It looks like Netflix has added around 230 movies to the Watch Instantly service in the last couple of weeks, putting the total number of titles at around 4200 movies. I’ve listed 11 that stand out, and the other additions and 10 deletions are listed below.

Maybe I can understand the reasons for adding three seasons of The Incredible Hulk, and maybe I think the demand for two more seasons of Adam 12 and three more seasons of Emergency! may be a little questionable, but there is no logic that can get me to believe that adding two more seasons of both Charles In Charge and Gimme A Break was a good idea.

That said, I picked out what I could from what was made available. There are a few documentaries, some mindless entertainment, and even some ladies’ mixed martial arts fighting. If I missed something noteworthy, be sure to drop it in the comments.

Recommended Netflix Watch Instantly New Additions (11)

It looks like Netflix has added around 164 movies to the Watch Instantly service in the last couple of weeks, putting the total number of titles at almost 4000 movies. I’ve listed 9 that stand out, but I can’t say that I’m particularly psyched about any of them.

For folks who are old enough to remember Jim’s answering machine, the GAAHHH OOOH AHHHHH! of the fire alarm, or “1 Adam 12, 1 Adam 12, see the man at [location] about [crime]”, seasons of The Rockford Files, Adam 12, and Emergency! have all been added for those days when you’re drunk, you’re bored, the cable is out, your friends all died, you’re glued to the floor, and you’re trying to pass time while waiting for someone to discover you’re missing. For those of you who need that extra something to get you to chew your own legs off and crawl away to safety, multiple seasons of both Charles In Charge and Gimme a Break were added.

Unless you can find some recommendations that I missed, I’ll have to say that it wasn’t a particularly good batch this round.

Recommended Netflix Watch Instantly New Additions (9)

It looks like Netflix has added around 130 movies to the Watch Instantly service in the last couple of weeks, putting the total number of titles at around 3800 movies. I’ve listed 9 that stand out, and the other 129 additions and 19 deletions are listed below.

I’m not going to pretend to understand why Mannequin or Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey were added, but there is certainly something for everyone in this batch. There are exercise videos, bad 80’s movies, Anime, horror classics, and more Wiggles videos than any child should be allowed to watch.

I pulled out some below that I thought might be worth a watch. If you only have time for one of these, check out Weeds. It’s a well-written TV series about a suburban mom who deals drugs to support her family after her husband dies. #1GF! and I watched the first two seasons a few months back and really, really liked them. It’s not half as gritty as I had expected, but I can’t recommend it enough.

Recommended Netflix Watch Now New Additions (9)

It looks like Netflix has added around 200 movies to the Watch Instantly service in the last couple of weeks, putting the total number of titles at around 3700 movies. I’ve listed 17 that stand out, and the other 190 additions and 28 deletions are listed below.

Did I miss any of your favorites?

Recommended Netflix Watch Now New Additions (17)

By my calculations, there are over 3500 movies available for free instant viewing through Netflix On Demand. I’m sure that there are few movies missing, but this is the closest that I could get to a full list.

If you have any recommendations or you’re interested in more regular coverage of Netflix On Demand, be sure to let me know in the comments.

3541 Netflix Watch Instantly Movies From A-Z:

#

…And Justice for All
1 Giant Leap
2 Days
2 Days in Paris
2 Days in the Valley
2 Seconds
3 Ninjas: Kick Back
3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt

I just calculated that there are now more than 3500 movies available on the Netflix On Demand service. I went through the new additions for the last month or so, and came up with more than a dozen decent watches.

If you only watch one of these, please watch The King of Kong. It’s a documentary about the guy who broke the world Donkey Kong record. As a geek, I loved it. Even #1GF! who is not geeky, couldn’t resist getting emotionally involved in the story.

If you only watch two, make the second Point of No Return. It’s the American remake of Le Femme Nikita starring Bridget Fonda.

Good Netflix Watch Now Additions Since February 12

I calculate that there are over 2,800 movies available from Netflix’s on-demand service that can be streamed to your PC, and the turnover this month was over 450 movies (468 additions and 465 deletions). There were a number of good movies made available this round, including Dexter Season 1 and the Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse movies. I will admit that there are more classics than new movies, but how can you resist lines like:

“Dad, I think he’s gonna pork her!” or

“It’s MADE OF PEOPLE!!!” or

“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.” or the absolute classic:

“I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head cleaaan off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”

Classics are better if you can watch them on your PC for free. As a side note, I should say that Notting Hill was added for #1GF! and Booty Call was included on purpose, yet Star Trek VI and VII were intentionally left out.

If you see any movies that I should have recommended, be sure to make note of them in the comments.

Notable Additions This Round (30)

I calculate that there are over 2,800 movies available from Netflix’s on-demand service that can be streamed to your PC, and Netflix just announced that they will no longer limit the number of hours you can watch the on-demand service per month.

This may have something to do with the massive turnover in the movies available. Over 600 movies were changed, which an astounding leap from the typical 50 to 100 changes that we’ve seen in past months.

Although there were a few of movies that I hated seeing removed from the service, I expected to see some better additions given the volume this round.

Notable Additions This Round: Close Encounters, Das Boot, Die! Die! Die! My Darling!, Drunken Master, Escape from New York, Frogs, Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2, Jerry “Show me the money” Maguire, Seasons 1-4 of Knight Rider, Psycho, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (?), The Birds, The Fifth Element, Tommy, and Vertigo (All are marked with a *).

If there are any listed that you recommend, be sure to throw them in the comments.

By my calculations, there are currently over 2850 movies that can be streamed to your PC through the Netflix On Demand Service. Here are the weekly additions to (and deletions from) the service using data gathered from the last three weeks.

When checking them this week, I noticed a possible error with the service. When you click “Browse All By Title”, it seems that you’re not really browsing all of the on-demand movies. For some reason, a number of movies (”Beef” for example) are available, but do not appear on the list. They can be watched if you seek them out individually, so it makes no sense why they wouldn’t appear on the master list. It makes no sense.

If you already went through all the free horor flicks in the public domain and you’re looking for even more frightening flicks to kick back with this Halloween, Netflix members can download any of the following 66+ Halloween horror classics from the Netflix on-demand service for free.

Even though I spent a fair amount of time making sure that 95% of these have over a three star rating, don’t think that I could resist throwing in a few that are purely B horror camp.

If I missed a favorite of yours, be sure to let me know…

Enjoy!

While hunting for some free entertainment for Halloween, I discovered that there were a surprising number of horror movies that can be legally and freely downloaded because they have fallen into the public domain. I found cheese-filled creature features like The Giant Gila Monster (1959), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1953), and The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962), but I also came across a number of films that I realized have been musically inspirational to some big name bands.

Here are the top 10 musically inspiring horror films in the public domain and what they inspired. The IMDB star rating is included so you can determine what to (or not to) download onto your ipod.

10. The Wasp Woman (1960)

The owner of a cosmetic factory becomes the test subject for wasp enzymes that are supposed to make her look younger. The drugs have unintended side effects.

IMDB: 3.4 stars

Musical Inspiration: This movie was said to have inspired the Misfits’ song “Queen Wasp” which appeared on Earth A.D, released in 1983.

I wrote a perl script that extracts the weekly additions to (and deletions from) the Netflix Watch Now service by using data gathered from Netflixwatchnow.blogspot.com. Netflixwatchnow didn’t update for a while, so this data is for Sept. 10 - Oct. 5.

Notable additions were 30 Rock Season 1, The Office: Season 3, Dexter: Season 2, Heroes: Season 1 & 2, Live Nude Girls Unite!, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Penitentiary, Planet of the Apes, Reefer Madness, Splinter, and Thunderbird 6 (In Super-Marionation). All are marked in the list below with a *.

I wrote a perl script that extracts the weekly additions to (and deletions from) the Netflix Watch Now service by using data gathered from Netflixwatchnow. blogspot.com. This is data for the last two weeks.

Of Note in this batch is Bodog Fight: Series 1 (MMA Fights), Speed, Quantum Leap Seasons 1-5, Saved by the Bell Seasons 2-4, the entire Buck Rogers Series, Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt (Mamie Van Doren), Promises, Promises (The first movie where Jayne Mansfield lets the girls out for air), Love Me Tender (Elvis), and Casper.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I wrote a perl script that extracts the weekly additions to (and deletions from) the Netflix Watch Now service by using data gathered from Netflixwatchnow. blogspot.com. Of Note in this batch is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Sliders Seasons 1-5, and Pan’s Labrynth (All are marked with a *).

Netflix Watch Now Deletions for August 24 (3)

Californication: Season 1: Preview (2007)
Flesh (Andy Warhol) (1968)
St. Clare of Assisi / Poor Clares (1994)

Additions for August 24 (47)

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 1 (1955)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 2 (1956)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 3 (1957)
Becket (1964)
Big Dreams in Little Hope (2006)
Bus 174 (2003)
Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? (2006)
Chaplin’s Essanay Comedies: Vol. 3 (1915)
Civil War Minutes: Confederate (2002)
Civil War Minutes: Union (2001)
Civil War: Gettysburg & Stories of Valor (2004)
Candle in the Dark (2004)
Death Row (2006)
Destination Mars! (2004)
Dick Van Dyke: In Rare Form (2006)
Die You Zombie Bastards! (2005)
Doctor Dracula (1980)
Doomwatch (1972)
The Eel (1997)
Even Trade (2004)
Exploring the Deserts of the Earth (2007)
Fireball 500 (1966)
Inspector Lynley: For the Sake of Elena (2002)
Just the Two of Us (1975)
Keep Drinking, Men! (2006)
Letters from Iwo Jima (2007)
Never Say Die (1995)
Particles of Truth (2003)
Satan’s Cannibal Holocaust (2006)
Show Me (2004)
*Sliders: Seasons 1 and 2 (1995)
*Sliders: Season 3 (1996)
*Sliders: Season 4 (1998)
Sliders: Season 5 (1999)
Stray Cats (2005)
Sun Kissed (2006)
The Addams Family: Vol. 1 (1964)
The Clinging Vine / Age of Ballyhoo (1926)
The Day of the Dead (2006)
The Eel (1997)
The Flesh and the Fiends (1961)
The Good German (2006)
*The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The Voyage of La Amistad (1998)
Trollz (2005)
True Love (1989)
Twice Told Tales (1962)

Netflix Watch Now Deletions for August 16 (0)

No deletions this week.

Netflix Watch Now Additions for August 16th (17)

Bright Young Things (2003)
Comic Party Revolution TV (2005)
Dr. Ravi & Mr. Hyde (2007)
Festival Express (2003)
Gerry (2002)
Jinki: Extend (2005)
Keep Drinking, Men! (2006)
Les Paul: Chasing Sound (2007)
Outlaugh: The Best of Queer Comedy (2007)
*Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Posers (2002)
Primer (2004)
The Agronomist (2004)
The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)
The Great Happiness Space (2006)
Twister Chasers (2007)
World War II: When Lions Roared (1994)

Last week I mentioned that I wrote a perl script that extracts additions to the Netflix Watch Now service by using data gathered from Netflixwatchnow.blogspot.com.

I ended up running the script a number of times this week because it kept giving me data that didn’t add up. After a little investigation, I figured out that the Netflix Watch Now service not only adds movies every week, but they also delete some of them.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but it certainly adds a little bit of urgency to watching some of the Watch Now movies if they might be pulled from the service without notice.

Movies Deleted From Watch Now This Week (7)

Bedtime Stories (2003)
Broadcast Bombshells (1995)
Daydream Obsession (2003)
Fantasm (1976)
Fantasm Comes Again (1977)
The Believer (2001)
Young Lady Chatterley (1977)

Movies added to Watch Now This Week (44)

A History of Black Achievement in America (2005)
B.I.K.E. (2005)
Barn Burning (1980)
Bent (2004)
Carmen / The Cheat (1915)
Complete History of U.S. Wars (2004)
Fatal Desire (2004)
Doctor Who: Season 1 (2005)
Don’t Go in the Woods Alone (1982)
Ellcia (2006)
Empires of Industry: Brewed in America (2006)
Fawlty Towers: The Complete Set (1975)
Inspector Alleyn Mysteries: Set 1 (1990)
Jennifer Kries: 3-Dimensional Toning (2001)
Jennifer Kries: Perfect Mix (2001)
Jennifer Kries: Precision Pilates (2001)
Law & Order: CI: The Fifth Year (2005)
Law & Order: CI: The First Year (2001)
Law & Order: CI: The Fourth Year (2004)
Law & Order: CI: The Third Year (2003)
Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Second Year (2002)
Little Britain: Series 2 (2004)
MI-5: Vol. 1 (2002)
MI-5: Vol. 2 (2003)
Monumental: David Brower’s Fight (2005)
On Any Sunday (1971)
Paniponi Dash! (2006)
Rwanda: Living Forgiveness (2004)
Skate Maps: Season 1 (2004)
Spellbound (2002)
Staffers ‘04 (2004)
Sugar (2005)
The Blood of My Brother (2005)
The Boston Red Sox Movie (2004)
The Goebbels Experiment (2005)
The Life of Mammals (2002)
The Office Special (2001)
The Office: Series 1 (2001)
The Office: Series 2 (2002)
The Perfect Crime (2004)
To and From New York (2006)
Virus: Virus Buster Serge (1997)
Waiting for God: Season 1 (1990)
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004)

Was this useful to you? Let me know in the comments.

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As a big fan of the Netflix Watch Now service, I’m surprised that Netflix has an RSS feed for their new releases, but not for the movies that have been added to their Watch Now video on demand service. They do have a recent additions page, but if you happen to forget to check it before it randomly overwrites itself, there’s no way to go back and see the previous weeks additions.

Netflixwatchnow.blogspot.com unofficially publishes the full list of Watch Now movies about once a week, but the list is over 2400 movies long, making it very difficult to scan for new items.

In a rare moment of clarity, I cobbled together a little Perl script to compare the Watch Now lists from week to week to keep track of what the new additions are. If you think this is useful, let me know and I’ll continue running the script until Netflix gets on the stick and adds an RSS feed.

I hate posting videos two days in a row, but this one was too good to pass up. Whether love or hate Kevin Smith you have to respect his response to an audience member’s question at Comic-Con 2007.

The question was, “Do you ever plan on making an original movie without rehashing any of your old characters that doesn’t suck?”

Kevin Smith Strikes Back

blax·ploi·ta·tion (blāk’sploi-tā’shən) n. A genre of American film of the 1970s that featured African-American actors in lead roles The movies are frequently criticized for advocating stereotypes, glorifying violence, and going against the establishment. Frequently, the movie’s soundtrack far outweighed the movie in terms of quality.

I was surprised to find Superfly among Netflix’s Watch Now (video on demand) offerings, so thought I’d casually poke around to see what other blaxploitation flicks they had available. I was stunned by the sheer number of craptacular movies there were, which included not only “Blacula”, but the sequel, “Scream, Blacula, Scream”. The Moore I looked, the Moore I found.

Two days later, I came up for air with this list in tow.

Although I have seen a number of these movies, I will warn you that while some can be fun to watch, the general quality of the genre can be pretty low. The first list, which should be enough for most people, contains all the movies that are available to stream to your PC through the Netflix Watch Now service. The second list contains 66 more titles available on DVD for the hardcore blaxploitation fan. In total, there are 77 blaxploitation classics.

Enjoy!

Blaxploitation Flicks Available on Demand

Blaxploitation Flicks Available on DVD

Did you find one I missed? Drop it in the comments?

Ever go through spells where you ignore your Netflix queue and have some real stinkers show up at your door that you have no recollection of requesting? I have to admit that this happens to me sometimes, and I inevitably end up spending a couple of hours hunting down new movies so it doesn’t happen again. And then a few months later, it does.

We all want to keep our Netflix queues from drying up, but spending hours wading through the Netflix interface to find good things to watch can be a real pain. One thing that has cut my search time lately has been taking control of my Netflix queue through a few RSS feeds. By having reviews, new releases and some usability tips delivered to my feed reader, I find some great movies to watch by spending less than 15 minutes a week.

Know How Netflix Works

Although they won’t help you find movies, adding the Hacking Netflix and Netflix Community Blog feeds just might save you a little time by pointing out new Netflix features that you might be underutilizing. This is how I found out about the Watch Now feature before it was generally available, and might just tip you off to some interesting or time saving features like the new movie privacy feature or the newly expanded RSS feeds.

Related Feeds:
Hacking Netflix Feed
Netflix Community Blog Feed

Make the Reviews Come to You

Sure, Netflix has a star rating system that seems to work pretty well, but all the reviews are peer generated. Adding a couple of review sites that you trust can help get some professional opinions to weigh against the general public’s. And if this saves you just two hours of sitting through some awful Jennifer Aniston movie that the mob thinks is great, it’s worth it. I listed a few feeds below, and it’s worth noting that the Roger Ebert and Rotten Tomatoes feeds have the movie rating in the title of each post. That way, you have an executive summary right up front that can help you decide if you want to read the full review.

Related Feeds:
Roger Ebert’s Reviews Feed
Rotten Tomatoes New Releases Feed
Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh DVD Feed
Three Movie Buffs Feed

Be On Top of The New Releases

I think the most important way to save time in your search is to subscribe to some RSS feeds directly from Netflix. They have feeds for their new releases, their top 100, and the top 25 movies in all of their categories, so you can get exactly the movies you’re interested in delivered to your reader without having to wade through page after page of Netflix’s site. Then, you just pop open your feed reader once a week to let the reviews and new releases come to you. When you find something of interest, clicking a movie link in any Netflix feed will take you directly to the related movie page so that you can add it to your queue.

Related Feeds:
New Releases Feed
Top 100 movies Feed
Full List of Netflix RSS Feeds

And That’s All There Is To It!

Spend just fifteen minutes a week leveraging the power of RSS, and you’ll never be scraping the bottom of your Netflix queue again.

Have other review sites or tips that you swear by? Drop them in the comments.

Since January, Netflix has been offering its “Watch Now” service which gives subscribers one hour of streaming movie viewing for each dollar paid in subscription fees. While I’ve always thought that the option was a good idea, I was never able to run it on the ancient 1 Ghz box DVR that I have connected to my TV.

This week, I did a test installation of the latest version of Watch Now. The software only runs in Internet Explorer, and I did have to upgrade from IE6 to IE7 to conserve the last few drops of my paltry 384Mb of RAM, but I’m finally able to watch most movies and shows smoothly on my TV.

Netflix claims to have over 3,000 movies available, so the only hurdle left was sifting through the piles of typical second rate on-demand content to find something worth watching. Up to the challenge, #1GF! and I not only found movies worth watching, but we have already burned half of our allotted viewing time in the last week alone.

To save you a little time, here are ten that you don’t have to hunt down to enjoy. Click the links and get streaming!

If you’re logged into Netflix, these links will take you directly to the watch now pages for the movies. If you’re not logged in or not a member, they won’t do anything.