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Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Free Movies!

Me, I'm old-school. Prefer films in theaters, on big screens, the way nature and John Ford intended. You may be new-school. Like instant-grat of a movie whenever, wherever. So let me alert you to SpeedCine, a portal that links to more than 13,000 titles that you can stream or download for free -- LEGALLY.

Via SpeedCine, just watched the first five minutes of the essential (and hard-to-find) Withnail & I  (1986), the Brit comedy starring Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann as '60s dropouts who go to their Uncle Monty's cottage for a little R & R. Reid Rosefelt, who co-founded SpeedCine with Bon Harris, calls their brainchild "a Google for helping you find legal movies." One film I intend yo watch on SpeedCine is the elusive Bigger than Life (1956), the great Nicholas Ray film starring James Mason as the guy who takes the wonder drug cortisone and becomes a megalomaniac.

Do you download movies? Generally speaking, where do you watch? Are there certain films that'll get you to theaters and others that are downloads or rentals? Why? Which portals do you recommend? (No illegal sites, please.) Many readers rave about  Netflix's Ruka application, but that's not free.  What do you think of SpeedCine?

Posted by Carrie Rickey @ 12:36 PM  Permalink | 4 comments
Comments   
Posted 01:22 PM, 08/05/2009
bob ickes
Withnail & I!!!!! "there is matter in the sink!" and that sweet uncle??? chasing them around the cottage. i'd watch that anywhere--thanks for this tip. i used to love the experience of sitting in the theater--especially the old big fallen-on-hard-times chestnut/market street palaces of the '70s. but as i age, i find that folks' chattering and their crinkling shopping bags often ruin it for me--especially in the first 5 minutes, when i'm trying to figure out the plot/characters.
Posted 04:35 PM, 08/05/2009
carrierickey
The fabulous Richard Griffiths (better known as Harry Potter's muggle uncle) plays Uncle Monty who, if memory serves, sports a radish rose in his lapel.
Posted 06:41 PM, 08/10/2009
wwolfe
I love "Withnail & I" - a perfect snapshot of the dying days of the English version of "The Sixties," with the italics indicating that term's status as an after-the-fact, somewhat inaccurate but nonetheless useful historic construct. As far as where I like to watch movies, as I get older and more crotchety, and TV screens get bigger and sharper, I usually prefer watching at home. Occasionally, I want to see something on a big screen - I just saw "Public Enemies" in a theater, for example, and would have missed a lot if I'd waited to see it at home. But more often than not, I'd rather stay home. Under-lit screens, ridiculous numbers of ads and previews, and rude audiences add up to more aggravation than it's worth to see a movie in a theater, I'm sorry to say.
Posted 10:00 PM, 08/10/2009
wwolfe
Quotes, not italics. Sheesh.
4 comments
About Carrie Rickey

Carrie Rickey has been The Philadelphia Inquirer’s film critic for 21 years. She has reviewed films as diverse as Water and The Waterboy, profiled celebrities from Lillian Gish to Will Smith, and reported on technological breakthroughs from the video revolution to the rise of movies on demand. Her reviews are syndicated nationwide and she is a regular contributor to Entertainment Weekly. Rickey’s essays appear in numerous anthologies, including The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll, The American Century, and the Library of America’s American Movie Critics.

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All blog items posted before May 23, 2008, can be accessed at http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/flickgrrl/.

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