and USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage starring Nicholas Cage you start seeing a trend of nothing nominated for an Oscar. Even for just the indie or cult fan the selection is a strange mess. Yes, Steam selected films are far and between some of the worst films that you can find, with that, Steam becomes a great indicator of what not to watch. Steam, much like the mall becomes a strong detector of what's a bad movie. If you see a banner in your mall for a film nowhere near or inside a theater you know that film is garbage. They should just put stink lines around them as a bonus for you to know it's going to be crap. I would watch a doc on the people who make those stink lines as they would be useful in many other situations. My most recent memoery of this was Pan, which was panned by critics and you don't even remember. It could have had stink lines going pretty high up and maybe even some floating poo emoticons near it, like as kites or as aerial drones. The Pan poster was huge and outdoors at this mall, the new Village in Woodland Hills, so it really could have been given a big poo-represeantation. And so Steam has become the mall, telling us what not to watch. It's our stink lines.
They're are some exceptions, at least in my taste you have Memento and Turbo Kid and a select few more, but nothing new that gets added. What's funny to us and one of the earliest movies you could get on Steam, Indie Game: The Movie, isn't even located in the Streaming Videos section, but in the Indie Game section. I can't count it though as one of Steams only good films, by their own technical categorization, it's not a film.
We've noticed the trend of bad films with completely unknown shows for some time. More recently with Nightcap. I was excited at first to see what it was, but sad after reading the synopsis. It's a show very out of the demographic market on Steam as its real home is on the Pop cable network, the same network the reruns soap operas. As of writing this, it has no reviews on Steam.
What it connects to is that Lionsgate produces it and has many of its films on Steam. So I can only guess they just tacked it in there as they already had a deal with Steam. There seems to be little justifiable reason why they thought anyone on Steam would want to watch a show with no fan-base about working on a talk show with mostly female comedians leading the show.
Then you have Jackie Chan Presents: Amnesia. I'm a huge fan of Jackie Chan, so much so I saw he's most recent film Kung-Fu Yoga and it in no way was good. I just like Jackie Chan beating up people. This film, Jackie Chan Presents: Amnesia, doesn't even have Jackie in it and is hoping you'll just get it because his name happens to be in the title. I don't even know what movie their referencing as its prequel and I've seen most of his films. Also, released by Lionsgate.
It's a dumping ground of stand-up specials so bad, it be funnier to just watch whatever's popular on YouTube or Reddit that day. Who wants to watch Katt Williams: 9 Lives, Tim Allen: Men Are Pigs and Gallagher: That's Stupid, wait Gallagher is still alive? Oh, it's not even a special, it's a weird comedy video from 1982?
These malformed comedy videos are with some of the worst films that go straight to video on demand like Nerdland from Titmouse. Titmouse can make some great work when they are not in control writing, because they suck at that and Nerdland proves it.
Pricing isn't the worst, but nothing to note. The highest priced films are $9.99 and yours to keep. Rentals are usually $4.99 and last for 48 hours within a 30 day window of purchasing. They do have sales like the rest of Steam, but there's no real draw with other video services out there.
Just reading the new titles just added include: War on Everyone, a buddy cop film that I thought was going to straight to video in the US, but seems to have one screening in Burbank. The Love Witch, which has only been at indie theaters here in LA. Lazer Team, which I thought was a RedTube exclusive, as it was paid by YouTube. All of which are just mediocre garbage.
Steam may want to drop the service or have someone actually manage it who cares or have some sort of special deal or idea to promote using it.
Whatever new films or shows come out on Steam, remember them as a good indicator to not watch them.
