I think NetFlix is running out of valid suggestions:

I guess it serves me right for renting the iffy 1962 film Taras Bulba, mostly for my interest in Franz Waxman's score, but for whatever reason Netflix added some horrible Chinese disc (a pirate?), which is fuzzy AND cropped to 4:3. The page for the film lists it as 2:35 anamorphic widescreen as well. What's really odd is that it appeared on their site at the time the legitimate MGM DVD was released a few weeks ago! I called their customer service and just got the usual crap about carrying different versions of certain films. Morons!

That's a real shame. Taras Bulba is no classic; frankly, it's a textbook example of the term "overbaked." But as you point out, Waxman's score, along with some beautiful widescreen photography, makes it a guilty pleasure of mine. Waxman's cue for the meeting of the Cossacks is exhilerating.

Netflix says DVD-by-mail has got five years left.

My only complaint, and I have been a customer since I got a year pass from my uncle is that they dont ship out multiple discs, or supplements and whatnot. I would love to have the 2nd disc in the mail when I order Criterion DVDs. The essays used to be online, so now that sucks. The great thing I found out is my University has 399 Criterions, and they all have the boxes, extras and what have you, so I have started to use that more than Netflix. The library even gets the DVDs almost as soon as they come out, they have Death of a Cyclist, The Last Emperor and pretty much all of the new releases. No copy of the original Salo, but I can guarantee they get the new release.

Yeah, there's only a couple of movies, where the film itself covers two discs, where they'll ship both out (or at least, they used to). Warren Beatty's Reds was the last one I got where they shipped both discs, but only counted is as one of my rentals.

Yeah it seems they WILL ship Bergmans Scenes from a Marriage complete discs, but Im not going to trust Netflix to do that, so that will be one i purchase or get from the library on campus.

That's five years in which rental by mail will peak, not die altogether ... but given how many DVDs from the studios (not to mention Anchor Bay + now defunct indie labels, etc.) are dropping out of print and starting to disappear from the available Netflix inventory, I feel like I'm already in a race to watch them before they're gone.

And given that Mondo Kim's on St. Mark's, the only video store in NYC with a lot of import DVDs for rent, has a for rent sign in the window and a listing on the broker's website that says "immediate occupancy available," I'm hurrying to watch all of those before they're out of reach too.

If downloadable delivery arrives in a form that sucks for movie fans (no selection; lots o' compression; etc.) we're gonna remember this as one hell of a golden age for home video.

Netflix displays the cover for the remastered Lady Vanishes, so I put it in the queue, only to receive a Laserlight Media version--I assume this is one of those crappy public domain labels? Anyway, damaged print with awful sound, and no English subs.

Maybe Netflix carries the Criterion version, but I'm a little annoyed at the shoddy technical quality of the disc I received (and I'm not typically that attuned to this stuff, so it had to be bad!).

Caveat renter!!

This sucks:

Yes, this is one of those endlessly frustrating things about Netflix. I wish they'd remove (heavily) inferior releases from distribution as newer, better editions are added into the stream. That said, they may not even be aware of the quality of these discs, so I generally e-mail about it in the unfortunate instance that one shows up in my mailbox, in the hopes that a number of complaints might prod them into doing something about it.

An atrocious version of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow came not long ago, looking and sounding like a dub-of-a-dub-of-a-dub of a ruined VHS. Completely unwatchable, and like you, I'm hardly a perfectionist when it comes to the quality of the average transfer.

I agree wholeheartedly ... Netflix has fixed (or at least improved) a lot of things that used to bug me about them, but this is one where there's been no movement. Anything that's been reissued in a superior transfer is something I have to rent from a brick & mortar store or buy. Your only chance of beating this is if the old version has been out of print for a LONG time.

There SEEMS to be a trend beginning from NF. I've seen several titles become available as "instant viewing" titles and then become unavailable as dvd rentals. Perhaps they are just testing the habits of customers to see who does use the instant viewing feature, but I would advise watching carefully and perhaps bumping up some of those older releases in your queue.

I've actually found the quality fairly decent on the streaming feature, and since I can hook up my Macbook to my LCD via HDMI, I'm able to bypass the laptop screen (well, if I'm running in XP, that is....they only allow instant viewing with Windows).

Just FYI, they SEEM to offer instant viewing of the long OOP Image version of "The Gospel According to St. Matthew", but apparently it's some dubbed version. I haven't confirmed this yet.

I may just be unable to find it... but I don't see Mann's Man of the West listed anywhere on the site.

Examples? I'd like to check this out myself....

Netflix did pick up The Furies, thankfully. Cronenberg's version of The Fly has been Very Long Wait for 6 weeks now.

Yes, sorry, I was being lazy on the original post. Here's the one that popped up for me:

Cry of the Banshee / Murders in the Rue Morgue: Double Feature

is now instant viewing only.

I'm not too worried about Cry of the Banshee / Rue Morgue ... that's one of those MGM Midnite Movies that went out of print a while back, before they started doing the "watch instantly." Most of the others have since reverted back to the "Save" designation on Netflix as well ... see also all the Roger Corman movies that weren't re-released in the recent box set, e.g. Tomb of Ligeia. It is interesting that they've added a few of the MGM OOPs as "watch now," though (see also Philippe Mora's The Beast Within), but not all of them.

Has anyone tried this "Instant Viewing" function? Or is this that box device they introduced a couple months back...?

Instant Viewing is a pretty great feature; the picture quality is good and downloading the movie takes only about a minute or so depending on how fast your connection is. So far I've seen La Notte, a couple Herzogs, and Lilya 4-ever with it. I don't know what box you're referring to.

Long out of print? Was there ever an R1 release in the first place? (Has there been any region dvd in the first place?)

The box he's referring to is this.

They have now reversed course.

Nope, Rolling Thunder is still MIA on US DVD.

Apparently there is an interesting grab-bag of movies never on DVD that have turned up as "watch-instantly" titles on Netflix. Not interesting enough, though, to compel me to invest in the technology to jack my PC into my TV set (and would the image quality really be DVD-equivalent? I'm skeptical), or risk being in the middle of a movie when Netflix has a site outage or my internet connection goes down.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but Rolling Thunder - long out of print if I'm not mistaken - is available for instant viewing.

Uh, you can watch them as often as you want, from any point in the film (at least I've been able to, so far) so power outages and other interruptions would not be a problem.

Netflix lists the Edvard Munch "special edition" as available -- however it appears to be one disc, with a listed running time of 110 minutes. Obviously that running time fits neither the original nor the special edition, though it may be the correct running time for one of the special edition's two discs...

Can anyone who has rented this lately elaborate?