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Judging from anything web-based that Verizon's ever done, this should be a spectacular failure. Fuck, I still get confused when I log in to pay my FiOS bill.

the Holy Modal Rounders documentary Bound To Lose just popped up out of my saved queue.

Back from the dead: Wandering Ginza Butterfly 1 & 2 and Madame O (which is, incidentally, an English dub; I keep forgetting that, putting it in my queue, and then remembering why it didn't make it onto my master list).

Most of these are coming back in as a "Short Wait" although some are "Long" or "Very Long." Is anyone actually receiving them? Used to be with Netflix a Short Wait would actually ship without too much delay when it hit the top of the queue (making it somewhat difficult to game the system and get an extra disc), but these days all bets are off.

I received Tabu after it was upgraded from the Saved section. Shanghai Gesture is showing as "now."

A Kid For Two Farthings is back.

Still more Short-Waited zombies: Thunder Birds; Zulawski's The Devil; The Sweet Pussycats; The Virgin of Nuremberg; The Ladies Man; S.O.S. Iceberg; most or all of the Cinema Libre Jean-Jacques Beineix Collection and the Anchor Bay Wim Wenders Collection.

Some of the discs that popped back in a couple of weeks ago with Short or Long Waits are now listed as available, which is a good sign.

This recent influx (reflux?) of previously unavailable/OOP/withdrawn titles is nice... unfortunately I've received several that arrived broken (some in several pieces). Odd.

MyNameCriterionForum wrote:This recent influx (reflux?) of previously unavailable/OOP/withdrawn titles is nice... unfortunately I've received several that arrived broken (some in several pieces). Odd.

Sigh. Depressing, but not surprising; just more evidence that this is basically a closing-out sale. Reflux indeed!

Couple of people mentioned a few pages back that they were getting a lot of scratchier discs than they used to, and you can add me to that list. Nothing totally unplayable yet (I'm sure that just jinxed it), but it's clear they've reduced or eliminated much of their inspection & cleaning routine.

It's frustrating and perplexing, as I went almost half-a decade with no disc problems... suddenly when I request the recently added titles, several of them arrive in pieces? Makes me (more) paranoid! Careless employees? Jealous collectors reducing the pool of OOP discs? My mailman hates me?

My theory is that whenever things get stressful (which has been happening a lot lately), Reed takes the corporate jet to one of the shipping centers, pulls a nail out of his pocket, and spends a couple of hours scratching DVDs with it. Puts a smile right back on his face, every time.

The last two weeks, twice they have sent me an "additional" DVD from my queue just for the hell of it. So though I have a 2-DVD out at a time plan, I have three DVDs in my "at home" section at a time. This happened to anyone else?

No, but Blockbuster has done that often enough that I always make sure whatever's in the third slot is something I'm ready for now.

Netflix, on the other hand, has yet to reward me with a bonus disc this week, even though I pumped a few Short-Waited "reflux" discs up to the top of the queue, so I should in theory be eligible.

Pardners/Hollywood or Bust and The Patsy are back today. Most of the very OOP Paramount Martin & Lewis set and the solo Jerry set are still MIA, but it would be wonderful if they'd throw them all back into circulation.

I'm also seeing Crime Story: Season 2 and The Jerry Lewis Collection still in my Saved queue but marked as "Short Wait" rather than the customary "(Availability) Unknown," so I don't know what that means.

I did get a copy of the recently available A Safe Place today and it is from the Criterion Collection. I presume the copy of Drive, He Said that is shipping today will also be a CC release. Since both of these are only available in the BBS box set, I am wondering if anyone has recently rented any of the other DVDs in the set and found them to be the CC disc rather than the old R1s. I'm especially curious about Head.

A Safe Place and Drive, He Said would only have Criterion discs available, since there were no earlier editions. Not sure about the other films from the BBS set; could go either way but I'm guessing you'll get the CC.

The main issue with the BBS set is that Netflix only has the DVDs, whereas Blockbuster will give you the Blu-rays.

I guess my point is that in order for Netflix to get their hands on A Safe Place and Drive, He Said, they would have had to purchase the box sets that contain all of the other films. So what are they doing with those films?

Probably renting them, but there's no guarantee they took the old versions out of circulation. My guess is they did, but years ago you could request, say, Jules and Jim and get either the old Fox Lorber or the new Criterion.

Once, just once I wish one of Netflix's behind-the-scenes people would come out and spill the beans on how exactly they come up with their interesting capsule summaries. This is Netflix's capsule review of Film Socialism:

Netflix Drone wrote:Listen in on the musings of a war criminal, an American singer and other compelling characters as they travel aboard a Mediterranean cruise ship. Jean-Luc Godard introduces technical errors into the film as a commentary on the fragility of video.

Needless to say, ouch.

That's as good a summary as I've ever heard.

The first sentence is ok. But is the film commenting on the "fragility of video?" Not even close.

The OOP American Slapstick is once again available on Netflix, as is Dante's Matinee and Sembene's Camp de Thiaroye.

The Mysterians, Strapless, Doom Asylum, Amos Poe's The Foreigner, Barbet Schroeder's More, The Freakmaker, and The Most Beautiful Wife are all back. They also have 8 out of the 9 Harold Lloyd Collection discs available; these weren't in my Saved queue, but my memory is that a lot more than that were missing at one point. Edit: And Britannia Hospital is back; that was gone for ages.

Bizarrely, Crime Story Season 2 is available now, but it was listed as such in the Saved section -- I had to remove it and then add it again to get it up into the queue.

Numero Trois wrote:The first sentence is ok. But is the film commenting on the "fragility of video?" Not even close.

I don't think it's too far a stretch to say that Godard is teasing the medium he's shooting in considering his disparaging remarks from the past.

If this isn't proof a celebrity is more profitable dead than alive, I don't know what is.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:If this isn't proof a celebrity is more profitable dead than alive, I don't know what is.

If only it were true...