Thanks for the free crap

Blockbuster has been competing with Netflix for quite some time over online movie rentals. I, for one, have been very pleased with this because I have been reaping the results.

• First Blockbuster debuts cheaper than Netflix -- fine, sign me up.
• Then Blockbuster gave away free used movies -- sitting on my shelf.
• Next Blockbuster gives away coupons for one free instore rental a week in addition to the movies by mail -- a good way to wait for the next movie to arrive.
• Now in Blockbuster's latest marketing ploy, any online DVD can be traded for any instore movie, in addition to the free instore rental movie -- oh holy god, that's a lot of movies.

Which means I can now watch double the crap. Because, let's face it, if it is independent or comes in subtitles, I've probably seen it.

For proof, let's look at my queue.

Au Revoir Les Enfants, Gaspard Manesse plays Julien, an 11-year-old Catholic boarding-school resident during the Nazi occupation of France. He is witness to the courage of his instructors, who defy the German's anti-Semitic policies and quietly enroll Jewish children into the school under assumed names. Manesse befriends Jean (Raphael Fejto), one of these "instant Catholics." The refugee children are betrayed by a hostile ex-employee of the school, forcing Julien once more to be a bystander to history as Jean and the teachers are arrested. For this return to the French film industry after several years in the US, Louis Malle purged himself of his own bitter memories of life under the thumbs of the Nazis.






Mockingbird Don't Sing, Based on the actual events of one of the most horrific cases of child abuse ever to be documented, this haunting drama tells the tale of a young girl so severely affected by her traumatic experiences that she was unable to integrate into society after being rescued from her tormenting parents. When thirteen-year-old Katie Standon (Tarra Steele) was discovered in the early days of November 1970, the nation was shocked to learn that she had been isolated by her parents for fourteen years; spending her days in a closet wearing diapers and unable to utter a word. Assigned to social worker Sandra (Melissa Errico), Katie attempts to reintegrate herself into society, though her progress is tragically hindered by abusive Dr. Judy Bingham (Sean Young).





Elephant, Director Gus Van Sant returned to the low-key style of his early independent efforts with this semi-improvised exploration of how violence makes its way into a typical American high school. Eric (Eric Deulen) and Alex (Alex Frost) are two close friends who are students in a well-to-do suburb of Portland, OR. Eric and Alex are at once ordinary and misfits; while they seem to be confined to the edges of the clique-oriented social strata of high school, little about their behavior draws attention to itself. Or at least not during a typical school day; on their own time, the two boys are fascinated by Nazi iconography, enjoy violent video games, tentatively explore homoerotic desires, and coolly begin to make plans for an armed ambush of the school, drawing up working diagrams of the lunch room during study hall and buying rifles over the Internet. Drawing an expected degree of controversy, Elephant had its world premiere when it was screened in competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, where it won both Best Director for Van Sant and the Golden Palm award.



I'm probably on some government list for Nazi sympathizers and child molesters. Awesome.