The Culture Beat

Following up from my last post on how Netflix’s streaming video on demand (VOD) had transformed my home video experience, I can now report on several titles available from their instantly viewable library. All three are documentaries that I would have trouble finding at a local multiplex and might not even want via Netflix’s mail order service, since they would compete for attention with other titles I’d watch downstairs with the family. I’ve watched most of these films upstairs while on the treadmill, delivered via my son’s PS3 game console using the Netflix disc, similar to what they provide for the Wii console, except the picture is larger and not cropped. In order of viewing:

Welcome to Macintosh, a history of Apple’s innovative personal computer, told by those who were in some way involved in its invention and development. It informs a lot about the maverick nature of Steve Jobs and his compatriots as they sought to create a computer with a semblance of a soul, which would encourage creativity and how this resulted in a “cult of Apple” that has only grown over the last 14 years with the development of the iMac, iPod, iPhone and now the iPad.

Tales from the Script Hollywood’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams is littered with careers of would-be screenwriters who were crushed between the cruel wheels of feckless studio executives, and their own shortcomings at mastering the art of cinematic storytelling. This film is filled with interviews of those who have had some degree of success including Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption), Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) and master scribe William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, among others) whose famous maxim, about what succeeds in Hollywood, “Nobody Knows Anything,” captures the unpredictable nature of the business. It includes course language but is essential for anyone hoping to write and pitch their way into selling a script.

Art and Copy Contemporary advertising began a “creative revolution” in the 1960s as the formerly separate divisions of copyrighting, the dominant element upon which the artwork was based, gave way to a creative marriage of the two (which is what the AMC series Mad Men is currently depicting ). This documentary describes some of the brightest lights in the ad world who find ways to touch the deepest parts of our sometimes unspoken desires in order to sell cars, candidates and computers. Recommended if you want to begin to understand how commercial art is, like it or not, the highest creative achievement of the modern age.

Lest this come off looking like a plug for Netflix, it’s really just my way of expressing what I’ve found in this new VOD world that more and more of us will soon be enjoying–greater freedom to program the media of our lives.