When Streaming Won't Cut It and You Need the DVD
'I had a ton of DVDs growing up,' Noah Snyder, 27, said. But reading about the way contemporary conglomerates treat films and television programs on their streaming services had prodded him to acquire physical media again. Snyder cited the actress Cristin Milioti's recent comments about 'Made for Love,' her show that was not only canceled, but removed altogether from the HBO Max streaming platform.
'The stuff the CEOs do, they're bad decisions,' Snyder said. 'I don't want something I love to be taken away like that.'
In the last decade or two, the story of physical copies of movies and television has been overwhelmingly one of decline. Blockbuster is essentially gone, streaming is ascendant, Netflix no longer sends DVDs through the mail, and Best Buy no longer stocks them in its stores. Many manufacturers have ceased making disc players. Retail sales of new physical products in home entertainment fell below $1 billion last year, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry association.
Yet amid the streaming deluge, there are signs — small, tenuous and anecdotal, but real — of a rebellion. Alex Holtz, a media and entertainment analyst at International Data Corporation, compared Blu-rays to vinyl albums. Holtz, an audiophile, gladly streams new music while on walks, but he buys records he loves. 'We're in a back-to-the-future moment,' he said.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
a minute ago
- New York Times
An Era of Authenticity (or Something Like It)
When Kylie Jenner and her mother, Kris, admitted last month that they had gotten plastic surgery, it was hailed by many as the start of a new era in celebrity transparency around beauty. '445 cc, moderate profile, half under the muscle!!!!! silicone!!! garth fisher!!! hope this helps lol,' Kylie Jenner had responded to a fan asking for the exact specifications of her breast augmentation. The moment — casual, off the cuff, peppered with internet speak and made in the comments of a TikTok — immediately became a hot topic on social media, just as her mother's discussion of her face lift a few weeks earlier had. Other celebrities, naturally, jumped on the bandwagon. Kristin Cavallari, a former star of 'The Hills,' shared her own breast implant specifications on Instagram, while the real estate tycoon and 'Shark Tank' star Barbara Corcoran revealed a whole host of procedures she's had done, including three face lifts, a neck lift and a 'lower eyelid skin pinch.' Last week, Khloé Kardashian admitted that she used to 'heavily Photoshop' her photos until she looked like a 'cartoon character.' 'There was a time that I was around some people that would make me feel like I needed to,' Ms. Kardashian said on her podcast, 'Khloé in Wonderland.' 'I also think it was the era, too. I felt like a lot of people were Photoshopping or heavily Photoshopping more than they do now. I do feel like there was a time that we all just got consumed in this filter lifestyle and we couldn't see ourselves without a filter.' The beauty standards themselves are inauthentic — that is, unnatural and impossible to attain without surgical or technological intervention — but the open discussion around how to achieve them has been praised as a form of authenticity by fans, many of whom felt they had previously been gaslit by celebrities claiming their perfect forms were the result of diet and exercise. According to Dr. Kelly Killeen, a plastic surgeon based in Beverly Hills, Calif., the open discussion of plastic surgery has resulted in an uptick in patients asking for the exact same procedures their favorite celebrities have gotten. 'I'm seeing so many patients coming in with, like, a Burger King order,' Dr. Killeen said in an interview. 'They're like, 'I want the Kylie Jenner.'' The plastic surgery admissions, oddly enough, have come from stars who have seemingly built their careers on omissions and obfuscations. Between lavish birthday parties, multimillion-dollar mansions and unattainable bodies, there has been nothing less relatable and authentic in recent years than celebrities like the Kardashians. This is not the first time people have sought escapism in being a voyeur of luxurious lifestyles — think Paris Hilton in the early aughts, as Wall Street crashed — and as economic anxiety rises yet again, Dr. Killeen said the trend offers a chance to change the discussion around the celebrities. 'The Kardashians love to rage against the machine they created,' she said. In this case it seems to be working, possibly because the act of being open about their plastic surgeries and proclivities for Photoshop appeals to Gen Z — a generation that values, according to a 2023 report from the consulting firm EY, 'being authentic and true to oneself' more than anything else. 'More than 90 percent rated authenticity as very or extremely important,' the report said. 'This is driving a backlash against 'perfectionism,' or trying to conform to be like, look like and sound like the idealized versions of oneself shared through filtered selfies and retouched photos. Gen Z, instead, is increasingly embracing their authentic, unedited view of themselves and the world around them — and expecting others to respect them for the same.' 'We've left the Instagram era of perfectly crafted and edited photos into the era of TikTok, where people just pick their phone up and look the way they look and act the way they act, and share their experiences,' Dr. Killeen said. 'And I think especially Gen Z has transitioned into this era of, 'I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm just being myself.'' There is, however, some nuance to Gen Z's approach to authenticity. Despite an expressed desire to be true to themselves, members of the generation have said they care less and less about authenticity from influencers — perhaps because the efforts to appear relatable have fallen flat. Naming the aesthetic helpers, whether the celebrity in question is using plastic surgery or semaglutide drugs, may also demystify them, and make the celebrity's quest for perfection less interesting and, in turn, less relevant. But for now, the trend seems to have hit the pause button on celebrities pretending they 'woke up like this.' 'I think that young women understanding that these things aren't achievable without surgery is really important,' Dr. Killeen said. 'I hope that we don't go so far as young women starting to think you need these things, which is always a fear, but at least now people know, and it's not like the J. Lo, 'I look like this because I use olive oil on my skin.'' 'I mean, come on,' she added.
Fox News
a minute ago
- Fox News
Dolly Parton worried about Charles Manson's ‘darkness,' thought he could steal souls: author
For Dolly Parton, spirituality is nothing to take lightly. The country music superstar has often spoken out about her faith over the years, but in a conversation with famed celebrity interviewer Lawrence Grobel, Parton revealed just how intensely she feels about the topic. Grobel, who has interviewed and written about a number of celebrities over his decades-long career, recently shared some diary entries with Vanity Fair – many of them describe conversations he's had with Parton, who he first met in 1978. The two became friends, and in 1981, after he was presented with an opportunity to interview notorious serial killer Charles Manson, he asked Parton for her thoughts on the matter, since he'd been having trouble deciding whether he wanted to go through with it. "I think he'd steal your soul," she told him, per Grobel's diary entry. "I can't even look at a picture of him." She told him that if he were to interview Manson, "I know I wouldn't want to have much to do with you." The "Jolene" singer told Grobel that he "wouldn't make a difference" by interviewing Manson because any attention the story got would go to the infamous killer, who was convicted in 1971 of the murders of seven people. "I know it's an amazing story," she said, "but being the way we are, you and me, with the wonderful, pure force in you, just one minute with him could destroy all that we can be about. That's how spirits work. You'd have to be brave to deal with him, and I know you are, but it's something you don't tempt God with. I'd be afraid it would get to me." Grobel wrote that Parton had told him that "this devil has come up between us," referring to Manson, and that she said that if he did choose to do the interview, "You and me would be more like in a battle and I'd be looking at you differently, because it would change you and you may not even know it. The darkness is something not to get involved with." The author ultimately declined the interview, and in his diary, he wrote that Parton "pretty much made my decision for me." "No candy if I play with the devil," he remarked. While the cult leader wasn't known to worship Satan as some people believed, he did invoke some Satanic imagery in public statements he made. At one point during his trial, Manson arrived to court with a shaved head, declaring, "I am the devil, and the devil always has a bald head." At a 1986 parole hearing, he said, "From behind the time locks of courtrooms and from the worlds of darkness, I did let loose devils and demons with the power of scorpions to torment." Grobel previously recounted the story of Parton's concerns about Manson on his website in 2017. There, he wrote that Parton was surprised that he had even needed to think about whether he wanted to do the interview, calling Manson "evil incarnate." He remembered her saying, "And to tell you the truth, that you even have to think about this concerns me." He also said that following the conversation, the country legend "kept her distance" from him. Parton has long been open about her beliefs, telling Fox News Digital in 2023 that she asks God to keep "the right people" in her life and to take "the wrong ones" out of it. "My faith impacts everything that I do because I do believe that, through God, all things are possible," she said at the time. "And so I always ask God to bless everything that I do and the people that I work with and to bring all the right things and right people into my life and to take the wrong ones out. "So, I try to just live through love as much as I can. And so I just think that my spirituality has been a guiding light in my life and my strength, really, in my creative energy. And my spiritual energy has really been a great force to keep me going all these years and still being productive." Earlier this month, Parton appeared on Khloé Kardashian's "Khloe in Wonder Land" podcast, where she admitted that people have told her that she shouldn't speak so much about her faith. "I said, 'Well, yes I should,'" she told Kardashian. "I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you what makes me work, what I believe." She said that if God can "shine through" her to other people, that's good enough for her.
Fox News
a minute ago
- Fox News
New film company founded by tech industry veterans wants to make Hollywood pro-American again
A new film company with ties to the tech and defense world is on a mission to reignite patriotism in Hollywood. The backers of the new project, called Founders Films, believe there's a growing appetite among audiences for bold stories that inspire and celebrate the American spirit. But they say that content has become increasingly rare in mainstream entertainment. "Movies have become more ideological, more cautious, and less entertaining," the company wrote in a pitch to investors, first reported by Semafor. "Large segments of American and international viewers are underserved. Production costs have soared and sales are flagging." The new studio aims to fill that gap by producing a range of content — from historical dramas to big-budget blockbusters — that celebrates American greatness, ingenuity and heroism. The commercial success of films like "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Oppenheimer" and series such as "Yellowstone" show that audiences are hungry for these types of stories, sources close to the project told Fox News Digital. While "unapologetically pro-American," Founders Films stresses that its mission is not partisan. Rather, it wants to make compelling films with a broad appeal. The project is already attracting significant interest from investors and collaborators, the sources said. One project has already been sold to a major studio. The company hopes to produce its own films, collaborate with other production companies and finance the development of other projects that align with its mission. Proposed project ideas include a film dramatizing the evacuation of the World Trade Center on 9/11, a movie about the "botched withdrawal from Afghanistan" and a multi-season spy thriller exposing "China's plans to replace the United States as the dominant global power," according to the Semafor report. Founders Films' leadership team has ties to Palantir, a tech giant which builds defense software solutions for the U.S. military and Allied forces. One of the film company's co-founders is Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer at Palantir. Ryan Podolsky, an early Palantir employee and U.S. Marine veteran, also serves as co-founder and CEO of the film company, while investor Christian Garrett is the third co-founder. Sankar immigrated to the United States as a child after fleeing violence in Nigeria and has often spoken about his gratitude to the United States. In a blog post late last year, he outlined his vision for the new film project, saying Hollywood needs to return to the "American cinematic universe" that shaped his love for America. "I remember growing up as an immigrant kid at the end of the Cold War, watching movies like Red Dawn, Top Gun, Rocky IV, and The Hunt for Red October," he wrote in the December 2024 Substack post. "These movies were the pump-up material of Peak America. They were awesome, and they instilled a healthy aversion to ushanka-wearing commies, for good measures." Sankar called out Hollywood executives for being unwilling to criticize America's adversaries today out of fear doing so would hurt them financially. "America is in the middle of Cold War II against a communist enemy with more people, more money, and more military might than the Soviets ever had," he wrote in the post. "The CCP is playing a more careful game than the Kremlin, but as the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Taiwanese know, it's no less tyrannical, even genocidal." "What is Hollywood doing to expose this new villain and inspire Americans? When was the last time you saw the CCP presented as a bad guy in a major motion picture, like the USSR? Cold War II is heating up, yet the American Cinematic Universe is AWOL. Worse than that, it's compromised by Chinese influence," he wrote. "Breaking out of our cultural malaise will require the studios to wake up and choose America," his post went on to say. "But it will also require a new crop of artists who are disenchanted with the status quo and who can re-enchant audiences with new, well-told stories."
