Can’t afford a plane ticket and hotel and all those movie tickets when the Sundance Film Festival rolls around each year in January?
Does the thought of standing out in the freezing weather waiting for a ticket for the next big indie film as Lindsey Lohan breezes past you in her stolen jewelry with her entourage to the front of the line make you want to explode?
Never fear, film fans: SundanceNow .com is a new choice for fans of independent cinema.
Sundance Now gives you the opportunity to rent hundreds of titles (not thousands) with just a click of the mouse (all immediately and legally). There are classic titles and new “buzzed about” new releases with every genre represented from Animation, Action, Fantasy to Thrillers and Horror and much more. New films are added constantly.
I perused the sight and found it easy to navigate and the catalog varied, but limited. I saw everything from films by director Tom Six (The Human Centipede: First Sequence) to Harmony Korine, and Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void) to Lars Van Trier (Antichrist) and Christopher Nolan (Inception). However, I don’t know how many indie film fans haven’t already caught many of the titles.
Most movies cost between 3.99-4.99 to rent and 19.99 to download.
You can also follow the website for news and new releases on Twitter and Facebook.
However, let’s compare it to Netflix. For $7.99 a month, Netflix members can instantly watch unlimited movies and TV episodes streamed over the Internet to PCs, Macs and TVs. Of course, you can always also get DVD’s mailed to your home as well. There are many devices that the average person has in their home that can stream Netflix movies, such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PS3 consoles; an array of Blu-ray disc players, Internet-connected TVs, home theater systems, digital video recorders and Internet video players; Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as Apple TV and Google TV.
As of 2009, Netflix was offering a collection of 100,000 titles on DVD. Netflix is hard to beat on sheer number and variety of titles.
Now, if you bring Redbox into the ring: Redbox is a DVD only service, but cheap at only 1.00 per title, per night. But, you have a very limited selection and you have to leave the comforts of home to rent and return titles.
So, peruse of www.sundancenow.com and form your own opinion.