My Movie Lovers Dilemma

The Demise of the Iconic Red Netflix Envelope

I’m taking a quick break from movie reviews to mourn the demise of the little red mailing envelope.  After 25 years, Netflix is closing out their DVD service in late September this year.

That is some serious bad news here on the Phlipside.

As I close in on 700 reviews here, losing my long time source for movies is a pain.  Yes, I know that watching video on physical media is considered quaint by many folks.  My objection is not Luddite in any sense.  I watch lots of things on streaming media.  I cut the cable cord almost two decades ago and left satellite behind about three years ago.  This is not a grumpy old man on the internet wheezing about the good old days technologically.

This is about choice.

I enjoy new movies.  Last week’s review is the perfect example.  But I know that there are over a century of great, good, average, poor, and awful movies out there too.  My bet is that thousands of those titles that have been available on disc will NOT find their way to Netflix’s servers.  Choice will be limited by what the algorithm or business plan says “most people” want to watch.  And “most people” aren’t watching movies that are more than a decade old.

That’s not a criticism, that’s just sad.

What I do here is something slightly different from many, perhaps even most, movie review blogs.  While I watch and review newer movies, they are not the heart of this enterprise.  I want to help people explore the century plus of movies from all around the world.  I’d love to do more than a movie a week, if only because the universe I’m exploring is so enormous, but at the moment, that’s my sweet spot.

And the Netflix change doesn’t help.

My goal is always to be forward facing in what I’m doing in life (even as my movie reviews face the past, lol!).  So what to do next?  Well, there are a fair bit of classic movies to explore in the streaming world.  It looks like more than there is because aggregating services all grab the same titles from the streaming services.  Libraries (yes, going real old school for some people.  Modern libraries are amazing centers for all kinds of technology) offer extensive collections to explore.  It may be time to dive back into my collection.  My baseball post exposed that I’d never reviewed 7 of the 9 titles included!

So, I’m not giving up.  I’ll still try to find and share great movies that you may or may not have ever seen.  My eyes will be on the lookout for those great “little movies” I love so much.  And even the awful movies will get their time in the spotlight.  This may even be a chance to branch out and do some themed movie posts (like the baseball one).

At the moment, Netflix hasn’t announced what will happen with the DVD business (which brought in almost 150 million dollars last year!  Not enough somehow).  There is at least one business interested in kicking the tires, according to media reports.  So who knows?

But I will miss the thrill of seeing one of those now iconic red envelopes in the mailbox.  The thrill of ripping it open to read the title and remember which one this is.  It’s almost like losing a friend.

Peace.