Online DVD Rentals Service

My girlfriend and I used to rent movies at the Movie Gallery here in Knoxville. I liked them because they had lots of obscure films and because they didn’t try to play “moral police” like most of the major players. She liked them for these reasons and because she worked there for several years. A couple of weeks ago we went to rent some movies, and they had closed for good! All the movies had already been moved out of the place! We asked around, but no one seems to know what happened. Well, recently we had an itch for a movie. We were going to go to Blockbuster except that one rental is two-thirds the cost of a month of their rental plan. We decided to try a rental service. I wanted to look for alternatives before going with the Blockbuster plan. Of course, there’s Netflix, but they have some troubling policies, too (read: rumored political censorship and the dreaded throttling). I found a great site called GreenCine. They focus on obscure, foreign, or out-of print films and documentaries. That’s just what I’m into–everything most people hate! The best part of the service so far is the web site which is a very active community. Users and staff write reviews and group movies into lists. The staff has written primers on some of the more obscure genres of film. There is also a recommendation engine based on your rental queue and ratings you give movies you have seen. The only drawback is that I’m on the opposite side of the country. Turnaround is not too bad so far, though.

The jury is still out, but I’m very impressed so far.