When I was with Netflix, three to four days was the best they could manage, although I am admittedly in one of the more rural, unappealing areas of the US. Essentially, I would always try to send out all three discs on a Monday in order to receive the new batch Thursday or Friday, watch them over the weekend and get them back in the mail at the beginning of the week. God forbid there was a holiday during the week, though...

More recently, I was with Blockbuster's service and the turnaround was slightly quicker -- when they actually decided to ship me something. Three times I ran into the issue of swapping my discs at the store level and then it would take several days for the service to even register that they'd been checked in, leading to 7-10 days before getting new DVDs. I chalked it up as a fluke the first time (and got several free rental coupons from customer service), an annoyance the second time, and cancelled when it happened yet again.

It looks like I'll be heading back to Netflix now, so we'll see if the distribution times are any different.

Will they be getting the new Days of Heaven disk? Also disappointed that they don't carry Flicker alley's recent Discovering Cinema.

I don't know where you are upstate but from your user name, I'm guessing near Woodstock. I'm near there myself and my Netflix turnaround is typically 3-4 days, not bad at all.

has anyone gotten the new DVD of Clockwork Orange thorugh netflix, or are they still shipping the old one?

Apologies if somebody posted this earlier (I scanned this thread, but my eyes are a little tired at the moment).

Netflix doesn't have the Criterion version of Bakery Girl of Monceau or Suzanne's Career. I received the Fox Lorber edition (single disc containing both films) earlier today. Netflix does appear to have the Criterion versions of the remaining four films.

(I have to say, though: I got this disc in order to check out Rohmer, as I'd never seen his stuff before. After having watched the first two films, it looks like I'll be springing for the boxset once I have the $$$. Wow.)

Odd because I got the Criterion of both of those from them!

From what I have gathered over the years, if a new release comes out of a title that has had a previous DVD release, Netflix will get that new release, but put it into the same circulation as the old DVD's they have (without any distinction or mention), so then it becomes a "luck of the draw" type of thing. Some people will get the Criterion, some will get the Lorber, or the old Criterion, etc, etc... I wish they would allow you to specify which version you want, but oh well.

Really! I tried searching for both titles and they didn't appear in the netflix page. I even clicked on "Eric Rohmer" to see all his films, and these two weren't listed. This pisses me off b/c I wanted to watch the extras, too!

Just searched again and they're not showing up... how did you find them? (I'm assuming you just entered the titles to find them, in which case I'm going to feel stupid, but I'm just curious as to why netflix won't let me even find the criterion edition of these two films.)

I just entered the titles. It was over a year ago, I think, so I don't recall if there was a special option for it or not. I do remember thinking "I hope I get the Criterion version" for what it's worth.

I tried that several times, and nothing close came up. Oh well, I didn't mind watching the Fox Lorber, and the subtitles were readable.

Netflix understocking Criterion discs

I think they understock non-mainstream films in general, but Criterion discs to greater extent.

Whenever a Criterion disc is a remastered edition of an older disc, Netflix only stocks the older disc. E.g. Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible, Mafioso, Indiscretion of an American Wife, etc.

When there are multiple DVD editions of a title (e.g. many old films in public domain), Netflix almost never stocks the best edition. E.g. it doesn't carry Image 2001 "The Lost World" and Kino's latest "Hunchback of Notre Dame". Instead, it carries crappy cheap-o editions.

To add insult to injury, many recently released Criterion titles are in "long wait" status, like Drunken Angel, Pierrot le fou, Lubitsch box set. The first disc of Berlin Alexanderplatz is perpetually at "long wait".

Many of my blind buys of Criterion discs were due to the inability of renting them, such as "Le bonheur", which Netflix doesn't even carry.

The Criterion stuff is funny. It always says "long wait" unless it's something like Walker which shipped the day it came out, but if I leave it at the top of my queue anyway, I usually get it a week or so after it comes out. Strange. I don't really trust the "long wait" tags.

they eventually get around to replacing with the CC disc, just not right away. When YiYi was released they still had the old one, but eventually they replaced it. But House of Games, for example, is still the non-CC.

"Berlin Alexanderplatz" Disc 1 is long wait, while all other discs in the set are available. Just sickening.

"Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2" just came out and all the discs are at short wait. Knew it. Good thing TCM is showing the films tonight.

One good thing about Netflix is that they do carry a few OOP titles. Cockfighter and Saragossa Manuscript, to name a couple.

Interesting that in the description on the sleeve of the I Am Cuba disc they take the space to point out that the film "hammers home one-sided, political points...". I don't seem to recall the same stigma applied to the hundreds of pro-imperialist Hollywood war films and westerns in circulation.

Didn't you get the memo? Any time any distributors or reviewers express admiration for a Soviet film, they have to go out of their way to make it clear that they are not pro-Communism in any way.

Actually, this is a pet peeve of mine, as well. I recently bought First Run's release of the DEFA-produced I Was Nineteen, which isn't explicitly propagandistic in any way except insofar as it portrays common Soviet soldiers as basically good people. But you can't find a single review that doesn't feel obligated to frame its praise for the movie in some sort of back-handed manner.

So where's Antonio Gaudi already, Netflix? They USED to have the Milestone disc, but since they don't that can't be the reason. Perhaps their buyer thinks they still have that one?

Meanwhile, I finally got Berlin Alex. disc 1 to ship, after 6 months or so. Probably the 2nd and 3rd discs will go "very long wait" now, eh?!

I searched for "Family" (the 70s TV series) but instead found out "Tokyo Olympiad" was somehow titled "Family" in their database. I put it in my queue and actually had "Tokyo Olympiad" sent to me!

Yeah, I think they finally got around to changing that when Kon Ichikawa died a few weeks back. It's near the top of my queue, and I just noticed about a week or so ago that the title had changed.

The funny thing was I wouldn't have gotten "Tokyo Olympiad" if it hadn't been for the title change. I had it in my queue before the title change and it had always been "long wait", probably due to its OOP status. Then it vanished from the database, and I assumed they had no stock left. Then out of the blue, it was under "Family" and available. My first thought was the title change was INTENTIONAL to preserve the few remaining OOP discs in stock.

Is it just me or did Netflix do away with their star rating system? After the site was down for maintenance recently I no longer see any of the five star icons under any of their films. How will I know what the herd believes is good?

It's gone but it's temporary-- it's disappeared before.

Is it? And here I thought they may have finally seen the folly in trying to quantify the value of artworks with crude symbols and scrapped the system altogether.

I returned "Tokyo Olympiad". I put it in my queue again to see its stock status, and it's still available. So for anyone who hasn't rented this now is the time to do it.