We’re planning to start up some community events here at The Bonus View. First up will be a Bad Movie Night. The only problem is that we have two ways we can go about this, and we need some help deciding.
The Oscar night live-blog was a tremendous success thanks to the hard work of High-Def Digest staff and the witty, insightful and hilarious readers who showed up to pitch in. This has inspired us to do more live events, starting with an idea that we fell in love with: Bad Movie Night.
The idea surrounding Bad Movie Night is simple. We’ll pick a movie, arrange a time, and then everyone jumps into a live chat (yes, we’re looking at a new chat system) to rag on the movie and share the pain. It’s an online extension of sitting on a couch with your friends while making fun of a B-grade monster flick. Except this is even better, because we’ll throw in some contests where you can win free Blu-ray discs!
The big question isn’t what or why, but how. We have two different ideas for how to run this, and we want your input on which you think is the best. I’ve detailed the options below, but if you have another idea, then by all means write it up in the Comments section.
Option 1:
We pick a movie that’s available through Netflix via disc or streaming, Redbox, or maybe even free On Demand. By sticking with these inexpensive rental methods, we can make sure that no one has to pay much for the awful movie they’re about to see.
The big plus side to this option is that it allows us a great deal of freedom in both movie selection and scheduling. We could hold Bad Movie Night whenever we wanted and could pick from a huge range of crappy movies.
The down side is twofold. The first is that Bad Movie Night would require a bit of forward planning and expense for everyone attending. It’s not much expense, but you’d have to add the movie to your queue or go out and rent it. The second is getting everyone to sync up the movie at the exact same time. Those joining after the movie has started would have to chapter skip to catch up.
Option 2:
We find a movie that’s airing on TV and schedule Bad Movie Night around it. There are plenty of awful movies on television, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find one a month that’s worth tearing apart in a group setting.
One of the biggest advantages to this is that anyone can come in at any time. Just flick on over to the right channel and join the chat. So long as you have the channel that the movie’s on, it’ll be essentially free.
On the other hand, we’ll be limited in our selections and we’ll have no freedom in scheduling. Bad Movie Night will have to happen right when the movie comes on. There’s also a potential issue of time zones and channel availability. If there’s a ‘Gamera’ movie on G4 and you don’t have the channel, you’re out of luck.
As you can see, there are advantages and disadvantages to each. Rather than us trying to figure out what you’d prefer, just tell us what you want and we’ll accommodate. We’ll keep the poll open for a few days, and whatever wins will be what we go with.
We’re planning to hold the first Bad Movie Night later this month. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in doing, make sure you vote!
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Ryan Megan
I know people on the Node do screening chats on Ustream at times.
Alex
Live TV would be tricky for any of us who have already “cut the cable.” Plus, dealing with timezone differences for running times could cause endless headaches.
EM
If we choose Option 1—and so far, that’s what’s winning—we should keep in mind that the syncing will never be perfect. There are too many issues including net lag and differing disc editions with prepended material (such as distributors’ logos) to guarantee a perfect match-up. But so long as we’re mindful of the timing variations when both composing and interpreting comments, we should be OK.
HuskerGuy
I think Netflix is the easiest option and it certainly has its share of bad movies.
Keith
If you pick #1, you could always set up stopping/pausing points for people who might need to get caught up.
Live TV would be good, but as has already been mentioned, not all of us have cable.
Shayne Blakeley
I like this idea. Having a couple small intermissions to make sure everyone is on board would help a lot.
Dick Ward
I think that’s a really great point. It might be a little more difficult if we’re watching something streaming, since getting everyone to the same point to restart can be a little rough.
If we’re watching a DVD though, it’s as easy as saying “okay, skip to chapter 4 and pause, then restart on 3” or similar.
besch64
Why don’t you guys set up a live stream of a movie that we can tune into?
Also, there’s no way that we cannot watch The Room first. The picture at the top of the page has whetted my appetite.
Josh Zyber
YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, BESCH64!!!
Dick Ward
As much as I’d love to do that, I’m pretty sure streaming copyrighted material is frowned upon :p
besch64
Well we could always do it with some really atrocious b-movies from 70 years ago that have fallen into public domain.
Shayne Blakeley
I’m another who has dumped gable. Netflix all the way. Personally I would prefer we stick with instant watch movies. There’s no shortage of bad BAD movies at our disposal, and noone has to waste a rental and syncing relatively closely would be much easier. Also, my tv is my computer monitor, which was a difficulty during the live chat as I was talking in the one window and trying to watch the show in another as they overlapped. I’m not sure how to improve that situation, but I think the netflix window will be easier to manage than playing a dvd on my computer.
Eric Hulen
Also if the movie is on Netflix, some of us with xboxes could join a XBL party so we could all be in sync and live chat. I did this with a Engadget HD movie night and it was good fun.
Dick Ward
Woah,I completely forgot about that party feature. Good call Eric 🙂
Shannon Nutt
I voted for Live TV just because of the synching problem. Plus Live TV (assuming it’s not Pay TV) gives you the chance to diss the commercials as well. 🙂
EM
Excellent point about the commercials. 🙂
Onslaught
Oh my god, if we watch the Room first, I will recite that movie start to finish. I’ve seen it at my local midnight movie theater three times, and I LOVE IT!
William Henley
You know, I wonder how hard it would be to talk netflix into adding a party feature. You simply log into Netflix on your Netflix device, and enter a code. The host has the power to start the movie, and to pause. I have a feeling that if the staff talked to Netflix, this wouldn’t be too hard to implement.
It would be even cooler if they implemented some type of chat feature, and possibly even video chat for up to, say, 8 people. That way, I could watch the movie with my buddies. In fact, I could schedule an event, and then through Netflix’s website post an invite to Facebook. Watch on the TV, chat on the laptop.
Granted, this would all center around talking to Netflix and talking them into adding a few features, but adding Social Networking-like qualities to Netflix sounds like something that could really be successful for them. And should be much more successful than Disney’s implementation of it, which requires everyone watching to own the disc AND have BD-Live enabled.
Josh Zyber
I don’t know that we have that much (or any) sway with Netflix, but that’s certainly a good idea that the company should seriously think about implementing if it can. It seems like that would probably require a lot of programming on their end to implement, though.
Shayne Blakeley
My fiance and I were discussing this very thing the other night. It’s surprising this doesn’t already exist.
Shayne Blakeley
So when are we doing this?