Annihilation: good movie or poor take on a book? Plus, a death on Counterpart.

01:16 – Annihilation
22:13 – Counterpart (106)
31:19 – Deadwood (110)

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Reboots galore, Legion’s coming back, and a Fox News superfan channel. With special guest Anthony Lemos ( ritualmisery.com )

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CordKillers: Ep. 209 – Watch Something Prescient
Recorded: February 26 2018
Guest: Anthony Lemos

Intro Video

• Farenheit 451 trailer

Primary Target

• Disney reportedly plans ‘Muppets’ reboot for its streaming service
  – Hollywood Reporter sources claim Disney will reboot the short-lived Muppets comdey from ABC for its upcoming Disney streaming service.
  – The Muppets was itself an “office” style mockuentary reboot of the Muppet Show.
  – Disney was exploring projects based on other recognizable names, including Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Father of the Bride, The Mighty Ducks and The Parent Trap.
• Netflix’s Lost in Space Reboot coming April 13

How to Watch

• Fox News to launch an over-the-top streaming service, Fox Nation
  – Fox News is starting its over the top streaming service in Q4
  – Designed for Fox News Superfan.
  – “Fox Nation” will have live exclusive daily programming
  – access to exclusive events, library of 20 years fo Fox News programming
  – No pricing set yet. Will be paid unlike CBS News.
  – Fox is describing it as “supplemental” to Fox News Channel and refers to it as as an “over-the-top opinion platform” in its announcement.
• CBS launches a 24/7 streaming sports news network, CBS Sports HQ
  – CBS launched CBS Sports HQ, a 24 hour streaming sports news channel. It’s available for free on most platforms in the CBS Sports app. Viewers will be able to watch previously streamed segments.

What to Watch

• A new Netflix show wants to manipulate people into committing murder
  – Coming to Netflix February 27, The Push, a reality show where psychological illusionist Derren Brown leads a crew of – – 70 actors in an elaborate plot to get one contestant to push an old man off a building.
  No murder is actually committed.
• Twitch’s live reality competition ‘Stream On’ premieres March 8th at 3 PM pacific. (grand prize of $60,000)
• Watch Netflix’s first trailer for hip-hop biopic ‘Roxanne, Roxanne’
  – Roxanne, Roxanne, the Lolita “Roxanne Shanté” Gooden biopic that premiered at Sundance last year, is making its way to Netflix on March 23rd. It’s about one of the most fearsome battle rappers in Queens.
• Silicon valley is back March 25th on HBO
• Krypton debuts on March 21st on SyFy
• Legion is set to return to FX on April 3. Trailer is Aubrey Plaza convincing us season one didn’t happen.
• Syfy’s The Expanse will return on April 11th
• Amazon Prime orders a second season of its podcast-inspired TV series Lore
  – Amazon announced it has ordered a second season of the show Lore, based on the podcast of the same name. Sean Crouch (Numbers, Helix) will take over from Glen Morgan (X-Files, Millenium) as show runner.
• Netflix lands sci-fi movie from ‘Planet of the Apes’ director
  – Deadline says Netflix has got the rights to “Life Sentence,” a movie based on a Matthew Baker short story about a future where authorities wipe the memories of criminals instead of sending them to prison. It’s directed by Matt Reeves who did the last two Planet of the Apes movies.
• Netflix courts HGTV fans with its first home makeover series
  – Netflix has ordered its first original home makeover show with a working title of Amazing On The Inside about homes that look amazing on the inside.
  – Netflix also announced a new Tiffany Haddish-led animated series from the team behind Bojack Horseman called Tuca & Bertie.
  – And Netflix obtained the rights to the Duplass Brothers’ next four films.
• Amazon’s answer to ‘Altered Carbon’ is Iain M. Banks’ space opera
  – Amazon has acquired worldwide rights to Iain M. Banks’ space opera series and will adapt the first novel, Consider Phlebas for television.
  “The Culture novels focus on a highly advanced society that goes to interstellar war with a violent race bent on galactic domination. The first book in the series centers on a spy tasked with recovering an AI that has the ability to help win the war.”

What We’re Watching

• Brian: Deadwood, Annihilation, Game Night, Counterpart
• Tom: Deadwood (110), Magicians, Lost Pilot, Annihilation, Counterpart (106), Olympics
• Anthony: Rewatching Game of Thrones and Black Mirror, Modern Rogue, Black Panther
• On the Lookout: Queer Eye

Front Lines

• Disney loses in Redbox copyright row
  – Last December Disney filed a lawsuit over Redbox selling digital download codes for Disney films separate from the DVDs the codes came in. The Hollywood Reporter says a California federal judge rejected Disney’s request for an injunction to stop the practice, saying the wording on the box was not an enforceable contract and that Disney was misusing copyright law in trying to prevent the sales. Redbox has distribution deals with other studios like Warner Bros., which allows it to buy physical DVDs and Blu-rays and then offer them as rentals at its kiosks. But with Disney, Redbox buys retail copies of the films and rents those discs, and also sells the digital download codes from the physical copies at a fraction of the price.
• Sling TV now has 2.2M subscribers, making it the largest internet-based live TV service
  – Dish announced Sling TV now has 2.2 million subscribers putting it ahead of DirecTV Now which last announced 1.2 million. PS Vue is estimated to have 670,000. Sling also announced the NBA League Pass service which costs $29 a month is available as an add-on.
• OnePlus 5/5T update enables Netflix playback in HD, but you have to mail the phone in
  – The OnePlus 5 and 5T cannot play Netflix video in HD because it shipped without Google’s Level 1 Widevine DRM. OnePlus can now update the handsets but only with a physical connection from an authenticated PC, meaning users would have to ship their device to OnePlus in order to get the update that would allow them to watch Netflix in HD. OnePlus will pay for courier costs and promises to turn the phones back around in less than 5 working days.
• Apple will disconnect ‘obsolete’ first-gen Apple TV from iTunes in May
  – Apple is making security updates to its iTunes service that will mean it won’t work with older devices. Among the now obsolete devices are the 11-year-old original Apple TV as well devices running Windows XP and Windows Vista. The update will cut off the devices starting May 25th.
• FilmStruck Expands its Movie Library to Offer Iconic Hollywood Classics Through a New Partnership with Warner Bros. Digital Networks
  – Turner’s FilmStruck is partnering with its corporate sister Warner Bros. Digital Networks to add more old films to the Filmstruck library. That includes some big names like Citizaen Kane, Rebel without a Cause and Casablanca. FilmStruck is $7 a month or $11 a month to add the Criterion Collection.

Dispatches from the Front

Hi Brian and Tom,

I live in a region where Netflix carries a fair bit of periodically released content. Sometimes there is a delay of only a day after broadcast in the home market (Star Trek Discovery on CBS All Access), sometimes a week (Black Lightning on The CW) and in the case of David Letterman’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” on Netflix, an entire month.

I used to use “My List” to remind me when such shows were available but the notification algorithm has gotten to the point where it lets me know when a new episode is available, without ever having to manually tag a show as something I’d be interested in watching again.

My notifications are generally a mix of returning shows and new shows I might like. Even if I get 3 notifications for the week, they never feel ‘spammy’.

I suspect the system works well for me because of my usage patterns (Netflix is used several times a week.) Your mileage may vary 😉

Thanks,

– Graham 

 

 

B&T

Something very strange happened to me in the night on Feb 23. I was watching Netflix with my fiance and between episodes it signed me out and asked for my credit card info to resubscribe… I knew this must have been a mistake or a glitch on my ps4 so I tried to load Netflix on a few other devises. All the same. None of my credit card info has changed and the card is active.

After resubscibing with the same card it logged in just fine, but I think I was given new options for tiers… A $15 ultra HD 4 logins at once and a $10(I think) for us and 2 logins at once.

I’m curious if anyone else has had the same thing happen, I googled it but didn’t find anything.

– Gaspare

• Netflix raised prices in November in the US

 

 

 

Hi Brian and Tom

I have not yet finished watching the first season of Star Trek Discovery but I have discovered how I will be watching it and wanted to share in case other were waiting for the whole season to become available.
…

The … thing that turned me off to CBS All Access was the complete lack of Dolby 5.1 or any other kind of surround sound. This is a huge let down!…

Last night I was browsing for shows on Amazon Prime Video on my Shield TV and noticed they were advertising an addon CBS All Access subscription. I clicked on the .. page and they had a 5.1 icon listed with each episode. I thought it might be a mistake, but thought I might as well try …. and was offered a week long free trial, turned on an episode of Discovery and was happy to see my receiver switch over to DD+ 5.1 audio!

Now we have a week of commercial free CBS All Access at no cost if we cancel before the first bill. More than enough time to watch all episodes of Star Trek Discovery and we get to enjoy it with 5.1 surround sound in our home theater!

If other listeners have been waiting for the season to be complete before signing up for CBS AA, I recommend going through Amazon Prime Video if they have it. Watch the whole season for free if you watch it in less than a week.

Thanks for the show!
(I’m a few episodes behind on CordKillers, sorry if you guys already talked about this)

 

 

 

Hey Killers,

My Dad got Sling TV Blue a little less than a year ago, and I realized that the streaming video quality from Sling TV is probably the worst that I’ve seen out of online video streaming. Of course, OTA is going to have higher quality than streaming video, but it hit me last night when my Dad was watching college basketball on FS1. I walked by and was struck by how good the video quality was. The frame rate was really good, the color was vibrant, and it didn’t seem to have as much noise as usual. I casually said to him “Hey, that looks really good for Sling TV.” However, he replied “Sling TV? No, this is Fox Sports Go.” I had not expected such a noticeable difference between Fox Sports Go and Sling TV.
You guys have tested probably all of the live streaming services; what has your experience been with the other services’ video quality when compared to cable, OTA, and TV Anywhere apps?

Sincerely in Christ,
– Amar

Links
patreon.com/cordkillers