Movies, Series and Streaming I like movies, I always had except for the time when my mother took me to a movie when I was about five years old and it scared the heck out of me, but that was an exception. There are some types I look for more than others. I am a big fan of science fiction movies, westerns and war movies. When I was younger I thought the greatest job would be movie reviewer. That way I could go to the movies all the time. Today, I watch the movies on streaming services and cable, who would have thought years ago this would be possible. I just don’t understand how all those movie theaters are surviving. The writers and actors striking haven’t helped the problems movie theaters are having. The average price of a movie ticket in Manhattan is between $12 and $14.50. You can get a good streaming service for a month for that and even less in some cases if you don’t mind commercials. Speaking of that you can even sign up for free services at places like Tubi. Sure, you will usually have to wait for a movie you may want to see to get there, but you could save a lot of money. Speaking of streaming services, I have signed up for about 5 of them and there is enough content to keep me busy for the rest of my life. There are some things about streaming content that can be annoying such as when you are looking for a particular series of movies and the carrier as many of them but not all. Take the James Bond movies for example. I managed to find almost all of them, but one of the movies none of my services had. It wasn’t earth shattering, but it was annoying when I was trying to see the entire series again. The younger generation, or at least the ones I know, refuse to look at a movie if it is not from their time. Some of the greatest movies were before that. There have been some remakes of the great ones, but if you compare them to the originals, they usually don’t hold up. The example I usually give is comparing the Charlton Heston version of Ben Hur to the remake. The Charlton Heston version was head and shoulders above. The truth about that movie is it was not even the original. The original was a silent movie starring Raymond Navarro. I look back on how things used to be, that is pre-television. If you were old and a shut in, there just wasn’t much to do to keep yourself occupied. You could read books, newspapers and listen to the radio and that was it. The advent of television and then cable tv and later streaming services was a God send for the elderly, especially for those living alone and not able to get out. It is getting harder to find a good western movie, I guess many today are just not interested in them as I was growing up. Having said that, every once in a while one comes along. Sometimes they have famous stars in them and sometimes it seems the movie is a vehicle to give unknowns a chance, which has happened in many of the streaming movies. I guess we can credit this to the constant need for new material. Movies are not the only things of interest we can find on the streaming services. One thing which was never possible before, but became possible with some of the streaming services is binge watching. I think we all know what that is, but in case I will tell you. It is when an entire series of shows which were from television or made for streaming are put up at once and you watch them all. An example is the old television show Supernatural. The entire series was put up and I binged watched them all. Some streaming services will put up one or two and then make you either pay for more episodes, or wait a week at a time for new episodes. I tried looking at the sites which have free movies with commercials and what I found was really annoying to me. The commercials are in the worst places some of the times, and some sites even show the same commercial over and over during the break and in the next break do it again. This really drives me nuts. It is bad enough the commercials are placed badly without regard for what is going on, but watching a commercial ten times in a row is just too much for me. As with many places in America, the Chinese have gotten a foothold in the movie theater industry. The Chinese control or at least have enormous influence over AMC movie theaters. They also own Legendary Films. The movie theaters may become a losing proposition. It is amazing how ticket prices have increased. Maybe if we figure in inflation the prices increases are reasonable, since they come to 3% a year, according to one source, but 4.5% a year according to another. The end result is the same, many people can no longer afford tickets for the family, or are happy with the movies on streaming, so happy they no longer go to the theater. Could it also be the fact they don’t want to pay $100 for a family for soda and candy? I wonder how they would feel if they were each given a free candy bar or drink when they bought their tickets? Some of the documentaries on the streaming services are very interesting. I just watched one about archaeology. The title was Unknown: Cave of Bones on Netflix. Archaeologists found a cave in South Africa when an unknown race that may have predated humans buried their dead about 300,000 years ago. This species was previously unknown and it could indicate even though they were not human, and their brains were only one third the size of ours, they may have had religion. There are also plenty of shows which are streaming for UFO and Paranormal buffs. The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch has even made it to Netflix. There seems to be shows and movies for every taste listed on streaming services. As time goes by, some are getting more popular while others are losing customers. I guess that is the way of things. I heard Disney is not as popular a streaming service as it once was. This might be because they are changing some of their well known characters around. Anyway, happy streaming everybody.
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