best. paid service to stream inde/foreign to home

phelixoflaherty

Is there any decent non rip off service that I can use to stream film to home?
Thanks

johnny_ultimate

Mubi is where you want to be at: https://mubi.com/films/showing

A rotating selection of independent films, world cinema classics, rarities, curios etc... Plus the occasional big name, and an increasing number of exclusives too

Chain Smoker

Yeah, I'd say if you're looking for one Mubi would be the best bet if you're willing to give their recommendations a shot (and I'd imagine is extremely rewarding in that case). Possible more niche than you're looking for, mind, I dunno if I'd be able to get much use out of it even.

Otherwise, I think Hulu plus has all of the Criterion collection on it? No clue if that's a US only deal though. Fandor is the other one but it's US only as far as I'm aware.

phelixoflaherty

Thanks lads. Will give mubi a shot

Bob24

Note that while they have a lot of good movies, in my opinion Mubi is sometimes playing the "intependant" card to include overly obscure or amateur movies to their selection, so don't expect 30 movies you find watchable at any given time. I like the way their selection helps discover old classics or foreign moves which wouldn't be promoted in Ireland though.

Sad Professor

It's worth noting that Mubi isn't the best it's the only indie streaming service in Ireland and probably the UK also.

Hulu and Fandor are US only. And Hulu is losing its rights to Criterion in November. Criterion are launching their own service called FilmStruck, which will also be US only. However, with Criterion launching in the UK there's some hope of it coming here, not much but some.

Chain Smoker

Bob24 wrote: »

Note that while they have a lot of good movies, in my opinion Mubi is sometimes playing the "intependant" card to include overly obscure or amateur movies to their selection, so don't expect 30 movies you find watchable at any given time. I like the way their selection helps discover old classics or foreign moves which wouldn't be promoted in Ireland though.

Obviously there's the benefit of saving a bit of money there (and avoiding being in direct competition with your netflixes and such), but I think having a rotation of 30 films that you feel like you really must watch would kind of defeat its purpose too. Choice is overwhelming, limiting it can get you to check out things you might otherwise endlessly put off in favour of something easier.

Bob24

Chain Smoker wrote: »

Obviously there's the benefit of saving a bit of money there (and avoiding being in direct competition with your netflixes and such), but I think having a rotation of 30 films that you feel like you really must watch would kind of defeat its purpose too. Choice is overwhelming, limiting it can get you to check out things you might otherwise endlessly put off in favour of something easier.

Sure agreed I don't need new good movie which fits my tastes everyday. When I said some movie are not watchable though - I kind of meant they are just bad ones no matter people's tastes.

johnny_ultimate

Bob24 wrote: »

When I said some movie are not watchable though - I kind of meant they are just bad ones no matter people's tastes.

Such as? I watch a lot of the super-indie and obscure stuff on there and find most of it really interesting, and have in fact made some amazing discoveries (88:88, the Peter Tscherkassky shorts) as a result.

I'm sure there have been a few random duds here and there (allowing for the ol' viewer subjectivity) but generally find their selection has a very decent degree of quality control

Bob24

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Such as? I watch a lot of the super-indie and obscure stuff on there and find most of it really interesting, and have in fact made some amazing discoveries (88:88, the Peter Tscherkassky shorts) as a result.

I'm sure there have been a few random duds here and there (allowing for the ol' viewer subjectivity) but generally find their selection has a very decent degree of quality control

I'm not using it anymore so won't comment about the current selection, but one exemple I can remember in the past: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4131682/

(and OK let me correct what I said: if these movies are made some people obviously have a taste for them, but what I meant is that even when you have an audience of independent cinema watchers some of the movies will probably please very few viewers and seem a bit too experimental).

But again, I am not saying the service is bad, and aside from these they do have a very good selection (though for my taste they don't show enough Asian cinema).

johnny_ultimate

Heh, I actually really dug Androids Dream If anything, it's the kind of film I subscribe for - films I simply wouldn't have the opportunity to discover if they weren't on there.

Fully concede that films like that are niche to say the least - but I love that there is a streaming service out there that serves such a small niche

Chain Smoker

Yeah, the thing is that isn't really serving a small niche, it's serving dozens of small niches. I don't use it myself (watching films at home doesn't really work for me very well unless it's super easy stuff or I've an amazing screen) but I think the format and range of choices seems pretty solid.


Out of curiosity, both of you, what has the Asian cinema choices been like? I've always found the choices at various asian film festivals to be really weird, things that seem to have **** all traction internationally so I'm like "are these festivals primarily for expats from that area? Like, is this the equivalent of an Irish one showing Mrs Browns Boys the Movie and Man About Dog?"

Bob24

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Heh, I actually really dug Androids Dream If anything, it's the kind of film I subscribe for - films I simply wouldn't have the opportunity to discover if they weren't on there.

Fully concede that films like that are niche to say the least - but I love that there is a streaming service out there that serves such a small niche

Fair enough :-)

We probably are on the same page, but I guess my point was that when you only have 30 movies you cannot be not have too many very niche movies in your selection at a given time if you want to please your whole user base.

Bob24

Chain Smoker wrote: »

Out of curiosity, both of you, what has the Asian cinema choices been like? I've always found the choices at various asian film festivals to be really weird, things that seem to have **** all traction internationally so I'm like "are these festivals primarily for expats from that area? Like, is this the equivalent of an Irish one showing Mrs Browns Boys the Movie and Man About Dog?"

johnny_ultimate might have a better answer as I only used mubi for a few months, but before talking about quality I would insist on the fact the the quantity is very little. As far as I remember you usually have between 0 and 2 Asian movies in the selection at given time, while you would always have more than 10 American ones and around 10 European ones (currently there is only one Japanese movie).

I am mostly interested in Chinese cinema and my subjective impression is that they seemed to have popular but not to commercial HK movies (Wong Kar-Wai stuff for exemple) and mainland directors which are possibly more popular abroad than at home because they are not commercial enough or deal with controversial topics (Jia Zhangke for exemple). Mostly those are "proper" movies and not part of the "experimental" ones I was referring to before.

Overall it is probably close enough to the election of Asian movies you would get at the IFI.

Decent quality selection in my opinion, just too limited.

Chain Smoker

Is there anywhere with a list of Mubi's previous films? I'd love to have a trawl through it to figure out if they've a pattern.

Bob24 wrote: »

johnny_ultimate might have a better answer as I only used mubi for a few months, but before talking about quality I would insist on the fact the the quantity is very little. As far as I remember you usually have between 0 and 2 Asian movies in the selection at given time, while you would always have more than 10 American ones and around 10 European ones (currently there is only one Japanese movie).

I am mostly interested in Chinese cinema and my subjective impression is that they seemed to have popular but not to commercial HK movies (Wong Kar-Wai stuff for exemple) and mainland directors which are possibly more popular abroad than at home because they are not commercial enough or deal with controversial topics (Jia Zhangke for exemple). Mostly those are "proper" movies and not part of the "experimental" ones I was referring to before.

Overall it is probably close enough to the election of Asian movies you would get at the IFI.

Decent quality selection in my opinion, just too limited.

Maybe the US choices are different, but right now I see they've three asian films right now, which is pretty damn low really but they don't have any South American, Middle Eastern (which I guess could be counted as Asian, it's really just Iran anyway!) or African films at all. It's very difficult, I'd say. You realistically need to keep a certain number of easy to watch English language films just to avoid scaring people off. Even I'd be scared off if there weren't a few things I could easily watch available.


I feel like the target audience for Mubi is people who only really have time to watch 4-5 films from the thirty a month, mind. The lack of selection is absolutely a detriment for me but for someone like that it'd probably be a blessing.

Bob24

Chain Smoker wrote: »

Is there anywhere with a list of Mubi's previous films? I'd love to have a trawl through it to figure out if they've a pattern.

Unfortunately not that I know of. Even if you're not a subscriber it might be an idea to check their "now playing" page once in a while though. It will likely give you interesting ideas of movies to watch for the future, and after a while you'll have a fair idea of whether you like what they have to offer matches your taste and subscribing seems to be worth it for you.

e_e

http://www.volta.ie/films?type=latestCinema

Volta seems pretty strong.

Bob24

Sorry if I sound obsessed, but to follow-up on my comment regarding the lack of Asian cinema on Mubi - there hasn't been a single Asian movie in the selection for about a week.

Sad Professor

Asian films have a hard time with UK/Irish audiences. You're lucky if one or two even turn up at the festivals. This surely isn't helped by the fact that Asian license fees can be very expensive. Asian sellers don't seem to see any opportunity to grow their international audience and are happy to milk what little audience exists.