Thank you Netflix!
Run Lola Run. Anybody seen this? Great movie, this one.
It’s sitting here on my desk, in its little paper Netflix wrapper.
Tomorrow I’m going to put this copy in the mail, and buy myself a fresh one to keep.
And I got to thinking about it, and I realized… hey, I have a thread here!
I’d actually seen Run Lola Run before, several years back. On VHS if I remember right… has it been that long? Why, I remember when… nevermind. It’s on DVD now. I remember liking it at the time, but that’s true for so many things that later turn out to be complete and utter crap.
I shall refrain from naming examples, as this is not The Pit.
Let’s start over shall we?
I got a Netflix membership a few years back, shortly after getting my first DVD player. I figured the two were a perfect match, as I hadn’t planned on buying many DVDs at all over the coming years. I’m what I like to call “frugal” in that way, although there are others who might use less friendly nomenclature. In fact, I made a solemn vow to myself shortly afterward: Self, I said, causing the customers next to me to push their carts into another aisle, I will never purchase a DVD unless it is One Of The Best Movies (or TV shows) Ever Created, Period. Then I bought the first three seasons of Babylon 5, and slipped into a fever-induced haze (I had the flu) for the next week to poorly-rendered space battles and bizarre story-arcs that I still haven’t quite figured out.
Specifically, a movie has to be something that I like enough to watch, over and over and over again, forever. One of the five-desert-island type of movies, a movie that would be on the big drive-in theater in the afterlife every night, a movie that could stand tall and proud on the tiny little particleboard shelves in my apartment that it would call home for the forseeable future.
Netflix, as it turned out, was practically custom-designed for this practice. I could get just about any movie I wanted delivered to my house in a day or two, for FREE (minus the cost of membership). This gave me the rare and beautiful opportunity to judge these movies in the comfort and convenience of my own home. Would it be Worthy, or shall I check the single star box and wipe my mind clean of its filth? Either way, it didn’t really matter… at the most, I was out a couple hours of my time. I’d just send it back and, like magic, the postal service combined with internet communications would conspire to bring a new movie to me mere days later, once again to be scrutinized and laughed at with the clarity of wisened eyes.
Occasionally, I would find a gem.
Something that just looked… I dunno… like I might wanna watch it. So, boom, into the que it goes. Sometimes I’d bump it up to arrive immediately, sometimes I’d let it simmer in the background and surprise me when it showed up. And sometimes it was something I’d seen before. Like Run Lola Run.
These gems of cinematic excellence, having thereby gained my admiration, slowly began to accumulate on my shelves. Over the last couple of years, one by one, a movie would go through this very process… I’d see it somewhere, then forget about it, then see it and think “Naw, that’s ok, but I don’t really think it’s worth buying.” But then, I’m browsing through Netflix and there it is again, and I’m all Hey, sweet, on the list. Then, boom, another copy is sold and my collection grows bigger, while the people who in my anything-but-humble opinion are making Actual Honestly GOOD Freakin’ Movies For a Change make a little bit of money. My capitolistic vote, keep up the good work guys. Make me more Good Movies.
It’s not just Netflix either. Sometimes it could be something I saw at a friend’s house, or maybe it was on TV the other night, or whatever. The only criteria is that I saw it, and it was free (effectively), and it was so good that I went out and bought it.
You might be thinking, he’s gonna tell us he’s got thousands of DVDs now and start listing 'em or something.
Nope.
Actually, I’ve got less than 100. Probably less than 50, if you count sets (like all 30 disks of Babylon 5) as one.
And, of those, only a very few actually came through this process I’ve described. Hmm. Maybe this isn’t that great a thread after all. No, that’s crazy talk, and besides you’ve come this far anyway. Now stop talking to yourself and list your movies.
Have I mentioned Run Lola Run? 'cuz, ya know, I’m gonna go buy that.
I also got Snatch this way. The movie, you freaks. Geez.
Dogma? Rented then bought… but I kinda knew I was gonna want it anyway. I’d seen a friend’s copy of Clerks a few years back. Got that too. And Mallrats.
Chasing Amy? Well… they can’t all be winners. Sorry Kevin, I used that $20 on pizza. Try again. 
Speaking of not all being winners, I rented-then-bought a copy of Tank Girl, with Lori Petty. Sure, there are those who will say it’s not all that, and that it has too few chips, but they do not know the beauty of the Tank Girl. P-p-p-pOW, my heart!
The Matrix. And the Other Matrix. And the Third Matrix, which tried to make the other two Matrixes make sense but only screwed things up worse.
Saw the first one in the theater. It was ok. Good special effects, meh story but if it gets the herd thinking I’m all for it, but not goin’ on my Greats list. The second and third pretty much just confirmed its positioning… and that was strictly rentals. No way am I paying $15 for watered down soda, watered down story, and watered down popcorn. What is that anyway? Eww.
But… The Animatrix. A series of nine little animated ‘shorts’, in different styles, set within The Matrix world. I rented this… and I liked it. I guess I’m just partial to animation.
I bought The Animatrix.
Hmm… a few others, over the years. Not many, as I’ve said. But now I’m a firm believer in this path. There are very few movies in my collection that I wouldn’t be perfectly happy to sit and watch at the drop of a hat. And I’m proud of that.
And I owe it all to the movie rental business model.
So, folks, am I alone? Fellow Dopers… Frugally Decide, or Fritter Dollars? Who’s tried this, and how’s it workin’ out for ya?
Or view this thread once, and let it sink to the depths of obscurity.