Going to the movies!

[missroserose]

I haven't been making much use of my "movies" tag recently, mostly due to the fact that (surprise, surprise) I haven't been watching very many movies lately. Partly this has been bitterness over HD DVD losing the format war; given how cheap our player was, I'm not super-upset, but we're not really interested in buying any more HD DVDs for obvious reasons, and you can't rent them anywhere here. And going back to DVD after glorious high-definition was a bit of a letdown.

Part of it has also been sheer annoyance at Blockbuster and their insane DVD rental prices. To be fair, it's only $1 for five days for older movies, but anything on their "New Release" shelf - which seems to include anything released in the last two years - is $4, often for only one night. And if it's late that's another $4 a night. Given that I really like to watch TV shows, which are multi-disc sets, that means I either have to wait two years to rent them or pay $12-$24 to see the whole series; at that point, considering most of them are cheap at Costco, you might as well just buy the thing.

All this is sort of a roundabout way of saying that I've (perhaps inevitably) jumped on the Netflix bandwagon. I've avoided it so far with the "I only watch movies occasionally" justification, but I really like watching TV shows on DVD, and there have been a growing number of movies out over the past year or two that I've been thinking I'd like to see (not to mention the bunches of older flicks that I keep thinking "Oh, I should watch that," and then forgetting about), so I've finally broken down and decided to sign up and see what all the fuss is about.

I'm about a week and a half in, and rather impressed so far - the selection is most excellent, and the turnaround time has so far been perfectly reasonable for shipping to Alaska. (I've heard stories about people getting throttled back after the two-week free trial was up, so I'm reserving permanent judgment until the one-month mark.) The movies themselves (one new, one a couple years old) were in surprisingly good shape, and played just fine. And the postage-paid envelopes really make things convenient.

Where Netflix really shines, however, is their web interface. I've tried keeping a list of movies I want to watch before, but never really found a convenient centralized place to keep it; now I've got my Netflix queue, which is fantastically handy. Also, I really like the recommendation system; it's brought up several movies that were on that ephemeral "I should see that sometime" list that I've later forgotten. And the way it tells you the relative similarity in preferences between a user reviewer and your own is very neat. I haven't tried any of the instant-watch features, mostly because we don't have a PC hooked up to our home theater, but if work is slow sometime I might give it a shot.

So, I'd give it a tentative recommendation so far. We'll have to see if the quality of service stays consistent.

Stay tuned! I'll probably be putting up some thoughts on actual movies soon. :)

Comments

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I less than three the Netflix. You should be my FlixFriend.

[joyfulleigh.livejournal.com]

I love Netflix. I have the super cheap 4.99, one movie at a time plan. It rules. I don't typically rent more than two movies a month, so it's all I need. And way cheaper than Blockbuster, especially when you factor in my (inevitable) late returns! :)

L.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Is there such a function?

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

There is indeed such a function! I have three FlixFriends already!
In the tabs at the top of the page, next to "Movies you'll less than three" is the tab for 'Friends and Community'.