Last night, Liz and I watched The French Connection on DVD, rented from Netflix. What a fantastic movie! The acting, the action scenes, even the cat-and-mouse chase scenes were all riveting. I'd seen the subway chase before in countless clip shows but it was even better in the context of the complete film. We had fun playing "where in NY is that?" and I successfully picked out the Grand Central subway shuttle platform before it was identified on camera. On a different note, William Friedkin's direction was excellent, and we noticed the same camera angles and shots that he used two years later in The Exorcist. Before Netflix I wouldn't have thought to rent this movie at Blockbuster; I'd get distracted by more recent releases and pass up old classics like this one. But with Netflix, I put classics in the queue when I think of them and then it's a surprise when an old gem like this one turns up in my mailbox. If the ease of use and unlimited rental time didn't turn people on to Netflix, then the old movie angle should.
I feel like an idiot that I'm so excited for a 32-year-old movie that everyone else has seen many times, but if you're like me and haven't seen it before, you owe it to yourself to check it out, and on DVD. It wouldn't be half as good on TV.
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