I’m currently stuck in Dallas, TX, at my sister’s house because of the ice storm from this past weekend. I drove into town last Friday to prepare for a Sunday shoot and a Saturday business meeting, and WAM! They both got canceled. So what’s a brother to do? Watch Films and TV with my Sister!
On Friday evening, I randomly chose to watch Mr. and Mrs. Smith on Amazon Prime. Great movie… BUT, those Ads on Amazon kind of ruin the flow of the film. Probably most films. Amazon starts by hitting you in the head with 2.5 minutes of recycled ads, after being peddled drugs with horrible side effects. My sister and I finally get to start the film. I must say Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s chemistry is so powerful that it is basically palpable. Jennifer Aniston didn’t stand a chance. At around the 23:00 minute mark, 2:00 minutes of Ads show up… more drugs. At the 34:00 minute mark, another 2:00 minutes worth of ads start. The first commercial is an ad for a drug for Psoriasis, and then an ad for Insurance, a local liquor store, and finally Winstar casino. Oh, great gambling. Phuck! Ok, we are still engaged, but wait one last commercial at the 1:00:00 minute mark for 15 seconds. I can do 15 seconds. The film ended, and it was good, just as I remembered.
The ad experience wasn’t that great for watching a movie; however, I must give Amazon credit. The ads seemed to be placed at good transitional points in the film. I’m not sure if that’s done manually, with AI, or by happy accident, but if so, I appreciate it. We later turned to Netflix after being killed by ads. My sister has a Netflix subscription with no ads, so we watched a movie called “The Book of Clarence”. I’ve seen the film, but I know that my sister hasn’t, so we’ll watch it. I watched all the way through, but my sister dozed off a few times, but made it to the end. Had this film had advertisements in it, most people wouldn’t watch it, in my opinion. It requires a person to stay engaged.
*Side note, we cover the book of Clarence in episode 205. Listen here when you get a chance.
The next day, we discuss Brad Pitt’s career, and my sister mentions that his career hasn’t been the greatest with his most recent wife. I mention “Have you seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?” She said “no”. “Ok, we are watching it,” I said. I browse all the platforms via her Vizio TV, hoping to find the film on one of the platforms that’s being paid for. No luck. I turn to Amazon and make a decision. I say to myself, “This is a long film, ain’t no way in hell I’m going to watch this extra-long movie with a bunch of ads in it. The movie is 2hours and 41 minutes! I “rent” the film on Amazon for $3.99, money well spent if you ask me. No ads. Glorious! We take 3 intermissions during the film, but it landed solidly. My sister said she liked it. My job is done. What a great exchange. Upon a 3rd viewing of this film, I think it might be a masterpiece. I’ll probably have to watch it again to confirm.
We cover Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in episode 176.
We eat dinner, and she begins scrolling through Tubi for something watch. It really feels like we spend most of our time scrolling on these platforms instead of watching. Finally, she stumbles across a film called Matchstick Men directed by Ridley Scott. We begin watching and BAM! More drug commercials! Dang, America, what’s up? To be fair, Tubi is a “Free” platform so ads are expected and shouldn’t be a surprise, but my God, what an awful viewing experience, especially for movies.
Here’s also another annoying feature on some of these platforms: there’s a countdown on certain movies. Like they count down when they leave the platform. For example, a movie called “What Lies Beneath said 5 days left! Then what? It goes to the abyss, or it’s going to another streamer? They don’t give you anymore information. Recently at TV show called Mr. Robot was on Netflix, which is great if you don’t have the ads bit it disappears and reappears on… Tubi! Holy crap, what an awful way to watch that show. I wonder if people will finish it?
I’m reevaluating the platforms I use and why. I have Disney because Marvel is awesome, but I haven’t watched a Marvel film all of 2025 and 2026. So basically, I’m just giving Disney money. I have Netflix, but most of the movies I want to watch aren’t on there. For example, I want to watch The Running Man and Smashing Machine. However, The Running Man is only available if I’m subscribed to other services that I do not have, like MGM+ or Paramount+, or I can rent it on Amazon for $9.99. Seems like all roads lead back to Amazon, at least I won’t be bothered. I’ll probably end up buying the Blu-ray, which comes out on March 3rd.
I do have HBO because I can always find something to watch on it. I think because they curate their content instead of it being a dumping ground for “Content”. With that being said, The Smashing Machine is on there. Definitely putting that on the list.
Two things I noticed during this past weekend. 1. On Sunday, I watched football on live TV. The commercials felt more necessary and exciting; they didn’t feel like crap. Some of them even made me laugh. The commercials felt like their own version of entertainment, and I didn’t get upset when they came on. 2, when my sister and I watched movies with ad breaks, I noticed she would periodically get on her phone, so did I. I watch YouTube on my phone. YouTube is a service I also pay for to avoid commercials, and you know what? I watch more content on that platform than any other streamer. The content being produced on their site doesn’t cost millions of dollars, and the user experience is outstanding. My feed always suggests content that I will actually watch.
The streamers really need to focus on the user experience and solve the real problem. The problem is that users want an EASY way to watch their TV show or Movie without buying another service, or dealing with ads, or waiting another 3 months for a film that’s been out of the theaters for 2 months. Secondly, quit selling out your customers for ad dollars. I recall when Netflix announced it would never show ads and encouraged people to share their passwords. Things have changed. This type of behavior encourages piracy, abandonment of the platform, and people will just watch YouTube. Please streamers, don’t kill the movie industry. Thanks.
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