Friday, January 29, 2010

Fun things for movie lovers

First, I have no connection to either of the things I'm about to tell you about, I've just become kinda addicted, and thought I'd exorcise my addiction by passing it on to other movie lovers.

Swap a DVD
is a website that lets to get rid of old DVDs, or just whatever DVDs you no longer watch. It's a partner to Paperback Swap and Swap a CD, so you can get rid of all your stuff if you're in a cleaning frenzy. The basic premise is you post a list of the DVDs you don't want. Once someone requests a DVD and you mail it off you have a credit to request any DVD in their list, and someone will mail it to you for free (the cost of a DVD is what you pay to mail one to someone else, so around $2). You can set up a wishlist to keep track of DVDs you want to get once they're entered into the system. I've been getting quite a few lately - I had a few leftover DVDs from college that were no longer of much interest (Girl, Interrupted can only be seen so many times), and I've even gotten a few TV series that I love to rewatch in return. The nice thing is you can also buy credits, but it's the same as the average cost of mailing a DVD, so for about $2 you can get a brand new (to you) DVD in the mail. I've heard it's great if you have kids who love a DVD for a while, and then don't watch it anymore.

The second thing is more of a fantastic time waster for the movie lover. Flick Chart creates your own personalized list of favorite movie by posing competitions between lots and lots of movies. You just pick the one you like better. The nice thing is you can check that you haven't seen the movie and it gets removed from your list. It's not perfect until you've had all the pairings compete, but it did make me think about which movies I actually like (versus the ones I know are good). Here's my top 20 list, also not perfect, but definitely includes my favs. Enjoy and go waste some time thinking about movies.

1. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
2. Toy Story 2
3. A Knight's Tale
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
5. Dead Poets Society
6. Jerry Maguire
7. Wall-E
8. Juno
9. The Dark Knight
10. The Notebook
11. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
12. Saving Private Ryan
13. Stranger Than Fiction
14. To Kill A Mockingbird
15. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
16. Closer
17. Fargo
18. X-Men
19. The Lion King
20. LA Confidential

6 comments:

Andrew K. said...

That top 20 is nothing if not diverse.

Rachel said...

My Top 20 on Flick Chart are:

1. Kill Bill Vol. 2
2. Kill Bill Vol. 1
3. X2: X-Men United
4. Pulp Fiction
5. Children of Men
6. 28 Days Later
7. True Romance
8. Pan's Labyrinth
9. The Contant Gardener
10. Memento
11. Hot Fuzz
12. Harry Potter 5
13. Seven
14. King Kong
15. LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring
16. Grindhouse
17. Harry Potter 4
18. Thank You for Smoking
19. Ocean's Eleven
20. Juno

It's not very reflective of my real Top 20, but I haven't messed with it in awhile. 4, 5, & 6 are almost spot on though.

Buttercup said...

I don't think I need a new time waster, but you know I'll be putting together a movie list.

Jess said...

Andrew - it's definitely not perfect. Lots of favorites missing, but I definitely realized there are lots of animated movies I still enjoy more than the average action flick.

Rachel - great list!

Buttercup - relax and waste some time. It's addicting, be careful, you might neglect your farm.

Fletch said...

Like Rachel, I haven't messed with Flickchart in some time, but yay, I spent many an hour on it in the past.

Here's my Top 20 according to, um, me and Flickchart:

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Fight Club
4. Fletch
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark
6. The Empire Strikes Back
7. Rushmore
8. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
9. The Royal Tenenbaums
10. The Matrix
11.Star Wars
12. The Princess Bride
13. Office Space
14. Amélie
15. True Romance
16. Go
17. Boogie Nights
18. Point Break
19. Being John Malkovich
20. The Shawshank Redemption

Will definitely check out Swap a DVD, though I think Swap a CD might be more up my alley. I have few regrets when it comes to DVD purchases, but many more for CDs.

Castor said...

Flickchart is cool but so time consuming!! Nice Top 20 and very diverse and Encore termed it.