BFI Player

[diggedy derek]

I didn't know The Prisoner was on there! The Dr Who selection is extraordinary (and I'm not really a fan)

[delicatemoth]

It's got lots of 60s/70s scifi including The Prisoner, Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Sapphire & Steel, Survivors (which it describes as "eerily prophetic", as if plagueapocalypses weren't scifi staples). I actually signed up to it for all that, at least for a month or two. I don't know if that's enough.

[diggedy derek]

That's an absolute shock with BritBox isn't it. Selling nostalgic to ex-pats was more or less its USP, no? It must be doomed now.

[Ginger Yellow]

Ah, I see, hadn't realised that BFI Player was doing proper cross-border stuff. Shouldn't really be directly affected then, modulo surmountable tax and data protection issues, but maybe the countries in question don't allow streaming services from outside the EU?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Depending on what exactly you mean, it shouldn't be. The EU has rules (or at least has made interventions which amount to defacto rules) on geoblocking within the EU, so they'd apply to any streaming service where users were trying to access content outside the jurisdiction their account is ostensibly in. Legally though it's only supposed to cover residents who are temporarily abroad.

That's what I meant really - BFI Player was a UK based service legally selling into EU countries to residents, while Sky Go was supposed to be limited to holidaymakers and other travellers (therefore they are different types of services, but both cut off by this anyway).

[Ginger Yellow]

Sky Go, which I assume is a bit different

Depending on what exactly you mean, it shouldn't be. The EU has rules (or at least has made interventions which amount to defacto rules) on geoblocking within the EU, so they'd apply to any streaming service where users were trying to access content outside the jurisdiction their account is ostensibly in. Legally though it's only supposed to cover residents who are temporarily abroad.

[Capybara]

https://twitter.com/MissRegardless/s...69206635393025

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I hadn't made the connection (no pun intended) but did see this mentioned the other day about Sky Go, which I assume is a bit different (sweeping generalisation I know but expect the use of Sky Go etc in Europe is largely ex-pats using their UK-based family's log in details to watch sport).

[imp]

Same with Britbox, launched in Europe a year ago with much fanfare. Some fucking trade deal the UK worked out there.

I could probably use a VPN - my daughter has one, but fuck it. I'm not giving BFI or Britbox a bastarding penny, they should start lobbying their useless cunting government.

[imp]

Yes, the tone and pacing of Little Joe were quite glacial, but I liked that. Good point, though, about the acting - pre-'bodysnatching' they could have been a lot more human, but then again, that would have taken away the question and tension of whether or not the characters had been pollinated yet or not, which was quite a driving factor in the plot.

Anyway, this is all moot - just tried to watch a film and I no longer can, because of fucking Brexit. I checked this was why I was being denied access, and BFI quickly and politely informed me that's indeed the reason. My annual sub was due for renewal this week, so that's another 49 quid out of the British economy.

[Ginger Yellow]

Just watched Emily Beecham and Ben Whishaw in Little Joe (2019) - riveting lo-fi sci-fi

Little Joe fell short for me. To borrow my commentary from another forum:

It basically tries to do with the bodysnatcher premise what The Babadook does with demons, but the execution isn’t quite there. The dialogue delivery is really stilted, which you might think is deliberate, because the characters aren’t normal, but it’s true before they get bodysnatched. I still think it’s probably a directorial choice rather than just bad acting, but I can’t see what it’s driving at. Maybe the director just really likes Lanthimos. The protagonist is also infuriatingly/bafflingly passive, not to mention complicit in a way the move doesn’t really grapple with, though it gestures at it rather hamfistedly. And the kid’s performance has nothing on the one in The Babadook.

[Capybara]

For people like me who aren't into movies as such, the BFI has a wonderful archive of factual/documentary-type stuff and I've had numerous DVDs from them over the years. You can see this just by looking at the free offering. Some of the films on railways are wonderful.

[diggedy derek]

I used to have the BFI app on the smart TV but it seemed to be exceptionally glitchy. It was great stuff but I suppose I got a bit tired of so much Kurosawa and Bergman, which is quite familiar from their cinemas. I might give it a go some other time. I really like Mubi and that seems to scratch my itch for this kind of thing.

These days, I just get it on my laptop and plug it into the TV. It seems the most reliable way to access these things.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I was looking into this recently and might go for the subscription basis at some point but in the meantime couldn't figure how to access it for free under my set-up without resorting to plugging the laptop into the TV. I have a Roku TV but it isn't a standalone app in Roku - you have to add it through Prime Video and as far as I can tell you can only do that by taking out a subscription.

[imp]

We can update here with sporadic recommendations.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yeah, that does sound great. I must check it out.

[delicatemoth]

Oh, that sounds good. I subscribe to MUBI which similarly has a good selection of films from across the world, old films etc.

[imp]

As an alternative to the Netflix/amazon prime series binge-watch frenzy trend, I recently took out a subscription to the BFI Player. There are three sections - free films, subscription (?49 a year) and rentals. Just watched Emily Beecham and Ben Whishaw in Little Joe (2019) - riveting lo-fi sci-fi. The other night I watched an Icelandic film, A White, White Day (also 2019) - a Nordic study in grief and misty atmospherics.

There's a decent international selection of old and new movies, and I feel like I want to watch them all. Scrolling through in itself feels like a hugely refreshing change from scrolling through Netflix where the same half dozen plots and ideas seem to be in a permanent state of being recycled, at great length over six series with 15 episodes in each series.