Archived Criterion Streaming Discussion

[swo17]

Great to see Imai getting some attention. Of course those are some of Oshima's best films.

Good timing for US-based participants in the 60s list!

Oshima should crowd the top ten now. No excuses.

Other than the fact that two out of three of those Oshima films are '70s films per IMDb.

I take it though that you're not just referring to today's announcements. By my count, there are now ten of his eligible '60s films available on Hulu, including Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, which Criterion lists as 1974 for some reason.

[bamwc2]

Great to see Imai getting some attention. Of course those are some of Oshima's best films.

Good timing for US-based participants in the 60s list!

That's exactly what I thought this morning! I'll finally be able to knock some of the Oshimas off of my to-see list.

[BillWatkins]

For the people keeping track, these are the remaining Kinoshita films not available on Hulu:

A Blooming Port (1943)
Marriage (1947)
Times of Joy and Sorrow (1957)
Ballad of a Worker (1962)
This Year's Love (1962)
The Scent of Incense (1964)
Lovely Flute and a Drum (1968)
Love and Separation in Sri Lanka (1976)

[Black Hat]

Every time I see myself having time to read more books something like this happens! That's a wonderful list of additions to the Hulu collection.

[Perkins Cobb]

Every time I see myself having time to read fewer books, movies get released streaming-only.

[Dansu Dansu Dansu]

Since I've been checking this every day since the last update, I literally gasped when I saw something other than the boy holding the snow boot. I can't believe I'm paying $7.99 a month for the bulk of the Criterion Collection plus some, and every once and a while, for little reason, they add more, like seven unreleased Ozu films. Considering how hard it was to find the bulk of cinema just ten years ago, sometimes this feels like cheating.

[Alan Smithee]

I honestly couldn't be happier with the selection on Hulu and quality is good enough but like the poster above the interface is so unfriendly when it comes to browsing. Am I missing something? I just wanna see the whole collection and whats offered but they insist on these front page categories.

[swo17]

Happy Valentine's Day:

This Valentine’s Day weekend, we have a sweet treat for you. From today, February 14, through Monday, February 18, all of the Criterion titles streaming on Hulu Plus, available to viewers in the U.S., will be free of charge to nonsubscribers (with advertisements). It’s the perfect opportunity to get acquainted with the incredible array of our movies available for instant viewing—we now have 800-plus selections, including hundreds of rare titles from around the world that have never been released on DVD or Blu-ray in the U.S. And remember that if you sign up for Hulu Plus for just $7.99 a month, you can see them all the time, commercial-free!

This happy occasion also marks Criterion’s two-year anniversary with Hulu. We think we make a wonderful pair, and we look forward to continuing to bring important cinema to the most movie lovers possible.

Blissful viewing,
The Criterion Collection

[triodelover]

I honestly couldn't be happier with the selection on Hulu and quality is good enough but like the poster above the interface is so unfriendly when it comes to browsing. Am I missing something?

Not as far as I'm concerned, you're not. They can keep the categories/thumbnails if they want, but they should at least provide an option for switching to a list format and making the list sortable. It's not just the Criterion Channel, it's Hulu. At least on the Criterion Channel I'm browsing through films that have some merit and that I might want to see, time permitting. On the rest of the site, you have to wade through a pile of chaff to find a precious few kernels of wheat.

[jwd5275]

I would never use my phone to watch anything, however I do use the Hulu app on it to browse because it still retains some of the functions of the older 'friendlier' Hulu interface, including sorting Criterion films by director and country...

[Sam T.]

I've completely given up on Hulu's web interface. The interfaces on my blu ray player and in their iOS app aren't actually much better, but they're at least not shackled to those categories.

I understand that casual/curious viewers would be overwhelmed by a list of 700+ movies, and the categories serve to give these viewers a couple dozen choice samples while also explaining, in a way, what Criterion is and does, but they really need to bring back the option to view the whole collection by list, by decade, and by country/language.

I also think they need more a better system than the queue. Like you could keep a list of "favorite directors" or something. I don't know how other people watch, but I usually binge on a single director for a while and then move on to something else, and I'm often thinking, like, "once I watch the rest of the Naruses, I'm going to watch all those Fassbinders."

That said, I continue to be amazed what $8 a month gets you. Enough worthwhile films to keep you busy, essentially, forever, and the ability to watch them basically anywhere.

[krnash]

Happy Valentine's Day:

This Valentine’s Day weekend, we have a sweet treat for you. From today, February 14, through Monday, February 18, all of the Criterion titles streaming on Hulu Plus, available to viewers in the U.S., will be free of charge to nonsubscribers (with advertisements). It’s the perfect opportunity to get acquainted with the incredible array of our movies available for instant viewing—we now have 800-plus selections, including hundreds of rare titles from around the world that have never been released on DVD or Blu-ray in the U.S. And remember that if you sign up for Hulu Plus for just $7.99 a month, you can see them all the time, commercial-free!

This happy occasion also marks Criterion’s two-year anniversary with Hulu. We think we make a wonderful pair, and we look forward to continuing to bring important cinema to the most movie lovers possible.

Blissful viewing,
The Criterion Collection

Yay, Happy Valentine's Day to me. I can now watch Criterion on Hulu with or without logging into my paid account for a week...

[knives]

You still have to log into some of the titles because sex or something.

[Perkins Cobb]

Plus, the free viewing still has commercials, rendering it worthless. I mean, c'mon, $8 is two cups of coffee and if you're willing to endure streaming in the first place, you'll have enough to fill the whole month 24/7.

[triodelover]

Plus, the free viewing still has commercials, rendering it worthless. I mean, c'mon, $8 is two cups of coffee and if you're willing to endure streaming in the first place, you'll have enough to fill the whole month 24/7.

You come see me, son. If you're willing to pay $8 for two cups of coffee, I'll serve you fresh-roasted (your choice of bean, roast and grind) coffee all day long. Friends don't let friends drink Starbucks. [-X

[Perkins Cobb]

Who said anything about Starbucks? I was going to substitute a good burger ... but I actually doubt you could get one in NYC for the price of a Hulu subscription. (The Criterion staff, being New Yorkers, must have a good yuk whenever anybody complains about the pricing....)

[triodelover]

Actually, I agree with you. Hulu is ridiculously cheap for what it offers. But $8 is still too much to pay for a couple of cups of Joe, even in a good coffee shop.

[towda]

I read somewhere that Hulu still has commercials even with the paid account. Is this not true for the Criterion films? The idea of seeing a commercial during an Ozu is too much to take, much less pay for.

[knives]

My how we are spoiled that a minute of commercials is a deal breaker. No, Crit doesn't have commercials for the plus titles.

[jwd5275]

Hulu Plus has commercials only during some televison shows (often where the normal commercial breaks would be). I know that they are there during network shows like Community, but some other non-network shows don't (PBS, BBC). There is no real solid rule to predict the shows that have commercials. For example my wife was originally using the Gaiam shows to exercise, but stopped because they kept randomly inserting commercials and breaking the rhythm of her workout. I think it really depends on what the network owning the content stipulates.

[ryannichols7]

I've used Hulu Plus for Criterion for about a year and a half and never encountered a commercial.

[Drucker]

I read somewhere that Hulu still has commercials even with the paid account. Is this not true for the Criterion films? The idea of seeing a commercial during an Ozu is too much to take, much less pay for.

There are some films you can watch without an account always, albiet with commercials. I was able to watch The Long Voyage Home with commercials every 15 minutes or so, but with no account.

[Perkins Cobb]

My how we are spoiled that a minute of commercials is a deal breaker. No, Crit doesn't have commercials for the plus titles.

That's not spoiled at all. No commercials during a film that wasn't designed to be interrupted should absolutely, always be a dealbreaker.

(Speaking of which, did they ever fix the thing where some of the Criterion shorts, and I believe Kinoshita's first film, were classified incorrectly in a way that caused commercials to be embedded?)

[knives]

They were also designed to be seen on a screen much larger than any television set.

[Perkins Cobb]

They were also designed to be seen on a screen much larger than any television set.

Impossible to do in the majority of cases (even if you're patient and live in a major city). Very possible to avoid commercials cut into movies since the advent of home video & cable. False equivalency.