBATU. Being a great movie does not make it more fun to watch, as witnessed by any number of movies that are fun to watch, while "better" movies go unwatched for obvious reasons (McCabe and Mrs. Miller anyone?)

1) The Wild Bunch

2) Unforgiven

3) Once Upon A Time In The West (Leone)

4(+) Any other Sergio Leone western with Clint Eastwood

Lord Jim wrote:
Of course I'm sure that Strop thinks that all of Clint's movies suck....

Not true! Though "Grand Torino" was shite, and his "Talking to a chair" skit was sad.

I LOVE "The Eiger Sanction" (book and movie)

It has some of the best mountaineering scenes ever filmed. (Shame someone died during filming them.)

Best Westerns = spaghetti? Not even close. "The Missing" is up there with "Unforgiven".

As to the OP, oh the problems of wealth.... having to endure commercials on one's recording apparatus. It's the next lowest thing to actually being one of the masses.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
As to the OP, oh the problems of wealth.... having to endure commercials on one's recording apparatus. It's the next lowest thing to actually being one of the masses.

Definitely what they are now calling a First World problem.