Hidden Gems of HBO Max

Pages

Nothing. There's nothing good on there!

It will likely get better over time, so here's the place to post any gems, or discuss movies or shows on HBO Max.

HBO Max is a big yawn so far for original content, but it just launched so hopefully it'll improve over time. There's an ok TCM collection for instance. There is very DC little content though. I thought all the DC Universe stuff would be here, but it's not right now.

All the Harry Potter movies are there, which is nice.

But the point of this topic right now is that all of the Studio Ghibli movies are there! This is the first time they have ever been available from an online service.

Wish I could use it. We use Roku and a smart TV with Prime, neither of which can access HBO Max. Hopefully they get that worked out.

What I don't understand is why they have HBO Now as a separate service. Can't they just put the Max movies on Now? Then your Roku could watch any of it.

But, hey, it's AT&T. They're professional-grade stupid there.

Dude they still have HBO Go too. I think AT&T has 6 or 8 different streaming services, it is just dumb.

VPs engaging in turf battles, probably.

PaladinTom wrote:

HBO Max

But the point of this topic right now is that all of the Studio Ghibli movies are there! This is the first time they have ever been available from an online service.

I hope my current HBO subscription gives me access to that.

RawkGWJ wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

HBO Max

But the point of this topic right now is that all of the Studio Ghibli movies are there! This is the first time they have ever been available from an online service.

I hope my current HBO subscription gives me access to that.

It should. What cable service do you have?

PaladinTom wrote:

But the point of this topic right now is that all of the Studio Ghibli movies are there! This is the first time they have ever been available from an online service.

Every one of them except Grave of the Fireflies and The Red Turtle.

I know those are co-owned / developed, but still worth seeing and a shame they’re not included.

I’m excited because there are 6 movies in their catalog I’ve never seen.

From the "leaving this month" list, The Merchant of Venice (2004) with Al Pacino as Shylock is outstanding. Also starring Joseph Fiennes as Bassanio, whose lust kicks off the tale, Jeremy Irons as Antonio, who foolishly borrows ducats for his best pal Bassanio, Lynn Collins (who you know as Dejah Thoris in John Carter, because everyone saw that movie, right? RIGHT??) as Portia, the object of Bassanio's affection, and surprise! an fresh-faced 22 year old Charlie Cox (Netflix Daredevil) as the chap who elopes with Shylock's daughter.

I'd never seen the full story before, though I did recognize quite a few quotes and sayings, "pound of flesh," "if you prick us, do we not bleed," etc. My overall reaction was that it was the coolest episode of Law & Order I ever saw. The third act really could have been dropped into a modern police procedural without much difficulty. In fact it would surprise me if some lawyer show hasn't already done that.

Last night I watched Ready or Not (2019), and it was outstanding. It really is Samara Weaving's movie, and she brings it. If you are curious, be aware that there is quite a lot of squicky gore, but believe it or not, even that part is played for laughs, and it works. The grand finale is not to be missed.

The most expensive monthly service. Is it worth it yet?

How are people watching HBO Max on a big TV? Since this doesn't support Roku and only Samsung TVs in the US have HBO native apps, is Chromecast the only option? Apple Play kind of works on my LG but I've had issues getting it to play consistently, probably all stemming from my own lack of knowledge than any technical flaw.

I still haven't cut the cord so have a cable HBO subscription basically giving this to me for free, but since HBO has decided to not secure more hardware distribution deals, actually using it has gotten harder and harder.

Stele wrote:

The most expensive monthly service. Is it worth it yet?

It’s only two bucks more than I was paying for Netflix. I would say it’s got more quality content. A lot higher percentage of things I want to watch, at least.

For me, Netflix content follows a quality curve that is sort of an exponential decay curve. A vast amount of garbage, and exponentially fewer items as quality increases. HBO Max on the other hand Is more linear with a negative slope. More garbage than gems, but still a lot of gems.

A crude drawing from my iPad for non math geeks:

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/SP2HxhB/AE93-F8-A0-8-DB8-4-D00-ACE5-071-D6-B0-A9-FCD.png)

Netflix seems to have way more content, but most of it is garbage.

I watch through Xbox. If you’re already an HBO subscriber there is no extra cost.

Carlbear95 wrote:

How are people watching HBO Max on a big TV?

I have it sideloaded on our Amazon Fire stick. There's an option in the device settings to enable "Apps from Unknown Sources". Then you need to install an app called Downloader. Then using that app you need to enter the URL of an .apk file for HBO Max. You can Google around for it, it's not difficult to find.

Nvidia Shield has a native app.

Watched the pilot of Doom Patrol. Yeah, I’m gonna be watching this. My man Brendan Fraser!

BadKen wrote:

Watched the pilot of Doom Patrol. Yeah, I’m gonna be watching this. My man Brendan Fraser!

Wait. You said that out loud?

Why wouldn’t I? It’s well past time he got an opportunity to remind everyone why we loved him in the 90s.

I thought Doom Patrol was going to be a disaster. I had no faith that they were going to do a good job making a tv show out of an aggressively weird minor property with no significant fan base. I thought it was going to be sub CW level superhero cringe.

It's really good. Season 1 is really solid, but still getting itself sorted out. Season 2 starts strong and and gets stronger and more confident with each episode. There's a lot of dark humor and some really brutal feels and an amazing commitment to the weird.

It's kind of a slow burn, but Pierce Brosnan ends up being a pretty epic evil mad scientist.

Long Shot is outstanding. It’s on HBO for a few more days.

HBO Go is the free service for people that have the HBO cable channel and is getting discontinued on July 31st. HBO Now was the pay service for cord-cutters that didn't have the channel. HBO Max is replacing both. The reason the older apps are still getting supported is because some older platforms are no longer getting updated, and HBO still hasn't made deals for HBO Max on FireTV and Roku, which are huge.

Anyways, all of HBO's original content should be available. So on the off chance anyone browsing this is new to HBO content, I thought I'd list off a bunch of it that I've enjoyed:

Dramas:
Band of Brothers
Chernobyl
John Adams
Westworld
Watchmen

Docuseries:
McMillions

And I'm looking forward to Lovecraft Country on August 16th.

I second all of deftly's recommendations, particularly McMillions which I found surprisingly entertaining, and it is a dead serious documentary.

My dad is watching Perry Mason and says it is excellent. I am waiting for the season to finish and then will binge, but I love gritty detective dramas and am excited.

Haven’t watched it yet, but anything with Jason Mantzoukis deserves a look.

Perry Mason is quite good so far, with several really excellent performances.

Not being able to binge watch it has been frustrating. Some shows benefit from having a week or so to digest. Perry Mason is complex enough that it is easy to lose track of the more subtle hints after a week. Like a lot of modern shows, it probably works best when you can watch a couple of episodes a night.

I can see why people like the Harley Quinn cartoon. I am not sure if I am going to complete it.

Lovecraft Country goooood.

I liked it. It stuck closer to the book than I expected. Hopefully that doesn’t become a liability since the book is pretty unfocused and poorly paced.

This is a long shot, but has anyone been able to compare picture/audio quality of the HBO Max app versus subscribing via Prime Video app on PS4?

I'm really disappointed in the HBO Max app itself (it's sooo slow), along with how grainy the picture is and how muddy the sound is. I'm not really someone who pays attention to that stuff, so I feel like it must be particularly bad for it to stand out to me.

The lead actors are great, the cinematography is strikingly pretty, and the whole thing looks very expensive. The pacing and storytelling aren't nearly as tight as they could be and there are some tone problems. The whole thing doesn't feel well grounded in the 1950s time period that it is set in. By contrast, the Paul Drake role in Perry Mason (Black LA police officer in the early 1930s), felt a lot more historically valid. Lovecraft Country has the thing where the characters feel too much like modern Americans playacting at being in a unsubtle representation of a different historical era.

I feel like it could have used some more explanation of the Green Book travel guides.

There was a nice bit towards the beginning of the show about "liking stories that aren't meant for you" that, while kind of clunky, was really meaningful to me.

Pages