1TO10REVIEWS

On a scale from 1 to 10, the Netflix / Xbox experience is slathered in weaksauce.

I have an Xbox 360. When I heard about the new Xbox Live experience (new UI, new architecture, more features, more customization, etc.) I thought it sounded really cool. I’ve always thought it was a neat product, but I also thought there was a better interactive experience waiting to be enjoyed, if only someone would come along and develop it. Last Thursday, November 20, 2008, that experience became available for everyone.

One of the features I was most interested in was the Netflix streaming directly to your Xbox 360. I believe that digital home media have a long way to go. Networked media PC’s are a pain to set up, streaming media servers even more so, and Apple TV (even with Apple’s vaunted user-experience) isn’t an elegant or simple solution. But I have an Xbox 360, a computer (for all intents and purposes,) already hooked up to my television and with an HDMI connection.   Netflix streaming directly onto my TV? Sounds excellent.

I even resurrected a membership for this. I had Netflix a long time ago, and ended up canceling because I just didn’t get enough value from it. I get lots of movies from the Library (I know, laugh all you want, but’s it free) and I felt like I was always forgetting to return the Netflix discs and just throwing money away on the membership. So I canceled. But this Xbox partnership seemed like a good reason to renew the subscription, because of the ease, convneience, and my sheer exuberance at the prospect of streaming it right on to my Xbox. Then reality set in.

I just re-subscribed to Netflix, activated my account on the Xbox, and added (hang on) 39 movies to my queue. Thirty-nine movies. Of those, not one is available to stream the Xbox 360.  Not one.

Now that, my friends, is weaksauce.

And before you retort smartly, let me say that this is not just a bunch of brand new, extra fun movies.  Among others I have indies (Run, Fat Bot, Run - 2007), thrillers (Revolver - 2005), TV (How I Met Your Mother Season 1 - 2005), Action (Blade - 1998), Sci-Fi (Resident Evil: Extinction - 2007), and comedy (Forgetting Sarah Marshall - 2008) to name just a few.  There’s a good blend, in my opinion, of older and newer, hotter and less-hot choices in my list.  And none of them are available to stream.  That’s not acceptable.

After searching diligently I did finally find one movie, National Treasure 2, that was available for streaming to Xbox Live, and I wasn’t wholly opposed to watching it.  It worked flawlessly.  I’ve never watched any of the National Treasure movies, but my wife convinced me that I might like them, so I gave it a shot.  Truthfully, I enjoyed the movie.  Low expectations help a lot, and the history is a lot of fun.  But more importantly, the Netflix experience on the Xbox 360 was fantastic.  Moments after adding the movie to my queue, the Xbox Live page displayed it as available.  I asked to watch the movie, and in 15 seconds it was ready to go.  The picture quality was excellent, and the controls all worked perfectly.  I was REALLY satisfied with the experience of using Netflix.   Unfortunately, there’s not much for me to watch.

Netflix and Xbox have bragged that there’s a library of 12,000 shows to choose from and stream to your Xbox 360.  That’s not real helpful, if I don’t want to watch any of them.  I am sadly unimpressed, and if I were forced to give this a numeric rating between 1 and 10, right now it would get a 4.  I like the idea and the service worked well, but there’s no content I’m interested in seeing.  No bueno.

Some Related Stories & Links:

News 4 Gamers

Gizmodo

CNET News

Tom’s Guide

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Update 11/30/08:

I’ve been thinking about this situation some more.  Jivebotic and Wunder both left very good comments (on 1to10) about what movies are available, and the benefits of the Xbox / Netflix experience.  I agree with both of them.  The way I see it, there are two major problems:

1. There’s still not enough good content available on the Xbox.  Jivebotic pointed out some good movies that I can watch, sure enough.  But they’re still not the ones I want  to watch.  I don’t know why that rubs me the wrong way, but it does.  Out of 40 or so movie titles that I want to watch, I should have been able to find a couple that were available.   For me, there was not one.  

2. Netflix needs to add some kind of serach and identification mechanism, and that right quick.  Currently they do identify their “instant” titles, but there are 4 or 5 different “instant” mechanisms for streaming movies, and not all titles are available for all mechanisms.  I need a way to search for Xbox-compatible films, they need to visibly tag those films with an Xbox logo, and they need to quickly add more titles if they want to keep my business.  

This post is also available on LIVEdigitally.

My Review: 7

I’m keeping this post short and silly.  I think that’ s my strong suit anyway.  I was recently thinking about Chris Penn, and how much I miss him.  Not like we were friends or anything, but I think he was great.  I was watching an episode of Entourage recently (I think from season 2) and Chris had a cameo, boxing with Johnny Drama.   I think it was some of the last work he did. 

In my opinion, he was a phenomenally strong actor, woefully underrated, and especially excellent in character roles.  He was known best for his roles in 80’s classic Footloose, and for his role as an under-boss, Nice Guy Eddie, in Reservoir Dogs. But my favorite role for Chris was in Best of the Best, the cheese-filled 90’s karate movie with Eric Roberts and James Earl Jones. 

Chris was the younger brother of the much more famous Sean Penn, though I always liked Chris a lot more, not least because Sean Penn is kind of a douche.  There’s lots more information about Chris Penn available on IMDB, and on Wikipedia.

My Review: 9

I first read about Hulu, as usual, on Techcrunch. I also go my invite to the private Hulu beta back in January by reading an article Mark Hendrickson wrote for Techcrunch.  Many people across the blogosphere have now written about Hulu, largely with good things to say.   I don’t plan to be unique in this instance - I have good things to say too.  Below is a brisk, bulleted battery of reasons why I think Hulu is excellent and likely to be a winner in this space.  Note to developers and Hulu competitors: most of my likes have to do with, you guessed it, user experience.  Try to keep up.

• Hulu has lots of good content, most importantly: full length movies as well as TV shows
• Great selections from multiple networks (Fox, NBC, etc.)
• Fun, old school TV content as well as new / popular content: lots of old school shows like Battlestar Galactica (the original), Knight Rider, and Flipper
• Incredible Selection of full length movies
• User Interface and User Experience:
  • The in screen player shows video in very high quality
  • There is a full screen mode, still very good quality
  • There is a pop-out player, so you can arrange your desktop as you like - the pop-out size is adjustable
  • Outstanding memory features: I watched 1 1/2 hours of a movie, and then had to close my computer.  I came back the next day and as soon as I logged into Hulu, it the movie restarted from the exact same spot where I had stopped
• Queues and Favorites - you can easily set up a list of favorites or shows / movies that you want to watch

The site is clean, easy to navigate, and well thought out.  There are some basic social features, for instance you can set up a profile with your favorite shows, movie, books and music.  And you can rate content as you watch it, and see feedback from other users.  I’ve used many other video sites before, like Veoh, Daily Motion,  and obviously YouTube.  None of them even come close to Hulu in terms of content variety, content quality, or user experience.  Huge thumbs up and a resounding 9 out of 10.

My Review: 9

“Hallo. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

Many of us have heard that line hundreds of times. He says it a total of six times throughout the movie, and I’ve seen the movie at least 27 times… you do the math. But did you know that Mandy Patinkin is the actor who plays Inigo? Further, did you know that Mandy Patinkin is Jewish?

Mandy Patinkin is an Emmy and Tony award winning Jewish actor, singer and entertainer. He loves to sing and perform Yiddish songs and theater, and has published books on Yiddish culture. He has performed on Broadway. Recently (in the last few years) he has starred in a prime time television series called Criminal Minds. A few weeks ago he left the show, but his work there was excellent as well. Wikipedia has a good overview of his career and personal life, and there is no need for me to re-write here. Though it is cool that he was a classmate of Kelsey Grammer’s at Juilliard.

It is hard to see him acting today, in various roles, and not hear the faux-Spanish accent coming out of his mouth. I am so primed to see his scarred visage in the role of the greatest swordsman in the world. But it was even crazier when I found out that he was Jewish. It just never occurred to me that the actor playing Inigo might be Jewish. I suppose that’s why they call it acting - the person in the role does not need to be anything like the character they are portraying. Maybe it’s about association. I first saw Topol in Fiddler on the Roof, so now I think of him as Jewish and a Jewish actor. If I had first seen him in Flash Gordon, as Dr. Hans Zarkov - he might have made it into this series.

In my next edition of Unexpected Film Roles for Jews, I will tell you about a villainous, dirty culprit from many of your favorite familiar Westerns. Stay tuned.

My Review: A Brutal 9

A friend at work turned me onto a cartoon on Adult Swim, it’s called: Metalocalypse.

This show is awesome. It’s about a fictional metal band called Dethklok - they’re the greatest metal band ever and “represent the 12th largest economy in the world.” They are forever in search ways to make the world more “metal.” The lead singer, Nathan Explosion wants all of their music to be as “brutal” as possible.

The bassist (William Murderface) and drummer (Pickles) as well as the lead singer (Explosion) are all American. The other two members are Scandinavian: Toki Wartooth (2nd fastest guitarist in the world and group punching bag) is from Norway. Skwisgaar Skwigelf (the fastest guitarist in the world) is from Sweden.

In the show, fans of Dethklok are routinely maimed and killed - they sign “Pain Waivers” to release the band of all liability. In the first episode a giant metal box containing the band is dropped from a helicopter and crushes dozens of concert attendees when it misses the landing pad. Brutal.

I don’t want to focus on describing the show - there’s a Wikipedia entry that gives a good synopsis, and you can always join the official Dethklok MySpace page if you want to be friends with Nathan, Murderface, and the guys and learn more about them.

No, what I want to focus on is how much fun this show is to watch. Even if you don’t like Metal music it’s pretty cool. The plot lines are ridiculous, and that’s what makes them awesome. From recording an album under water (at the bottom of the Marianas Trench) to an interview with a thinly veiled Larry King (who dies in the course of the interview) the shows are sick, funny, and fun. They are bloody, raucous affairs that only last 11 minutes with no commercials, so even the worst ADD TV addict can still enjoy them.

Veoh has quite a few of the episodes up and available if you want to watch. One of my favorites (where we meet the band members families) is up here. I think you should watch it and judge for yourself. But I am of the opinion that this show kicks butt. It’s brutal. It’s metal. I think I’m in love.

Sweet.