Category Archives: Television

Arts Friday | Netflix and the Death of the Theatrical Experience

May 10, 2019A & E, Arts Friday, Cinema, Diversions, Media, Netflix, Pop Culture, Television, Video & DVD, Web & TechRaymond Tomlin

With movie theatre attendance at a two-decade low and profits dwindling, with revenues hovering slightly above $10 billion, Hollywood is on the verge of experiencing the kind of disruption that hit the music, publishing, and related cultural industries a decade ago and more.
Hollywood once ruled the world with must-see movies that would entice people to head to the nearest cinema every weekend. But movie crowds have been declining as more people opt to “Netflix”, and chill at home.
Like other industries, entertainment is feeling the shock of technology and scrambling to adapt to sharply shifting economics. Studios are increasingly banking on big-budget franchise films to bring in bucks. But is that enough?
Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz considered those issues in his book, The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies.

“Netflix is having a massive impact on Hollywood,” Fritz writes. “They’re disrupting all the traditional economics of television and movies. It’s inescapable how much Netflix has become the TV diet for so many people. Now it’s happening to movies.”

“The movie industry is going through what the record industry has gone through. Subscription streaming is changing the movie business. The music business has had to adapt to people streaming, and that’s going to happen in the movie business. A lot of traditionalists are saying, ‘No, a movie is made to be seen in a theatre.’ That may be what Hollywood wants, but that is not what a lot of consumers want.”

As we wrote in a column published in 2018, in recent years Hollywood has been gun shy about producing romantic comedies.

Netflix, though, has proven just how durable the romcom formula is.
When Lara Condon and Noah Centineo’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before débuted last August, it set Netflix streaming records, with over 45 million viewers tuning in. Needless to say, a sequel will be released later this year, as is the case with Joey King’s breakout hit, The Kissing Booth.
Meanwhile, Rose McIver’s The Christmas Prince also spawned a much-anticipated sequel on Netflix this past holiday season.
In 2019, Netflix is set to spend around $18 billion on original programming, most of which is slated for movie production and documentaries, consisting of a 121 movie and documentary slate. Warner Bros.will release 23 films this year, while Disney (Hollywood’s most profitable studio) will début a mere 10. All the Hollywood studios combined in 2019 won’t spend $18 billion on production, and will release only a mere fraction of Netflix’s titles.
Looking into the financial crystal ball, investment firm Goldman Sachs predicts that Netflix could have an annual spending budget of $22.5 billion in 2022, a staggering number that would see Netflix far outstrip the total spending by all of the Hollywood movie studios combined.
With Netflix boasting 139 million subscribers, and growing by millions every month, according to tech mogul Barry Diller, a former senior member of the executive team at Paramount and 20th Century Fox and current Chairman of the Expedia group, “Hollywood is now irrelevant.”

Having disrupted the model for TV broadcasters by making schedules extraneous and grabbing millions of viewers at the same time, Netflix is now making a run at Hollywood. “I think it’s going to be fascinating to watch,” says US journalist Gina Keating, author of Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America’s Eyeballs.
Netflix’s deep pockets have lured Hollywood stars such as Will Smith (Bright), Joel Edgerton, Sandra Bullock (Bird Box), Ben Affleck (Triple Frontier), Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson (The Highwaymen), Anne Hathaway, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel, the latter three of whom will star in Martin Scorcese’s $150 million epic, The Irishman, arriving day and date on Netflix and a handful of theatres across the continent this upcoming autumn season, just in time for the Oscars.
And talking about the Oscars, Netflix’s Roma won a slew of Oscars this past Ocotber, winning Best Director, Cinematographer and Foreign Language Film for Alfonso Cuarón, while Period, End of Sentence won Best Documentary. Both films have been available on Netflix since December.
Although Netflix has been around for over two decades, the company’s rise to the top of Hollywood happened in a remarkably short period of time.
House of Cards, Neflix’s first foray into original content, débuted only six years ago. By expending monies to produce more shows and movies, it has managed to grow so rapidly that even its own executives are surprised.

“We’ve outperformed the business in a way we didn’t predict,” David Wells, Netflix’s (now former) chief financial officer, told The Hollywood Reporter in late February, after the company announced that its subscriber base had increased by over seven million in the first two months of 2019, its largest increase ever.

While Hollywood could take control of its fate, it’s very difficult for mature businesses — ones that have operated in similar ways for decades and where the top players have entrenched interests — to embrace change.
One can imagine the future looking something like this: You come home (in a driverless car) and say aloud to Alexa, Siri, Google Home or some A.I. assistant that doesn’t exist yet, “I want to watch a comedy with two female actors as the leads.” Alexa responds, “O.K., but you have to be at dinner at 8pm. Should I make the movie one hour long?” “Sure, that sounds good.” Then you’ll sit down to watch on a screen that resembles digital wallpaper.
At the Consumer Electronics Show this year Samsung débuted a flexible display that rolls up like paper.
There are other, more dystopian theories which predict that film and video games will merge, and we will become actors in a movie, reading lines or being told to “look out!” as an exploding car comes hurtling in our direction, not too dissimilar from Mildred Montag’s evening rituals in Fahrenheit 451.
When we finally get there, you can be sure of two things.
The bad news is that many of the people on the set of a standard Hollywood production won’t have a job anymore. The good news?
You’ll never be bored again.

Arts Friday | Netflix | A Millennial Redefinition of Pop Culture

October 26, 2018A & E, Media, Netflix, Pop Culture, TelevisionRaymond Tomlin

Yesterday at noon, VanRamblings had lunch with eastside activist Jak King.
A short ways into the conversation, Jak raised the topic of The Bodyguard, Britain’s biggest TV hit in years, attracting a record 17.1 million viewers for each episode of the crime series’ 6 episodes, now available on Netflix. Once Jak had read The Guardian’s five-star review of The Bodyguard, he set about to binge-watch the first five episodes of the hit BBC TV series.

Richard Madden as David Budd and Keeley Hawes as the home secretary, Julia Montague

The previous evening, meaning to take a brief break from our writing, we checked into the propulsive series, finding ourselves transfixed.

And that’s the way it is with Netflix, the must-have streaming service.
Eleven thousand first run films are available on Netflix, 20% of which are made in-house by Netflix (that figure will rise to 80% by 2020), with 7,500 TV series from across the globe available for your viewing pleasure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No wonder Netflix won an unprecedented 23 Emmy’s at this year’s Academy of Television Arts & Sciences ceremony.

Netflix will début 57 new original shows and movies in November.

September and October of this year were two of the most impressive months Netflix subscribers have ever experienced when it comes to Netflix’s original content — including Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Maniac, just one of 52 different original shows and movies released by Netflix in September.
Débuting today on the Netflix streaming service, just in time for Hallowe’en, the well-reviewed The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, starring the heart of the AMC TV series Mad Men, Kiernan Shipka, as the titular teenage witch, the updated story a far cry from the days of Melissa Joan Hart’s frothy TV sitcom, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the new story something to scream about wrapped as it is in a moody, dark, funny, and stylishly atmospheric package that could be not be a better herald of fall and the Halloween season. Definitely a series to binge & watch with friends.
In addition to the horror genre (The Haunting of Hill House débuted earlier in the month), Netflix has also become the home of a genre of film that once was a Hollywood staple: romantic comedies, those mid-range cost films that generally found an audience, largely female, that Hollywood no longer seems to be interested in. Thank goodness, then, that Netflix has stepped up to the plate.

In August, the neglected genre was brought to new life with the streaming hits Set It Up, The Kissing Booth and To All The Boys I Loved Before, the latter (made in B.C.) an online sensation, featuring two winning new stars, Lana Condor & Noah Centineo, making legions of new fans not only for the young stars, whose careers have catapulted into the stratosphere, but for Netflix, which continues to gain a half million new subscribers each month.
Whatever your favourite film genre — action adventure, sci-fi / speculative fiction, foreign film, Oscar winners, British films, animation, family & children’s films, classic movies, crime thrillers, faith and spirituality, film noir, indie films, plus another 100 film genres — Netflix has you covered. Starting at only $8.99 a month that makes for not a bad film lovers deal.

Arts Friday | Netflix July | Time to Curl Up With a Good Movie

June 29, 2018A & E, Cinema, Pop Culture, Television, Video & DVDRaymond Tomlin

Meghan Markle. You know her — a princess and all, married some guy named Harry, purdy young gal, likes the Queen, feminist and known for her humanitarian work. And guess what else? For the past seven years, Ms. Markle has starred in a cable TV series called Suits — and you know what else, on July 18th you can binge-watch all of Season 7 of Suits, the last season of the USA Networks series starring the indefatigable Ms. Markle.

Yep, that’s Meaghan Markle above. And while we’re on the subject of recommendable and beauteous young women possessed of talent, there’s Australian actress Margot Robbie, who works with young, underprivileged children when she’s not filming a movie, as she’s doing now with Quentin Tarantino, starring as Sharon Tate in Tarantino’s new film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which partly involves the Manson Family murders.

Actress Margot Robbie will star as Sharon Tate in the new Quentin Tarantino film

On July 6th, Netflix brings I, Tonya to their indispensable service, the film in which Ms. Robbie was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.

And, oh yeah, another Margot Robbie film, Suicide Squad, makes its way to Netflix in July, too, for your viewing pleasure, of course, or when the kids want to get out of the hot noon day sun — although Suicide Squad many not exactly be kids fare. But there is plenty of kids fare on Netflix. Honest.

Arts Friday | Gosh, It’s May | It Must Be the Upfronts | Television

May 25, 2018TelevisionRaymond Tomlin

In the merry, merry month of May each year, VanRamblings looks forward to two singular events: the Cannes Film Festival — which we’ll write about when, in August, the fine folks at the Vancouver International Film Festival announce the Cannes 2018 films that’ll play the 37th VIFF — and the annual “upfronts” roll-out. Upfronts, you say? What in tarnation is that?
Each May, the five major broadcast television networks in the U.S. announce their ‘hopeful new hits’ set to début in the fall, the action-packed dramas, the star-studded tug at your heartstrings programmes, and the laugh-riot comedies the networks hope you’ll tune into each week. There’s advertising money to acquire to contribute to the networks’ bottom line.
We’re talking a multi-million dollar business here, where your eyes on the screen translates into hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the networks — broadcast networks that are not dead yet, despite the emergence of Netflix, cable networks like FX, and online programming.
If you’re a pop culture fanatic as we are, this is a salutary time of year.
A story. In 1975 VanRamblings began our first full-time, permanent job as a teacher. We loved teaching, thought the kids (and their parents) were great, and enjoyed and appreciated every moment of the time we were privileged to spend inside a classroom, imparting wisdom and hope, a love for learning and the acquisition of knowledge, and the building of character.

VanRamblings pictured above with our two children, baby Megan Jessica & Jude Nathan

So, there we were: bearded, a sort of long-haired hippie (pictured above with our kids), teaching in the Interior. Kids fantastic. Parents great. Having the time of our young life. Go to the teacher’s lunchroom at recess and lunch. What does everyone talk about? Last night’s hilarious episode of All in the Family, Happy Days or the Mary Tyler Moore show.
Had we seen any of those programmes while we were attending university? Did Cathy and I have a TV? Is the Pope Polish (no, he’s not)?
First acquisition upon receiving our September mid-month cheque? Yep — a brand, spanking new and pretty darn skookum colour television set.
And, why not? Owning a TV provided an inroad into discussions with my students, on values, on different kinds of humour, on how television shows were made, and the dilemmas their favourite TV characters were experiencing in their ‘lives’. Same thing in the teacher lunchroom — talking about last night’s television programme quickly developed into a friendly and open camaraderie, and the development of rapport and closeness.
VanRamblings is no pointy-headed intellectual, no ideologue for whom television represents the opiate of the masses. Please. A life, you want a life — you’ll find one right over there. VanRamblings? We seek human connection, and respect for those around us, if they’ll give us half a chance.

This autumn, there are 18 new programmes that are set to début on TV, and invade your consciousness.
Last year’s breakout hit was ABC’s The Good Doctor, which films at Surrey City Hall. The year before it was NBC’s This is Us, which remained a ratings generating powerhouse throughout its second season.
What can’t miss television show will break out in the fall and keep you glued to your television set? We’re not really going to know until July, when TV critics from across North America travel to Los Angeles for the annual star-infused junket overdose of all the new broadcast network programmes set to début two months later.
Okay, now to the good stuff. Trailers for all — well, six anyway, of — the new programmes. We’re not sure how they’ll render on your smart phone or tablet, so you may want to take at look at the trailers on your computer at home, if you’ve got one — which fewer and fewer people do these days.

Setting itself up to be the first new show to be cancelled in the fall, Manifest is a time travel via turbulence programme. Like they always work. As Kristen Baldwin in Entertainment Weekly said, “So it’s kind of like Lost meets all those shows where people come back from the dead and haven’t aged.” Yep. Pretty cast, though, and heart-tugging trailer. Manifest is up against NBC’s The Good Doctor — like we said, first to be cancelled.

Here’s one we like, which the critics seem not to. Maybe it’s because FBI stars Canadian actress Missy Peregrym, and we kinda liked her on Rookie Blue, ABC’s now cancelled summer replacement programme.

FBI will be broadcast on Tuesday nights on CBS, at 9pm, although one of the Canadian networks is bound to pick up the programme. Our Canadian CBC, CTV, Global and City television networks will announce their autumn schedules at press conferences to be held in Toronto next month.

The target market for the upstart CW network (owned by CBS) are young people, thus a new ethnically diverse Wednesday night programme with a driving beat, good looking young folks, with a PG-rated taste of sex and violence meant to appeal to a younger demographic. Could work.

All American will début in September on the CW, Wednesday’s at 9pm.

Ah yes, the first comedy to make our list — which, although we’re not a big fan of television comedies, looks like it could do fine, with a lot of relatability, and that cast. Bad time slot, though — I Feel Bad is going to have to break out early, and top the ratings in its time slot if its gonna survive, not an easy thing to do on the half hour, when you’re up against two programmes that started at 9 o’ clock. Still and all, I Feel Bad looks like it has potential, and Thursday’s are the most-watched television night of the week — which has been the case for a long, long time. American actress Sarayu Blue seems like a winning lead, too, so you never know.

Friday night television is for the sad and lonely senior citizen. Hey, that’s us! CBS has a lock on Friday nights with McGyver (never watched it), Hawaii Five-O (which is getting a little long in the tooth), and Blue Bloods, which we never miss! Hey, it’s soothing — and not too over-the-top right wing. Youse takes your pleasures where you find ’em, we always say.
There is one new programme on Friday nights (see above), a comedy starring Martin Mull, who we haven’t seen a very long time, titled The Cool Kids. Ah, thanks Fox — calling us old geezer kids. You shouldn’t have.
No, really — you shouldn’t have.

Sundays. Heck, we’re just glad that CBS didn’t cancel Madam Secretary. There’s something vaguely reassuring watching a TV show depicting an engaged, involved American President gifted with wit and political acumen, who actually cares about the state of the world. And Téa Leoni as the keenly intelligent Secretary of State, with Tim Daly as her supportive and bright husband — and those kids, I want to adopt ’em all. Wow! Otherwise, it’s pretty thin gruel on Sunday nights, cuz of that darned NBC Football — like whoever watches that? Oh. Tens of millions. Okay, sorry about that.
Remember how we mentioned heart-tugging at the top of today’s column. Yeah, me too. Sundays on CBS at 8pm, God Friended Me (trailer above), we’re thinking break-out hit. Already, we’re in love with Violett Beane as Cara Bloom. And Brandon Micheal Hall as conflicted Miles Finer — looks like he’s landed on his feet just fine after ABC cancelled The Mayor last May.

Hey, God Friended Me — a decent programme to watch at 8pm on Sunday nights, if you’ve got nothing else going on, or you just want to lay back, and get yourself in the head space to return to work on Monday.