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Thursday, March 14, 2013

Film / Teh Internets Attention, Slog Netflix Streaming Movie Clubbers

Posted by David Schmader on Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 11:32 AM

As I mentioned on Monday, the Slog Netflix Streaming Movie Club is the community-building exercise wherein we all watch the same weird and arbitrary film on Netflix Streaming, then discuss it here on Slog.

Our first selection: Someone I Touched, a TV movie from 1975 exploring the impact of venereal disease on a handful of interconnected lives. Not only does it star Cloris Leachman, the theme song is sung by Cloris Leachman.

We will discuss this film on Slog this coming Monday, March 18. Until then, watch the film at your leisure, then mull these discussion questions:

* Has a public health worker ever waited for you to finish a game of beach volleyball to tell you about your positive test for venereal disease?

* Which character in Someone I Touched would you most like to contract a venereal disease from?

* Why don't more TV movies allow/require their stars to sing the theme song?

Meet you back here on Monday, at noon PST.

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Comments (16) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Damn. I've not got netflix, but those wonderful discussion questions have me considering a trip down to my local Videorama (portland) to see if it's in stock.

Posted by mikethehammer on March 14, 2013 at 11:38 AM

Cloris at her most glamorous. Can't wait! If these go well maybe some day we could do a liveslog while watching something crazy together. Beats having to get my hair did to go out.

Posted by gloomy gus on March 14, 2013 at 11:46 AM

THIS IS THE BEST IDEA.

Posted by icouldliveinhope on March 14, 2013 at 12:00 PM

This movie changed my life!! Watch it on a special "Date Night". It's better with someone you love..or just want to fuck.

And it even has a twist in the plot!!! Can't tell ya though!!!!

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on March 14, 2013 at 12:11 PM

And you forgot that the public health worker needs to take off his suit jacket and tie. You know...to "fit in" with the "in" crowd at the beach

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on March 14, 2013 at 12:12 PM

What a career Cloris has had. She is acting now. You turn on an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents from the 50s or 60s, and there she is. You pop Kiss Me Deadly (1955) into the player, and she's the strung-out puzzlement/hitchhiker in the film's opening moments. Then there's her Phyllis and The Last Picture Show. One minute she's Frau Blücher, the next she a migrant farmworker. All convincing. All right on the money. She's the story of what is right about Hollywood and her career is a lesson for all young performers.

Posted by Bauhaus I on March 14, 2013 at 12:28 PM

Oh God can I please have the time to see this before Monday.

Posted by Dougsf on March 14, 2013 at 12:59 PM

I agree with @4 this movie made my week, it has been a horrible week so far but I've been telling myself all week "At least I didn't get VD!".

Posted by Janell8me on March 14, 2013 at 1:11 PM

I watched this pretty much as soon as you announced it.

@2 - Perhaps when the next one is announced, we can arrange for some kind of viewing party.

Posted by MacCrocodile

on March 14, 2013 at 1:56 PM

I may not make it in time for this week's fine film, but if I'm allowed to make a suggestion for next time, it's "Lady In A Cage", from 1964, featuring Olivia De Havilland freaking out in an elevator while her house is ransacked by proto-hippie juvenile delinquents. I haven't seen it in decades, but I remember that a great deal of scenery is thoroughly masticated.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 14, 2013 at 2:38 PM

@10, that sounds marvelous, but it looks as though Netflix is not streaming that one at the moment. http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Lady_i…

Posted by gloomy gus on March 14, 2013 at 2:46 PM

@11, well, FRIG ME. Dammit, what's the point? They have the damn DVD. What if I don't want to watch "THOR" or "Jack and Jill"? Grr. Angry face.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 14, 2013 at 3:26 PM

Actually, most of the old ABC Movies of the Week would be fun to review. People probably remember the premiere of Steven Spielberg's Duel with Dennis Weaver. Anyone remember Sally Field in Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring? And Cloris Leachman and Lloyd Bridges in Haunts of the Very Rich?

And of course there's the opening (music by Bacharach):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RASpgYjVY…

Posted by Bauhaus I on March 14, 2013 at 3:55 PM

@12, I'm with you. The DVD is distributed by Paramount, whose digital content is run separately - by an outfit called Epix. Netflix lost its exclusive contract with Epix, which now has started providing streaming content to Amazon instead/also. Then again, so much vintage stuff isn't streamed at all yet. So many deals - an ever-shifting landscape.

Posted by gloomy gus on March 14, 2013 at 4:46 PM

@14, so Amazon has it? Oh, yeah, for TEN FRIGGING DOLLARS. It's there, but it's not there; it's not on Amazon Prime Video, which I have, only Amazon Instant Video, and only for "sale", not for rent. "For sale" in this case meaning "download to two devices", which is totally fine, since computers last forever.

Chris Dodd, president of the MPAA, earns $2.4 million a year.

And they wonder why people pirate stuff.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 14, 2013 at 5:34 PM

@15 - I made the mistake of buying and downloading a vintage (1977) holiday film that once upon a time made it to VHS but never made it to DVD. The download was available through the Warner Bros. site. I think I paid something like $15.95.

The thing was loaded with DRMs so you couldn't burn it. Fine. It was on a hard drive which I can play through my TV. The following year I tried to play it around Christmastime and it had been scrambled. Turns out the $15.95 wasn't to own it. You only got to rent it for a year before it self-destructed.

That's why people pirate shit.

Posted by Bauhaus I on March 15, 2013 at 12:50 AM