Changing my Netflix account

I changed my Netflix account for the first time in a long time, getting rid of all mailed movies and sticking only with the streaming movies. You probably heard the big hullabaloo last summer when it was announced that the Netflix pricing structure would change, basically doubling the cost for me. No longer would streaming be included with the rental of DVDs. Well, I paid for both for a couple of months and then got a gift of three months free but now that the gift has run out, I've decided that I do not need both the DVDs and the streaming. I'm a big viewer of new releases and those are rarely available for streaming so I was leaning towards keeping the DVD and giving up the streaming but I can get DVDs at Redbox or the library so the plan is to pay for the streaming only for a few months and knock some movies off my queue and eventually if I find that I'm missing the DVDs, then I can switch to that. I know many people complain that the movies they want to see are never available for streaming but I do manage to have a streaming queue of over 100 movies so I think I can make do for a few months, at least. However, the way Netflix sets up their Web site for streaming only makes me mad. A movie ONLY shows up on the site now if it's streaming. So, if I watch a movie at the theater and want to rate it on Netflix so that it can be used to make suggestions for me, I can't do that. If I search for a movie or an actor, the only things that show up are those available for streaming. That's ridiculous. Primarily it's ridiculous for them in terms of sales because if I was searching for movie after movie and it was coming up on their site that I would have to get a DVD account in order to watch that movie, I might be swayed into getting a DVD account so I could watch some of the movies. They're stupid for not trying to plus-sell in this way. Overall, I am paying a lot less with the streaming only package and I'm glad about that. Time will only tell if I watch any more streaming movies now than I did before. It won't take much to use streaming more than I used to because I probably averaged like 1 steaming movie every two months. I also might write more movie reviews on this site since I can't rate a lot of the movies I'll be watching.

Movie review: Friends with Kids

I know I go to free movie screenings fairly regularly but the ticket I got to see Friends with Kids was kind of extra cool because the writer/director/star of the movie, Jennifer Westfeldt, graced us with her presence afterwards and answered questions from the audience.

Funnily enough, I was very late getting to the movie, which meant there were very few seats available at the screening when I got there so I ended up in the second row. But, since Jennifer was there, it ended up being a great seat because it meant I was two rows away from her!

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie. Jennifer and Adam Scott, from Parks and Recreation, star as two friends who are the last in their group to settle down, get married and have kids. However, after seeing their married friends kind of lose all fun in their life once the kids come, they think the best way around this is to remain friends and have kids that way, without the complications of romance. Of course, the just friends thing doesn't work out exactly the way they expect. Overall, it was a cute film with a lot of funny moments and despite the predictability of the premise (it's a romantic comedy, at its core), I felt the circumstances that took place between the main characters were very believable. And it surprised me how much I liked Adam Scott's performance, because quite frankly he's never done much for me before. I've seen him in several things and while he's fine, I would never have rated him any higher than fine. But he did a good job as the male lead here.