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Apple + Hollywood: Finally, a Viable Online Movie Rental System? |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Bidness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Thursday, 17 January 2008 |
Apple's recent announcement at the Macworld expo that it will be offering downloadable movies via its iTunes system left me with many ambiguous and contradictory feelings. A typical reaction for me, any time I have to listen to Steve Jobs. Remember when Jobs was the likeable hippie underdog, and Bill Gates the terrifying corporate titan?
How times have changed. Now Jobs is the scary one, and Gates is the
funny, self-deprecating philanthropist. Anyway, the iTunes movie rental
initiative has many observers predicting that Apple will overwhelm the
online movie rental space, just as it did the online retail music with
iTunes launch in 2003. This is bad news in the sense that any one
company dominating any one market or distribution channel = bad news.
Right now we have a relatively benign entity with Apple, but that could
change. Some say it already is changing.
On the other hand, Apple's announcement made me feel good about my
recent decision to more or less abandon going to the movies. Something
in me snapped a couple years back. The relentless advertising; the
ridiculous prices; the bombastic trailers that are either full of
spoilers or cynically misleading. More than ever, movie trailers these
days don't preview the movie in question at all. They just shill the
images the marketing people think you want to see.
So now I'm the guy that theatrical exhibitors are most afraid of -- the guy that's
decided to move to DVD more or less exclusively. I
just don't screw around anymore. When there's a serious film I really
want to see, I wait for DVD. I have a decent TV and sound system now,
and staying home (or in the lab, as the case may be) gives me more control, more flexibility, and it costs
less. I can toggle on the closed captioning when I want it, rewatch
scenes, and access the bonus material immediately. What's not to like?
For serious films that I really want to pay attention to, it's all
about DVD.
(That said, I was in the theater first night for The Bourne Ultimatum.
Also, I Am Legend and Harry Potter. I'll be there again tomorrow for
Cloverfield. The terrible truth is that only the big, badass popcorn
movies can get me to buy popcorn anymore.)
Apple is promising to do DVD one better by making instant, online movie
rentals a viable option. I'm all for it. Each one of this year's Oscar
nominated prestige films could have skipped theatrical release
entirely, as far as I'm concerned. In five years, I predict, I'll be
getting all my movies online and watching them here in the Dyscern World HQ labs.
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