Oh, hello again, reader. I have a little story for you about my viewing habits over the last several months. I mentioned earlier that I was sick for part of the time I wasn’t writing, but there were other reasons that I scaled back on what I reviewed here.
In general, I’ve been finding myself pining for older films. I don’t necessarily mean good films, just movies that I’ve watched a lot or find familiarity in. Generally these are films that came out in the 80s, 90s and 2000s. In part this was a result of the writer’s and actor’s guild strikes. I felt compelled to support their cause by abstaining from streaming services for a few months. So, I cancelled all of my accounts and disengaged from the ones I wasn’t paying for.
With sharing becoming less permitted and all the ways writers are being taken for granted across fields, it was only natural for me to join in the boycotts. That said, this left me with a few remaining options: only watch things I could stream for free, not watch things at all, or think about buying a DVD player where I could purchase used movies that I’ve always loved and freely watch them at will. To be fair, I do miss this habit. I miss video stores. I miss VHS and DVD available in large bins for cheap at big box stores (they may be still, but it was far more common 20 years ago). I miss having nothing to do on a weekend and wandering into the decrepit old rental place, pre-Blockbuster, but even Blockbuster filled this need for a while. Movies were a huge part of how my family shared our time and became a habit each of us ended up keeping.
I did not buy a VHS or DVD player, at least not yet. For the first few months I abstained from anything the major studios had put out. When I did watch something, it was reality TV. As it dragged on, I opted to download apps that let you access movies for free, even if some still pay the studios. If you’re in Canada, these include the CTV, CBC and Global apps. Some movies require you to have cable access, but many don’t. I also downloaded Tubi, Plex and Kanopy, available to Americans and internationally (you may want to check). Tubi is my favourite. You can watch at will and it will track where you left off, whereas the CTV app will require you to remember where you stopped. Kanopy requires a library card and only gives you a few movies per month. All are good options. Some of these will have the same movies across apps. I figure this is because the studios rent out access to their films, offering discounts and many of these companies snatch up the same films. That said, some are unique to those apps as well, so it’s worth it to get all of them.
Now that talks have subsided and agreements reached, I find myself reluctant to go back to Netflix, Disney, Crave or anything else. I kind of like watching older, unpopular, or long forgotten films. I enjoy the nostalgia of flicks I loved in the 90s, like Mad Love, even if much of it would be problematic these days. And I still long to find DVDs or VHS tapes of things I’ve ached to watch for a long time (some of which I did keep until not long ago).
Cool Cool. But What Movies Did You Watch?
So much crap. A lot of thoughts came from those films, just as much as the ones I liked. Some were old, some weren’t that old (relatively speaking). I will be compiling what I’ve watched to see what I should clump together and what I shouldn’t, what I remember thinking about each film and what can I glean from those experiences. Feel free to stick around for some awesome nostalgia or perhaps a discovery you may never had heard of.
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