If you haven't caught it yet this is a new series the Kevin Smith has on AMC right after "The Walking Dead". Probably not for everyone because it is a bit geekish being about a New Jersey comic book store he owns an interest in. It features a round table discussion with Smith, the manager and employees plus video of some of the stories they tell about customers. I didn't think I was going to like it but I find it fascinating. For instance one guy brought in some vintage comic books to sell so he could buy a camera to make his first movie. As Smith's fans know, he sold his comic collection to make "Clerks." In the round table discussion Smith talks about what it took to make "Clerks" then holds up a smartphone as says, "you can make movies on these nowadays, edit it on them and even upload it to the Internet with the phone." He then mentions how the democratization of culture has made it difficult "to stand out" because of all the videos uploaded.
Another customer pulls up in a Batmobile which was custom built for a fan. He wasn't selling the car but looking for additional Batman memorabilia but lets the guys take a ride and drive it. They are in seventh heaven. But then I would wonder how they would react to my story of pulling up to my hometown music store over Christmas in 1966 and seeing a bearded guy and his kid getting into a new white Thunderbird, then noticing the California license plate said "BATMAN". You see Bill Anderson, aka Adam West, is from a small town around where I grew up. And his dad even was in some of the Little Theater musicals I played for in high school. His folks later moved into town to a trailer park and friends of my folks lived next door so they referred to them as "Batman's parents". ;-) Surprise, surprise! Yesterday I got my disc from Netflix. This is the first time I've returned a disc on Saturday over a three day holiday but got my next disc on schedule as if there were no postal holiday. Apparently Netflix does most of the work themselves leaving little for the USPS to do other than deliver the disc. The disc was "Another Earth" which I had heard good things about (I think Turq reviewed it too) and thought it was quite good. Interesting that it was filmed with a sub $10K camera (Sony EX3) at 720p resolution. Just another example of the democratization of culture making movie making more accessible to folks (and pissing off those who have been in the industry a while). A follow-up on that Oatmeal cartoon that Turq posted: Vudu wasn't included in the cartoon but does have a lot of HBO series, past seasons that is but not for rent but "own". Yup, it's still streaming but you can watch the episodes any time the rest of your life or more correctly Vudu's life. What I noticed yesterday checking their "Coming Soon" selections were a few classic 30's and 40's movies. I guess they were Warner Brothers titles and indeed they are. WB has been selling their older films as one off DVDs, I bought "Gabriel over the White House", an early pre-Hayes classic that way. They also "rent" the title streaming as a WMV apparently it's an "own" license as it was $15 (the DVD $20). It will be interesting to see if those WB titles are "rent" or "own" on Vudu. If it is "own" (much higher price) then they still don't get it. BTW, if you absolutely hate Walmart then you'll want to avoid Vudu as they were bought by Walmart a couple years ago. But point me to a big box store than isn't run by pro-Republican businessmen. The only one I can think of may be "Costco" and I wouldn't even be sure of that. Besides I don't need mass quantities of things nor to drive about 10 miles and stand in line to check out.
