Our reviewers select and review the best independent and foreign films on amazon.com, cd universe, and netflix

Can Hollywood go back to the future and reclaim streaming and digital copying of movies? This week they’ll give us all what we haven’t been waiting for. January brings snow and cold as surely as it brings the Consumer Electronics Show back to Las Vegas. This annual gadget fest has become very important because there is usually so little to write about in the recovery week after New Year’s Eve.

A gaggle of Hollywood Studios along with Comcast, Best Buy, and the usual suspects is about to tell us they have a better way for us to watch movies. D.E.C.E. (Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem) will let us buy movies and see them on any approved device (yet to be defined) that we like. Amazon already does some of this with DVD+ and Netflix does it with Watch Instantly. But DECE is intended to do it with everything. The theory is that if you give people the choice of how to watch, they will stop pirating movies on the internet and start paying for them. With DECE, you only need to pay once and then you can stream to TV, computer, netbook, smartphone and any future device still unknown in the universe.

DECE is supposed to be an answer to both piracy and price point. The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) estimates that between 50 and 80 percent of internet content is illegal. (Bernstein Research calls the size of this estimate “an urban legend”).

The bigger problem is price point. Hollywood complains that iTunes has a monopoly to set prices. This is unfair. Hollywood has a monopoly to set movie ticket prices and DVD prices. This is fair. We’re told the business needs price competition. By this they mean themselves (DECE), but nobody else. When I was producing, I was found of referring to a dusted up old concept as “an idea whose time has came.” DECE may be just that. Perhaps I’m rushing to judgment. Like an executive hearing a pitch, I like to say, “surprise me.”

Meanwhile, at MovieWithMe.com we keep chugging along on our own; searching to bring you the best suggestions for what to watch on any machine you like. Regardless of the delivery system, the story is still all that matters.

21st Century naming has co-opted the word for unlucky guys whose chutes don’t open and made it into the category name for all the devices that stream video from the internet to our TVs. Roku, X-box, Playstation, Vudu, TiVo, LG TVs, Samsung TVs etc. are among the “streamers.” And the big news is that most of the new, lower-priced models of Blu-ray players are also streamers.

Many people are buying Blu-ray players because they’ve included streaming capability as well as Blu-ray. With them you can access thousands and thousands of streamed movies and TV shows on Netflix and Amazon. You can also get the ubiquitous YouTube. (Why everyone who makes streamers believes that receiving fuzzy YouTube videos on a 42-inch LCD TV is important is a mystery to me)

My forecast for Blu-ray is that it will be important for games, but will have limited impact for movies until 3-D TVs become prevalent (at least a decade). In the meantime, we’ll use Blu-ray players as streamers; except for the occasional purchase of disc to see amazing details in tropical fish or the beads of sweat on Russell Crowe’s brow.

This is very interesting news for MovieWithMe.com because our approach to reviewing movies and providing services like Meet at the Movies and Premiere Event Nights is focused towards the coming era of instant access to all movies, all the time. A filter site like ours will be there to help you choose what to stream. But the source of the streaming (where the streamers go to fill up on content) already belongs to the dominant sellers like Netflix and Amazon and iTunes that have limitless resources to store and sell from massive libraries. By luck or pluck, they already own the future before it has happened.

Movie trailers have been around for almost a hundred years, but the Iguana has evolved faster. The reason they are called “trailers” is because they were originally ads for coming attractions placed after the first film in the days of double features. Today they don’t trail, they serve as the advance advertising for upcoming movies. Or at least that is the unquestioned assumption of the film industry. So let’s question it.

Today the shelf life of most movies, or at leas the ones anyone wants to see; is infinite. Internet businesses like Netflix and Amazon.com make everything available that has ever been available. “If you liked —- you might like —-” is a phrase we all know from online recommendations. And how do we familiarize ourselves with these films? We click on the trailer. Only what we’re seeing was intended to be a loud, brassy, slick advertisement to lure us into the theater. Does it have the same impact ten years later on YouTube?

My answer is: usually not. The viewing choice we make with our laptop is often different from the viewing choice in a movie theater with a bag of popcorn balanced on our lap. We want to stoke our own curiosity instead of being told this is “the most important film of the year” (what year?) and “critics agree” and “shockingly brazen.” To be fair, contemporary trailers have been toned down some, but they still try to lead our emotions, jump cut meaningless highlights, and impress upon us that the film is uniquely important.

But the “pull” advertising world of the net rejects all of this. One subtle scene that asks questions, or a short sequence that shows a unique dramatic turn, or an absurd moment everyone can relate to–are inducements we respond to on the net. At MovieWithMe.com we understand this and we spend a lot of time and effort (and money) trying to show you what might compel you to buy or rent the movie (from someone else, because we don’t sell you anything but ideas). Think we’re unique? Not a chance. Take a look at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart the next time Jon interviews a guest with a new movie. They will always show you a scene, never a trailer. They know what they are doing and they know their audience. Too bad the guys in the movie biz don’t know as well.

Streaming movies to your computer or TV is a relatively new service on Amazon and Netflix but the way these websites list their choices creates confusion. Let’s start with Amazon. Under it’s Search Department menu you can choose Movies & TV or, if you look far enough to the bottom, Video on Demand. Wouldn’t it be more logical to list VOD under movies? They are a subcategory of movies & TV, are they not?

And if you go to Movies & TV, you need to click to a second page. First you see the dvd you searched for listed on a page with many other choices, and you must click to the subject specific second page in order to scroll down and (maybe) find a prim little box listing choices like Video on Demand rental, and Video on Demand purchase. Click these choices to go to the Amazon Video on Demand site. Are you still with me? Next, if you are a trained paralegal with five years of contract work, you might be able to understand the choice definitons. A clickable phrase “what’s the difference between renting and buying?” opens a pop up to tell you the rules.

I can’t go into the rules here, because this blog post would be too long for anyone to read. And no one would understand it anyway. If you read over the rules several times, then go to the Terms of Service and read that, you might understand. Of course by that time you will have lost your desire to rent or purchase anything.

Netflix is far more straight forward. You can ADD to your DVD queue, or you can PLAY. But you need to go to a second page here too to find out what PLAY means (do you want to PLAY on your computer or ADD to your Instant Watch queue?).

Can’t either of these giant companies give us simple choices we can understand? “Watch Instantly” is a good phrase. It can only mean one thing: Get it now. Come to think of it, “Get it Now” is a pretty good description of what you want when you want it. Why do they make it so complicated?

The biggest cable company is buying control of a big TV network and a big TV/movie studio to put their content on cable. A start-up black box that streams wi-fi signals to your TV is pushing new internet channels your way. Are these two ships passing, and who will hit an iceberg? California set top box maker Roku-a business set up by former Netflix execs, is going to stream internet channels like Blip.TV and Revision3 directly to your TV, just like they now stream Netflix Watch Instantly and Amazon Video on Demand.

MovieWithMe.com users should know we’re way ahead of the curve here. You can click you profile page and set Let’s Meet to show you other users all around the country of Roku, PlayStation, xBox, LG, Samsung and TiVo. Watch movies in your separate living rooms and chat about them together online. We’re pioneers at putting people together. After all, our motto is “A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet.”

So it’s fascinating to sit on the sidelines of the biggest corporate cable acquisition of the decade and wonder who is crazy. We’re told by the New York Times that Brian Roberts, the do-no-wrong son of Comcast’s founder, is a visionary taking the family fortune to new heights of programming and profit. And yet, here is a bothersome contrary vision brought to you by a little black box from Saratoga, California. While Comcast is buying up legacy media companies, Roku has made deals with new media companies that operate out of garages, eat lunch at Taco Bell, but grind out some impressive talk shows and even more impressive traffic numbers.

How does this upstart entertainment get to your TV? If you live in a Comcast neighborhood, it gets to you through Mr. Roberts’ broadband pipes. He’s hoping you’ll watch NBC, Lifetime, Oxygen etc. on the cable tiers he charges you so much to receive. But what if you decide to pay him only for broadband access and watch all the Netflix streamed movies reviewed on MovieWithMe.com plus all the internet shows and sports you’ll get for the same price? We’re at time when all old assumptions about consumer behavior deserve to be challenged, including those of Comcast. Why buy the milk when the cow is (almost) free?