As many readers will already know, I’m in the process of transitioning to an all-digital-media household (from CD to MP3, from hard copy books to ebooks, from DVDs and Blu-rays to digital videos). As part of that effort, every week I scour the Amazon Instant Video listings for digital stuff from my “to buy” list that’s gone on sale, paying particularly close attention to the Instant Videos priced at $4.98-$4.99. Then, if I find anything good, I save all of you the time and trouble by sharing my discoveries here.
This week there are some great ones to grab, several I’ve been watching for months to see if they’d come down from their usual $9.99 pricetags. Well, today’s my lucky day, especially since I just got my Amazon Store Credit from a bunch of discs I sent in to Amazon’s Buy Back program. Here’s a sampling of the great buys currently available in the Instant Video Store, currently priced at $4.98-$4.99.
Note: All movie descriptions below are from IMDB.com.
The Silence of the Lambs (R, 4.75/5 stars)
Young FBI agent Clarice Starling is assigned to help find a missing woman to save her from a psychopathic serial killer who skins his victims.
Clarice attempts to gain a better insight into the twisted mind of the killer by talking to another psychopath Hannibal Lecter, who used to be a respected psychiatrist.
FBI agent Jack Crawford believes that Lecter, who is also a very powerful and clever mind manipulator, has the answers to their questions and can help locate the killer. However, Clarice must first gain Lecter’s confidence before the inmate will give away any information.
– Written by Sami Al-Taher
Trading Places (R, 4.75/5 stars)
Louis Winthorpe is a businessman who works for commodities brokerage firm of Duke and Duke owned by the brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke.
Now they bicker over the most trivial of matters and what they are bickering about is whether it’s a person’s environment or heredity that determines how well they will do in life. When Winthorpe bumps into Billy Ray Valentine, a street hustler and assumes he is trying to rob him, he has him arrested.
Upon seeing how different the two men are, the brothers decide to make a wager as to what would happen if Winthorpe loses his job, his home and is shunned by everyone he knows and if Valentine was given Winthorpe’s job. So they proceed to have Winthorpe arrested and to be placed in a compromising position in front of his girlfriend. So all he has to rely on is the hooker who was hired to ruin him.
– Written by rcs0411
Winter’s Bone (R, closed captions available, 4/5 stars)
With an absent father and a withdrawn and depressed mother, 17 year-old Ree Dolly keeps her family together in a dirt poor rural area.
She’s taken aback however when the local Sheriff tells her that her father put up their house as collateral for his bail and unless he shows up for his trial in a week’s time, they will lose it all.
She knows her father is involved in the local drug trade and manufactures crystal meth, but everywhere she goes the message is the same: stay out of it and stop poking your nose in other people’s business. She refuses to listen, even after her father’s brother, Teardrop, tells her he’s probably been killed. She pushes on, putting her own life in danger, for the sake of her family until the truth, or enough of it, is revealed.
– Written by garykmcd
Pulp Fiction (R, 4.75/5 stars)
Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega are two hitmen who are out to retrieve a suitcase stolen from their employer, mob boss Marsellus Wallace.
Wallace has also asked Vincent to take his wife Mia out a few days later when Wallace himself will be out of town.
Butch Coolidge is an aging boxer who is paid by Wallace to lose his next fight.
The lives of these seemingly unrelated people are woven together comprising of a series of funny, bizarre and uncalled-for incidents.
– Written by Soumitra
The Usual Suspects (R, 4.5/5 stars)
Following a truck hijack in New York, five conmen are arrested and brought together for questioning.
As none of them is guilty, they plan a revenge operation against the police.
The operation goes well, but then the influence of a legendary mastermind criminal called Keyser Söze is felt.
It becomes clear that each one of them has wronged Söze at some point and must pay back now. The payback job leaves 27 men dead in a boat explosion, but the real question arises now: Who actually is Keyser Söze?
– Written by Soumitra
Chicago (PG-13, 4/5 stars)
Murderesses Velma Kelly (a chanteuse and tease who killed her husband and sister after finding them in bed together) and Roxie Hart (who killed her boyfriend when she discovered he wasn’t going to make her a star) find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.
Stars Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere.
Good Will Hunting (R, 4.5/5 stars)
A janitor at MIT, Will Hunting has a gift for math and chemistry that can take him light-years beyond his blue-collar roots, but he doesn’t realize his potential and can’t even imagine leaving his childhood Boston South End neighborhood, his construction job, or his best friend.
To complicate matters, several strangers enter the equation: a brilliant math professor who discovers, even envies, Will’s gifts, an empathetic shrink who identifies with Will’s blue-collar roots, and a beautiful, gifted pre-med student who shows him, for the first time in his life, the possibility of love.
– Written by Damien Saunders
The list also currently includes The Coen Brothers’ Fargo, Woody Allen’s Manhattan, Platoon, Rain Man, Precious, Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair, and The Queen (starring Helen Mirren). It’s a great week for digital video bargains!
Click here to browse the full list of Instant Videos currently priced at $4.98-$4.99.