With the advent of Blockbuster online, and now, even better, Blockbuster Total Access, my ability to catch most of the movies I really want to see has increased dramatically.
I’ve always enjoyed a great foreign film, an art-house flick, a romantic comedy here and there, but there were so many times when I would see an intriguing preview, say I would rent it one day, and then, unless it was a blockbuster and plastered all over the shelves of my local Blockbuster store, never remembered I had ever had interest in it.
These days, I not only read a lot more movie reviews, but I get to do tiny movie reviews for MKE Magazine, which guarantees me about one free theater visit per month, and, I have my Blockbuster queue, which is truly a brilliant invention. I lose lists, and would never keep updating a file of movies I wanted to see, but the internet, now that’s easy. So, for example, I want to see Children of Men, but I didn’t get to review it, and it doesn’t seem like something I’m going to see alone in the theater, but I can add it to my queue, even if we are 8 months from it’s DVD release, I won’t be able to completely forget it.
So, for those of you who feel you have too much time and not enough entertainment on your hands, sign up for one of these online movie services. With Blockbuster, you pay a monthly fee (less than $20) and you can also return your movies to a store, and trade them in, for free! This is good for a rainy Saturday when you have already watched your weekend movie the night before but won’t receive another in time for the long dreary night ahead.
Anyway, with that advertisement, a few of my favorite foreign films from the last year or two:
“The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” starring Tommy Lee Jones
Friendship, death, loyalty, morality, humanity and redemption.
Jet Li’s “Fearless” aka “Hua Yuanjia”
Pride, honor, respect and the art of wushu (martial arts) – beautiful, sweeping Chinese film at its best
“All About My Mother” – directed by Pedro Almodovar
Disturbing, emotionally overbearing and altogether enlightening.
“House of Flying Daggers”
Turn the lights off and be enraptured by one of China’s greatest directors in this beautiful epic
January 29, 2007 at 7:17 pm |
Good suggestions — the first and last of your four are already in my Netflix queue.
That Blockbuster has physical stores is handy, but I swore off them completely after bringing Requiem for a Dream home one night and spottting a very brief notice that the movie had been sanitized for my protection. Apparently, certain of Blockbuster’s movies are edited versions. As a fully grown adult, I’ll be derned if I can support such a policy.
January 30, 2007 at 4:23 pm |
Wow, I’ve never seen that disclaimer. I agree that would bother me… however, not enough to change to Netflix, at least not at this point.