It's cinema for your ears
October 25, 2012 9:59 AM   Subscribe

Listen to a movie: For the cubicle workers of the world. Discovered via Jonah Ray during Dana Gould's most recent, and always entertaining, podcast. [Earlier MeFi mention]
posted by wensink (29 comments total) 40 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm surprised they don't have Law & Order in the TV section, which might be the closest that modern television comes to radio drama. You hardly ever need to look up to follow an episode, except when the scene changes, which the show helpfully announces via doink doink.
posted by theodolite at 10:15 AM on October 25, 2012 [9 favorites]


Well, I guess the concerns from 2007 about the increased exposure resulting in the end of Listen to a Movie didn't come true. That's good.
posted by asnider at 10:17 AM on October 25, 2012


When I was a kid, our tv was broken for a while and all we had was audio. This is when I realised that sitcoms didn't suffer that much from the loss of video, but action shows were very hard to follow. And, to this day, there are episodes of Quatum Leap that I've heard, but never seen.
posted by jb at 10:18 AM on October 25, 2012


I do this all the time with episodes of MST3K, because so much of the humor is dialogue-based.
posted by Lucinda at 10:23 AM on October 25, 2012


that's awesome!
posted by fuzzypantalones at 10:25 AM on October 25, 2012


You know you've seen a movie too many times when listening to it means you're just sitting there with your eyes closed, visualising it.

...

Dammit.
posted by Katemonkey at 10:26 AM on October 25, 2012


I'm surprised they don't have Law & Order in the TV section, which might be the closest that modern television comes to radio drama. You hardly ever need to look up to follow an episode, except when the scene changes, which the show helpfully announces via doink doink.

That's funny, because you can also follow Law & Order pretty well without any sound. And you can stop or start pretty much anywhere in an episode. It's hugely multiply redundant. It's basically the perfect TV show.
posted by grobstein at 10:27 AM on October 25, 2012 [5 favorites]


You know you've seen a movie too many times when listening to it means you're just sitting there with your eyes closed, visualising it.

Or that it's really, really good.
posted by wensink at 10:27 AM on October 25, 2012


jb: Where I grew up, Channel 6 used to broadcast on 87.7 so growing up you could hear TV audio on your radio and it felt like a very big deal if you were a kid with a radio in your bedroom. I have the same experience you had with Quantum Leap with many years of Saturday Night Live.

As for the site, I pretty much use Netflix and Hulu for this with a minimized window but really love the idea anyway, especially commentaries like episodes of Firefly, which I'd probably never sit down to watch, but would love to hear.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:30 AM on October 25, 2012 [3 favorites]


The director's commentary section is pretty keen, too-- I've left one of those playing on nights when my wife is out of town and the quiet in the apartment is such that I have difficulty falling asleep. /weirdly depressing
posted by shakespeherian at 10:30 AM on October 25, 2012


This is probably better, in terms of bandwidth and people noticing what I'm doing, than running the Troma YouTube channel or MST3K.me in another tab.
posted by Shepherd at 10:38 AM on October 25, 2012 [2 favorites]


This is a really great idea!
posted by beatmenace at 11:24 AM on October 25, 2012


Boy, did I need this today. And joy, they have The Princess Bride!

Thanks for posting!
posted by DingoMutt at 11:27 AM on October 25, 2012


Wow I've been wishing there was something like this for ages! Yay!
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:49 AM on October 25, 2012


And all 100% legal too!
posted by blue_beetle at 11:53 AM on October 25, 2012 [2 favorites]


Where I grew up, Channel 6 used to broadcast on 87.7 so growing up you could hear TV audio on your radio...

Hey! Which side of Indy did you grow up on, Mike?
posted by Thorzdad at 12:05 PM on October 25, 2012


Love it. I love that they have "Home Movies" in the TV section, but I'd probably laugh a little too much to listen at work.

I just finished listening to the backlog of How Stuff Works history podcast, so I'll be needing this very soon.
posted by peacrow at 12:34 PM on October 25, 2012


you can also follow Law & Order pretty well without any sound. And you can stop or start pretty much anywhere in an episode. It's hugely multiply redundant. It's basically the perfect TV show.

True. My go-to show in non-English language speaking countries is dubbed episodes of Law and Order. It doesn't matter if you have no proficiency in the dubbed language--you can still follow along perfectly!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:43 PM on October 25, 2012


I'm surprised circulating commentaries as MP3s (or FLAC, or whatever) isn't more popular given that <insert hip euphemism for torrented> versions don't have them. I understand hi-res MKV files can, but nobody seems to bother including them in the release.
posted by John Shaft at 1:08 PM on October 25, 2012


Nice. I listen to movies all the time (treating them as radio dramas) all the time, at work or on long drives. This is great.

Noteworthy: Return of the King, with both cast as well as director/writers' commentaries, which are outstanding.
posted by ShutterBun at 3:10 PM on October 25, 2012


The only bad thing about this post is that I could only favorite it once.
posted by phoebus at 3:22 PM on October 25, 2012 [1 favorite]


When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to watch TV during the weekdays, but I had a yellow Sony Walkman (Sport!) tape player that could tune into TV audio channels. Half the fun was figuring out what show I was listening to.
posted by stratastar at 4:52 PM on October 25, 2012


I'm surprised that site is still around -- I used to hit it up in the pre-podcast days, like a decade ago or something, at work.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:59 PM on October 25, 2012


nice! I'm going to listen to lots of these. In fact I'm listening to Catch-22 right now!

similarly, Egg City Radio has a couple of early Cronenberg films that are well worth listening too.
posted by Abinadab at 5:59 PM on October 25, 2012


Doctor Who is very listenable - I tuck my kindle fire away without pausing episodes while doing the walking bits of my commute and treat it like a radio drama. Everything is described! During action scenes they helpfully talk through what's happening because of the continual Doctor-Companion exposition: "Why are we running, Doctor?!" "Because of THAT HUGE BLOB CHASING US, COMPANION!" "OH!"
PodWho would be amazing.
posted by BigJen at 7:34 PM on October 25, 2012


Firefly episodes as audio only you say?
And episode commentaries as well.
OMFG I AM SO THERE.

::Downloads EVERYTHING::

ARGH! There appears to be no way to download the files. My joy - it has been stolen :S GAH!
posted by Faintdreams at 2:20 AM on October 26, 2012


Where I grew up, Channel 6 used to broadcast on 87.7 so growing up you could hear TV audio on your radio...

Hey! Which side of Indy did you grow up on, Mike?


Note: this applies to any US television market that had a Channel 6 in the analog era.
posted by radwolf76 at 2:59 AM on October 26, 2012 [1 favorite]


ARGH! There appears to be no way to download the files.

The links all go to an embedded player page, but you can munge the URL to get to the underlying mp3 file that the player is playing.

For example, the link for Airplane!:

http://www.listentoamovie.com/listen.php?title=Airplane%20%281980%29&file=/media/./1.%20Movies/A/Airplane%20%281980%29.mp3

to get to the mp3, cut out everything from listen.php up to /media:

http://www.listentoamovie.com/media/./1.%20Movies/A/Airplane%20%281980%29.mp3
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:21 PM on October 26, 2012 [2 favorites]


Hey! Which side of Indy did you grow up on, Mike?

Note: this applies to any US television market that had a Channel 6 in the analog era.


Thanks, radwolf76. That's a much more helpful reply than mine was going to be, which was "the side of Indy that's actually in Western Illinois and got their Channel 6 out of Iowa."
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:49 PM on October 26, 2012


« Older Just say Novus Ordo Seclorum   |   We are for the dark Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments