My time machine is broken and my crystal ball is in the shop

Netflix sent me an email tonight.

Dear Basil,

We are always making improvements to ensure you receive your movies quickly. As part of this process, we ask our members about how we are doing from time to time. Please tell us when you received Mystery Science Theater 3000: Hercules Unchained, which was shipped to you on Wednesday, Aug 25, 2010 by clicking on the appropriate link below.

• I received the movie Thursday, Aug 26, 2010
• I received the movie Friday, Aug 27, 2010
• I received the movie after Friday, Aug 27, 2010

Thanks for your help!

-Your friends at Netflix

Now, I really like my Netflix account. The streaming feature is awesome, feeding movies directly to my TiVo. And, of course, the DVDs in the mail is good, too. They mail a DVD one day, I get it the next. When I mail it back, they get it next day, and send me a movie later that day, with it arriving the following day.

Their system works. And I like it. And, I appreciate that they ask about how their service is.

You did notice that today is Thursday, August 26, didn't you?

I wonder what they'd do if I said it arrived after Friday? Would they think that my crystal ball is working? Or that my time machine is fully operational?

Of course, if it was, I wouldn't be using it to answer future questions about Netflix. But, the time machine isn't working. The perpetual motion machine that powers it is on the fritz. I need to get that thing fixed.

The "Best" Movies (updated)

I've decided to watch all the "best" movies. If you want to know why, read this.

But, after posting about it, I've had questions for the lists. So, here they are:

• AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies (2007 list)
• AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies (original 1998 list)
• AFI's 10 Top 10
• Academy Award® Best Picture winners

Some films are on just one list. Some are on all four. Most fall somewhere in between.

Here are the combined lists:

• Alphabetical listing
• Ranked listing
• Listed movies I have seen
• Listed movies I have not seen

I hope you find the lists useful.

UPDATED: I have now seen them all.

The "best" movies

I like movies. Not all movies. But some. Or a lot. I guess it depends on how much "a lot" is.

I've always enjoyed going to the movies. I never wanted to be in the movies. And won't. But watching a good movie is ... better than good. It's great.

When I was just out of high school, I was a night DJ at the radio station in my home town. Got off work at midnight, then would go home and watch "The All Knight Movie" that the station in Savannah would show. Saw lots of classic movies, and gained an appreciation of black and white films.

Later, when I worked in Jacksonville (20-25 years ago), I would use my time off to go to the movies.

At Orange Park, just south of Jacksonville, there were three theatres all right together. You could see them all from a single spot while driving. That place had the most movies showing at a close proximity than any place in the Jacksonville area.

So, come weekend, or if I got an early night, I'd head to Orange Park and have a great chance of finding a movie playing that I'd like.

Haven't gone to the movies a lot over the past several years. Not like I'd like to, anyway. And that's one of the reasons I've enjoyed the TiVo/Netflix streaming thing they do.

I enjoy TCM's presentations with Robert Osborne or Ben Mankiewicz, with all the trivia and anecdotes about the films they show. Good stuff.

A while back, the American Film Institute came out with a "100 years, 100 movies" listing of the "best" movies of the first 100 years of films. I'd seen many of them, but many I hadn't.

They later came out with an updated listing. Then, they added a listing they called "10 Top 10" -- their picks for the top 10 movies in 10 categories (Animation, Romantic comedy, Westerns, Sports, Mystery, Fantasy, Science fiction, Gangster, Courtroom dramas, Epics).

Of course, the Academy Awards have their own picks for the best pictures each year.

That's 13 lists (Top 100, Top 100 updated, 10 Top 10, Best Pictures winners). I decided to watch them all.

So, I compiled of listing of all the movies that made those lists. With many films on more than one list, that totaled 221 films.

Over the years, I've seen many of them anyway. But, now I've decided to make an effort to watch them all. And, as of now, I've seen 135. That leaves 86 more to go.

Not all of the movies are easy to find. "Wings," for instance, will be hard to find. As will "Intolerance" and "The Birth of a Nation," unless I want to shell out some bucks.

Some of the movies on the big list, I saw when they came out, and hated. "Reds" and "Apocalypse Now," for instance. Others, I finally watched because they were on the list, and hated. "A Clockwork Orange" is one.

Others, though, I've really enjoyed. Either when they came out, or watching them later. "Casablanca" is one I never saw until I was in Kuwait. I love that film. "The General" is another film from before my time, but I think it's one of the best ever made.

Not sure how long it'll take me to watch the remaining 86 films on the list. But I'm going to give it an honest try.

If you're interested, here are the films on the list that I've seen:

• 12 Angry Men
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• A Clockwork Orange
• A Few Good Men
• A Man for All Seasons
• A Night at the Opera
• A Place in the Sun
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• Aladdin
  
• Alien
• All About Eve
• All Quiet on the Western Front
• All the President's Men
• American Beauty
• American Graffiti
• An American in Paris
• Anatomy of a Murder
• Annie Hall
• Apocalypse Now
• Back to the Future
• Bambi
• Beauty and the Beast
• Ben-Hur
• Big
• Blade Runner
• Blue Velvet
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Braveheart
• Bringing Up Baby
• Bull Durham
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Caddyshack
• Casablanca
• Cat Ballou
• Chariots of Fire
• Cinderella
• Citizen Kane
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Dial M for Murder
• Double Indemnity
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• Driving Miss Daisy
• Duck Soup
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• Easy Rider
• Finding Nemo
• Forrest Gump
• Frankenstein
• Gigi
• Gone with the Wind
• Goodfellas
• Groundhog Day
• Harvey
• High Noon
• In Cold Blood
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• It Happened One Night
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Jaws
• King Kong
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Little Caesar
• Marty
• MASH
• Miracle on 34th Street
• Moonstruck
• My Fair Lady
• National Velvet
• Network
• North by Northwest
• Oliver!
• On the Waterfront
• Patton
• Pinocchio
• Psycho
• Pulp Fiction
• Raging Bull
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Rain Man
• Rear Window
• Rebecca
• Red River
• Reds
• Rocky
• Roman Holiday
• Shrek
• Singin' in the Rain
• Sleepless in Seattle
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• Some Like It Hot
• Stagecoach
• Star Wars
• Sunset Boulevard
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• The African Queen
• The Apartment
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
• The Day the Earth Stood Still
• The French Connection
• The General
• The Godfather
• The Godfather Part II
• The Graduate
• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Great Ziegfeld
• The Hustler
• The Jazz Singer
• The Last Picture Show
• The Lion King
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Maltese Falcon
• The Manchurian Candidate
• The Public Enemy
• The Searchers
• The Shawshank Redemption
• The Silence of the Lambs
• The Sixth Sense
• The Sound of Music
• The Sting
• The Ten Commandments
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• The Usual Suspects
• The Verdict
• The Wizard of Oz
• Titanic
• Tootsie
• Toy Story
• Unforgiven
• Vertigo
• West Side Story
• White Heat
• Witness for the Prosecution
• Yankee Doodle Dandy
• You Can't Take It with You

Here are the ones on the "to-do" list:

• A Beautiful Mind
• A Cry in the Dark
• Adam's Rib
• All the King's Men
• Amadeus
• Around the World in 80 Days
• Breaking Away
• Cabaret
• Cavalcade
• Chicago
• Chinatown
• Cimarron
• City Lights
• Crash
• Dances with Wolves
• Do the Right Thing
• Doctor Zhivago
• Fantasia
• Fargo
• Field of Dreams
• From Here to Eternity
• Gandhi
• Gentleman's Agreement
• Giant
• Gladiator
• Going My Way
• Grand Hotel
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
• Hamlet
• Harold and Maude
• Hoosiers
• How Green Was My Valley
• In the Heat of the Night
• Intolerance
• Jerry Maguire
• Judgment at Nuremberg
• Laura
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller
• Midnight Cowboy
• Million Dollar Baby
• Modern Times
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• Mrs. Miniver
• Mutiny on the Bounty
• Nashville
• No Country for Old Men
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Ordinary People
• Out of Africa
• Platoon
• Rebel Without a Cause
• Saving Private Ryan
• Scarface
• Schindler's List
• Shakespeare in Love
• Shane
• Sophie's Choice
• Spartacus
• Sullivan's Travels
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
• Swing Time
• Taxi Driver
• Terms of Endearment
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• The Birth of a Nation
• The Broadway Melody
• The Deer Hunter
• The Departed
• The English Patient
• The Gold Rush
• The Greatest Show on Earth
• The Last Emperor
• The Life of Emile Zola
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• The Lost Weekend
• The Philadelphia Story
• The Pride of the Yankees
• The Thief of Bagdad
• The Third Man
• The Wild Bunch
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Tom Jones
• When Harry Met Sally...
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Wings
• Wuthering Heights

Update: Updated, corrected listings are here.

UPDATED: I have now seen them all.

Amazon on TiVo

I've really enjoyed my TiVo. Got the first one back in April, 2006. It was a reconditioned Series 2 machine, with one tuner and a small hard drive. It cost about $150 and included a year of TiVo service. It really was a good deal.

However, TiVo has upgraded, and as I mentioned recently, so have I.

We now have a TiVo HD, which is essentially a Series 3, though they aren't calling it that now. And, while the TiVo HD supports Netflix streaming (as do other systems, including the XBox 360), all TiVo boxes ... including the Series 2 (the cheaper ones) ... support Amazon downloads, called "Video On Demand."

Now, while the Netflix process is streaming ... that is, it doesn't have to fully download before you start watching it, just like, say, YouTube ... Amazon.com videos are downloads.

Netflix streaming is including with any of their unlimited packages. We have one of the low-end packages, and essentially use just the streaming.

Amazon.com, though, is a pay as you go process. I rented a Batman movie, and had 30 days to watch it. Once I hit "play," I had 24 hours to watch it as many times as I wanted. That's pretty standard, for instance. iTunes or Apple TV has the same structure.

I bought A Christmas Story, back around Christmas. It downloaded, and we watched it a few times.

The thing I like about Amazon.com's setup is that they keep the videos available. I don't have to keep it on the TiVo box.

I deleted A Christmas Story, and after removing it from the "Deleted Items" ... essentially, fully and completely removing it from the TiVo ... it was still available in my Amazon.com "Video Library." I can download it again, watch it, delete it, then download it again, watch it, delete it, then download it again ...

Bottom line is, unlike iTunes or Apple TV, Amazon.com knows if I have it on my TiVo. And, if I don't, it lets me put it there. It only takes up space on my TiVo if I want it too.

They also have a wide selection of older TV shows.

Remember the cheesy Irwin Allen show, The Time Tunnel? As a kid, I loved that show. So, I bought it ... all 30 episodes ... from Amazon.com. They are in the library, and if I ever want to watch them, I can download them again, and don't have to pay for them again.

Of course, they're protected files, and you can't burn them to DVD. If you want to do that, it's just as cheap to buy the DVD instead of download.

I've also purchased 4 "seasons" (74 cartoons) of Looney Tunes. Actually, I bought 6 "seasons" (110 cartoons), but 2 of those "seasons" (36 cartoons) would not download. I've been dealing with Amazon.com for a month trying to get that resolved, and they finally have decided to issue me a credit and remove the videos from my library. I'm okay with that. They've already removed the videos and issued the credit.

Still, other than that one hiccup, I've been very happy with the Amazon.com Video On Demand, and will rent or buy going forward.

Now that I've got a TiVo HD, I'm waiting for the number of HD movies available through Video On Demand to increase.

When they do that, I'll become a full-time couch potato.

Netflix on TiVo

We've been TiVotees for a while. Well, okay, I have. The Wife is not quite as big of a devotee of TiVo as am I. Still, we've enjoyed it.

We bought a reconditioned TiVo Series 2 (from TiVo, not off eBay or anything) nearly 3 years ago. Recently, though, we upgraded. Seriously.

Bought a TiVo HD. It has lots of features that you don't find on the old Series 2. Dual tuner, for one thing. Sure, you can get a new Series 2 with dual tuners, but our old reconditioned TiVo box had but one tuner.

Oh, and the quality of the new TiVo HD is better than the old one. We don't have digital cable or HD channels, but the newer TiVo sill has a better picture.

The feature that I've enjoyed the most, though, is the live streaming from Netflix.

You can't do it on a Series 2, but the Series 3 or HD models allow you to watch 12,000 selected Netflix videos on your TiVo.

To use it, you have to have an unlimited Netflix account. And you have to go to the Netflix Website to add videos to the "Instant Queue." Oh, and only a portion of the Netflix catalog is available for watching via TiVo. Still, it's great being able to watch a movie without having to wait for it to show up on TCM or in the mail from Netflix.

I've watched some Star Trek episodes, Vantage Point, Roger Rabbit, Walking with Dinosaurs, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series), The Bone Collector, Duck Soup ... well, a lot more than I should have.

And I'm sure I'll be watching a lot more.