Movies by Mail

A while back, we subscribed to movies by mail. For $15 a month (+ tax) you can have two movies checked out. Netflix made this popular, but we use Blockbuster's service, which also includes 2 coupons each month for free movies from a bricks-and-mortar Blockbuster store. Mail-services are more convenient than stopping by the store, and the selection is huge. Before we signed up, we would often go to the Blockbuster store and not know what to bring back if we had already seen the "latest decent movie". Now, we have a large list of movies in our "queue" and Blockbuster keeps sending us stuff from that queue.

For this year, I set myself a goal of seeing at least 40 movies -- "adding values to life". I've already crossed that number of DVDs. If I remove the TV shows (like 4 seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm) and the ones that were ordered primarily for our son (like Wallace and Gromit), we've still gone through over 30 movies that we really chose to see. Just for the heck of it, here's the list. Of these, my favorite -- by far -- was "Million Dollar Baby". Other than the ones that are struck out, they're all worth watching.

12 Monkeys (1995)
Absence of Malice (1981)
Accused (1988)
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Big Clock (1948)
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Cinderella Man (2005)
Firewall (2006)
Green Mile (1999)
High Crimes (2002)
High and Low (1962)
Hoosiers (1986)
King Kong [WS] (2005)
Let's Do It Again (1975)
Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)
Masala (1992)
Maverick (1994)
Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Nell (1994)
P.D. James: A Taste for Death (1989)
Piece of the Action (1977)
Red Beard (1965)
Rehearsal for Murder (1982)
Seven Samurai (1954)
Shakespeare: Macbeth (1978)
Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (1950)
Shakespeare: Othello (1990)
Third Man (1949)
Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
Way We Live Now (2001)
Yojimbo (1961)