Watching Movies

In honor of the Oscars today, a movie post. While most of you are chasing kids or serving people or things productive like that, we are not. Were enjoying Netflix, watching movies. We first subscribed about a year and a half ago and watch about 4-5 movies a week, and its become a part of our life.

We subscribe to three movies for a little under 20$ a month. We've learned some tips for making the most of Netflix:

*At least here in Raleigh, if you don't mail your movie by Thursday, you wont get another movie on Saturday. If you mail the movie on Friday or Saturday, the replacement movie comes Monday. Normally it's a two day turnaround from mailing a movie to getting a replacement.
*Check Rotten Tomatoes or Yahoo Movies to see if something good came out that week. Add it to you netflix list, even though its not on DVD yet, or possible not in theaters.
*Move movies coming soon to the top of your list when they have their set release date, so you can get them first.
*If you mail in a movie and it arrives at the netflix warehouse the day before a new release is released, Netflix will mail you that movie. Otherwise there can be weeks of waiting. This is bad when you really want to see something. Sometimes its not. For example, we waited 6 weeks for Alvin and the Chipmunks.
*If you have friends or family on Netflix, they have a social networking feature so you can see what movies they are watching and what movies they are awaiting. This is a great way to get ideas. If you are hiding something or have really embarrassing taste, it is probably not good to share lists. You can send notes and recommend movies you feel are up peoples alley. If any blog readers would like to do this, send us an e-mail and we can link up.
*Rate the movies. That way their is a feature where you can be given ideas or what you might like.

We didn't see a lot of the Oscar nominee movies this year, but have seen a lot of great DVD's. Here are all the movies and TV shows and we (Ryan mostly) have given the highest rating that we saw on Netflix, and recommend. Most are TV series, dramas or documentaries, but there are a few kids movies.
30 Rock: Season 1
The American President
Breach
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Double Indemnity
The Errand of Angels
Flash of Genius
Freaks & Geeks: The Complete Series
FDR: American Experience
The Gospel
John Adams
The King of Kong
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
Lars and the Real Girl
Miss Potter
The Namesake
The Office: Season 1
Shattered Glass
Stardust
Sunset Boulevard
Treasures of the Twilight Zone
Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys
Any great movies that we may have missed or that you recommend? Feel free to leave ideas in comments.

The End of Summer/Summer Movies

Summer is slowly heading towards its end. I have mixed feelings about it ending. We have lived in three places this summer: Bainbridge, GA, Fredricksburg, VA, and Raleigh NC. The past eight weeks we have been living apart and meeting up when we can. It will be nice to live in the same place again.

Come August the summer drags a little. Raleigh has been over a hundred degrees many of the days and when you add the humidity it gets pretty intense. You have to exercise in the gym, and you get big power bills for air conditioning in your apartment. Its hard living apart from Cheyn.

I will miss some things about this summer. I enjoy the long days with lots of light after work. I like summer concert series and nights out, even though we only ended up going to one such event (Eddie Money on Fayetteville street).

We saw a lot of movies this summer, more than average for both of us: Shrek,
Pirates of the Caribbean,Sicko,Transformers,The Simpsons,The Bourne Ultimatum,
Cheyn also saw the latest Harry Potter movie with her Mom.

My top two recommendations are:


The Bourne Ultimatum:
I love all three of the series. I enjoy how the movies are filmed on location, so you feel like you are really able to see the surroundings in Europe, Russia, and India. The filming is gritty and more realistic and now seems to act as a standard to the current action genre.(James Bonds recent film makeover seemed to be influenced by the first two Bourne films). I also enjoy the picks of great character actors to play government officials in all of the movies. You would think by the third installment of the film, people would have figured out you just can't kill Jason Bourne.


Sicko:
Michael Moore is pretty polarizing, but his films sure are entertaining. I felt he reaches too far trying to laud Cuba, and tries to sell a socialized government system (France), which doesn't set well with a lot of Americans (especially those in the middle or on the the right politically). I for one was quite jealous on the vacation time and other social and medical support in France. You leave the film a bit empowered thinking something can be done to make health care a little better for all of us, especially for those stuck in the middle. With Romney proposing his health care initiative from Mass. for the nation and Clinton and her past attempt at improving the health care system, hopefully something could happen soon.

What are your favorite movies of the summer? Post in the comments. I would love to see if we missed anything entertaining.