Director/Producer Steven Soderbergh is an admirably free thinker, a true creative with an eye on the future of filmmaking. He’s very particular about the projects he chooses, emerging from pseudo-retirement to direct his latest, Logan Lucky. Made largely outside the Hollywood system he walked away from, it still managed to score some A-list talent on a modest budget, with James Bond and Kylo Ren likely welcoming the opportunity to play against type, as a down-on-his-luck explosives expert and a goodhearted sad-sack, respectively.
The dramedy action film American Made from director Doug Liman (Swingers, Edge of Tomorrow) is based on the true story of airline pilot Barry Seal (played here by Tom Cruise), who in the late 1970s was recruited by the CIA to become a drug runner for the Medellin cartel in Central America. Seal eventually became a key figure in what would turn out to be one of the biggest political scandals in the following decade, the Iran-Contra “gate.” While this might sound like heavy material, American Made is far from a heavy film.
New research from Dallas-based Parks Associates shows that a growing number of American are using good old-fashioned TV antennas to pull in pristine digital broadcasts over the air.
The State of Washington has become the first state to pass its own full-fledged net neutrality law, grabbing the regulatory reins from the FCC, which had axed its own net neutrality rules a few months ago.
When Netflix launched its DVD-by-mail service 20 years ago, the dozens of websites selling DVDs said the newcomer would never survive. Funny how almost all of those competitors are now long gone.
Q The idea of physical media going away bothers me because video streaming quality still seems so spotty. Even my wife — I’ll call her a home theater appreciator, if not an enthusiast — noticed how bad the last season of Game of Thrones looked when we streamed it on HBO Now. To be fair, that’s not the case with all streaming services. For example, Stranger Things looked great on Netflix in 4K. With both examples, however, you will most certainly get the definitive experience by watching the show on disc. Here’s my question: Which of the video streaming services currently offers the best possible AV quality? Are there any advances on the horizon? —Jason Acosta / via e-mail
Disney will go head-to-head with the likes of Hulu and Netflix when it launches its own streaming service in late 2019. And, yes, they plan to stream more than Mickey Mouse cartoons.