Should you watch this movie? (or run away)

[turbo]

My wife and I have a neighbor who seems to buy DVDs at whim, as does his wife. We have borrowed movies from them, only to find that many (most!?) are not worth watching. They have "chick flicks", "sci fi", and other "drive-in" fare in spades. but it is rare that we can borrow a movie from them that we can stand to watch all they way through. Anybody else contending with this? Any recommendations for quality films?

 

[DaveC426913]

My wife and I have a neighbor who seems to buy DVDs at whim, as does his wife. We have borrowed movies from them, only to find that many (most!?) are not worth watching. They have "chick flicks", "sci fi", and other "drive-in" fare in spades. but it is rare that we can borrow a movie from them that we can stand to watch all they way through. Anybody else contending with this? Any recommendations for quality films?

Our local Blockbuster used to have a Employees' Favourites section. We found one employee almost universally liked excellent films that we enjoyed. We made sure we always went to her for recos.

 

[Pengwuino]

I'm going to do what half the people on this board seem to do in GD and derail this thread with a vaguely related gripe/thought that I have.

I've really stopped buying movies unless they're movies that I continually watch when they come on TV. I realized that the epic/awesome movies like Dark Knight and Inglorious Basterds (just naming 2 movies that i recently bought) are really... great... but lack in replay value for some reason. It seems like you can't just have the movie playing in the background which is unlike the movies I've seen like 20 times on tv that just go on in the background like Office Space or Shawshank Redemption or Gladiator. Thus, I changed my purchasing habbits to buying movies such as Gladiator or Shawshank Redemption (acutally I'm meaning to get Shawshank Redemption...) and not buying the epic sit-down-and-pay-attention movies like Dark Knight. It feels like I am paying $25 to watch a movie in the end, 2 times, maybe 3... so something like $8/viewing. That's movie theatre costs! Whereas I think I've already watched No Country For Old Men like 3 times since buying it last week.

Oh right, so what were you saying? Borrowing dvds from neighbors? Never do.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

My wife and I have a neighbor who seems to buy DVDs at whim, as does his wife. We have borrowed movies from them, only to find that many (most!?) are not worth watching. They have "chick flicks", "sci fi", and other "drive-in" fare in spades. but it is rare that we can borrow a movie from them that we can stand to watch all they way through. Anybody else contending with this? Any recommendations for quality films?

Here are twenty pages of great sci-fi for quality sci-fi lovers.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=290242

There are some people whose viewing tastes are so completely opposite of ours that a recommendation means that we wouldn't want to bother. Dissing means that we should probably take a look.

 

[DaveC426913]

... great... but lack in replay value for some reason.

I think I've already watched No Country For Old Men like 3 times since buying it last week.

I simply do not get why people have movie libraries.

If I can watch a particular film anytime I want, I will never want to.

I think this is an "older gen" thing.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I simply do not get why people have movie libraries.

Same here! I never saw the sense in this. Now we can just watch just about anything at free sites like YouTube, Google vids, Hulu, or paysites like Netflix.

 

[Pengwuino]

Same here! I never saw the sense in this. Now we can just watch just about anything at free sites like YouTube, Google vids, Hulu, or paysites like Netflix.

The first 3 don't carry any movies legally/for more then 5 seconds. Netflix can be expensive/inconvenient if you're like me and you just like watching a certain small set of movies for a loooooong time.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The first 3 don't carry any movies legally/for more then 5 seconds. Netflix can be expensive/inconvenient if you're like me and you just like watching a certain small set of movies for a loooooong time.

Not true. There are many thousands of full-length, free, and legal movies and tv programs at google vids, youtube shows, hulu, etc. Places like Hulu are injecting normal commercials, just like regular free TV. And netflix costs just over ten bucks a month for all the dvds we can watch in that time [usually 8-12 per month or more], and unlimited online viewing.

This doesn't even include the many regular tv stations, like PBS, NatGeo, Discovery Science, History Channel, that allow online viewing of everything, or nearly so.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

For example, one of my favorite recent finds.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6032236535078716306&ei=R9J4S_OHOqTyqAOLoZCJBw&q=the+lathe+of+heaven&hl=en#

 

[Pengwuino]

Not true. There are many full-length, free, and legal movies and tv programs at google vids, youtube shows, hulu, etc. And netflix cost just over ten bucks a month for all the dvds we can watch in that time [usually 8-12 per month or more], and unlimited online viewing.

Oh I can't handle anything censored... which is what I'd expect at hulu. I'm talking about feature films... from the movie theatres, big budget nonsense like that. Online viewing isn't for me though because like I said, my favorite way of watching movies is to have them on in the background while I'm doing actual worK . I do like the idea of that device or whatever that streams the movies to your dvd, that'd be cool. I want the movie on my tv, not my computer... HDTV WOOOOOT. If they could deliver blu-ray movies... id chit my pants. Their blu-ray collections pretty lame at the moment but hopefully it'll grow. Unfortunately the movies I want to see over and over are sometimes old and sometimes non-blockbuster heavy budget dealies which I don't think they'll hae blu-rays for for a while... at least on the streaming dealie..

 

[DaveC426913]

Now we can just watch just about anything at free sites like YouTube, Google vids, Hulu, or paysites like Netflix.

Don't get that either. What do you do? Put your laptop on the mantle and watch it from a chair?

 

[turbo]

Well anyway, "The Missing" (Kate Blanchet and Tommy Lee Jones) is a killer if you love 19th C history and have a strong stomach. "Missing" with Spacek and Lemmon is a bit slower but highly recommended. Settle in and mind the flash-backs.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Don't get that either. What do you do? Put your laptop on the mantle and watch it from a chair?

No, we bought a computer with an hdmi port, for the tv. But before that I just used the computer video port to the respective tv video input, and the sound port pumped through an external amp, coming from my laptop. The problem there was that we had no remote volume control. It was a pain to keep messing with the computer volume. Not to mention that I didn't want to keep using my work computer that way.

Got the latest and greatest in graphics etc, so the quality is excellent. No pauses in the video when the picture is changing quickly, and no pixelation.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Oh I can't handle anything censored... which is what I'd expect at hulu.

Hulu has commercials, but I haven't noticed any censoring. I consider commercials to be a great thing. That is what made television free.

I'm talking about feature films... from the movie theatres, big budget nonsense like that. Online viewing isn't for me though because like I said, my favorite way of watching movies is to have them on in the background while I'm doing actual worK

Well, when you start catching up with the 21st century...

You must be one of them dinosaur pengwuins.

I do like the idea of that device or whatever that streams the movies to your dvd, that'd be cool. I want the movie on my tv, not my computer... HDTV WOOOOOT. If they could deliver blu-ray movies... id chit my pants

Some new shows are available on the internet in true HD.

 

[zomgwtf]

I just download (...legally...of course.) my movies and either watch them on my TV or just lay in my bed and watch them on my laptop. To watch them on my TV I just have a media server set up and send them to my PS3 and watch them from my PS3, or else my laptop is a media centre one anyways 19" screen... lay comfortably in my bed and just watch it that way not bad at all.

Movies I've recently watched (within probably the last year) that I'd highly suggest areee:
The Road
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Seven Pounds
Pandorum (this one wasn't THAT greaat)
The Cove (it's a documentary)
Poolhall Junkies (I actually watched this lonnnng ago... it's still worth watching to this day lol)
Spread
Sherlock Holmes
Moon (Highly recommend this movie actually...)
I Love you man
Fight Club
9 (it's an animated movie but it's pretty good)
Fifty Dead Men Walking
Save The Green Planet (Korean movie... really weird but I enjoyed it)
Shake Hands With the Devil
GattacaThere was one more movie that I would HIGHLY recommend to everyone, about a man who flees North Korea to China in order to find medicine for his wife back home... I can't remember the name though

 

[sas3]

I would highly recommend “Welcome to Woop Woop”

 

[turbo]

Borrowing dvds from neighbors? Never do.

We live about 45 minutes round-trip from the video store, and NetFlix "throttles" your account when you return movies very promptly, so that you quickly hit a plateau. Just count the days between return post and new movies and count the number of movies you get in a week, and you'll see.

Since the neighbors have a huge library of DVDs, we borrow theirs. He works shift-work on a paper machine, she works shift-work caring for children with behavioral problems, and their days off rarely coincide, so they buy DVDs so that they can watch them any time they want. Their basement is like a video store. Unfortunately, most of the DVDs in any given video store are duds. We can't get cable out here in the boonies and they don't have decent line-of-sight for satellite, so they spend their entertainment budget on DVDs.

Still, we have borrowed some movies that were pretty entertaining. Drop Zone was OK, as was Hancock, Basic, and The Fan. Luckily, it doesn't cost us anything to borrow movies, except our time. If a movie doesn't look appealing in the first 20 minutes or so, we just pop it back into its clamshell box and put it back in the "return" stack.

 

[Monique]

I saw Old Boys yesterday, a Korean movie from 2003, definitely recommendable. Aren't there legit websites where you can download movies? The only thing you need to do then is hook up a simple computer to your television.

 

[DaveC426913]

... NetFlix "throttles" your account when you return movies very promptly...

I have some friends who unsubbed from NetFlix because it seemed the films they wanted were never available or had a waiting time of weeks.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I have some friends who unsubbed from NetFlix because it seemed the films they wanted were never available or had a waiting time of weeks.

Same here but that was some time ago. For a number of months we were trading DVDs as fast as the mail would allow with no problems less a couple of exceptions. I tend to attribute the so-called throttling to insufficient inventory for their quickly growing demand.

Netflix is by far superior to any video store options. That's a no-brainer when you compare prices.

 

[MotoH]

And the ability to stream them on your computer is awesome. Just hook the laptop up to the TV and bam insta movie!

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

The county library is nearby and has an excellent collection. Also the county community college has one too. One library card suffices for both libraries and they're free. Once when I went to borrow a film, I slipped on a banana peel.

 

[MotoH]

Our library has a VHS set on Karate. I want to rent them to see how corny they are. Of course where would I find a VHS player?

 

[joelupchurch]

Same here but that was some time ago. For a number of months we were trading DVDs as fast as the mail would allow with no problems less a couple of exceptions. I tend to attribute the so-called throttling to insufficient inventory for their quickly growing demand.

Netflix is by far superior to any video store options. That's a no-brainer when you compare prices.

I don't actually have a video store option. The Hollywood Video and Blockbuster closest to my house have shutdown. The only option close to my house is Redbox. I notice that the 28 day delay on Warner Bros movies has kicked in. "The Time Traveler's Wife" won't be available until March 9th on Netflix.

I do have a Roku box, so I can stream movies without hooking up a computer.

 

[DaveC426913]

The county library is nearby and has an excellent collection. Also the county community college has one too. One library card suffices for both libraries and they're free.

How is this funny? Jimmy, sometimes the subtlety of your humour goes right over my head.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

How is this funny? Jimmy, sometimes the subtlety of your humour goes right over my head.

I edited it.

 

[DaveC426913]

I edited it.

You kill me. You kill me.

 

[turbo]

You kill me. You kill me.

Careful - he's from Joisey. You don't want him to get all literal on you.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Careful - he's from Joisey. You don't want him to get all literal on you.

Yeah, I think out that way the proper phrase would be "you slay me".

 

[Brian_C]

I have a Samsung Blu-Ray player that streams Netflix movies. It works very well.