GreenCine Video Rental

I used Greencine back in 2001 for a few years. I thought having access to great works by the great masters would be the thing. I could not watch any Hollywood movies for even 5 minutes even when I was 25. I am 45. Back then in Pasadena, Ca, most good video stores (as opposed to Shlockbuster) had either transformed into «sales only» (Tower) or were limited and expensive (Pennylane). Even in a famous and supposedly cultured city like Pasadena, I could not find the titles I needed. I had seen 50% of the great works by 50% of the great directors out there. I needed more art films, more documentaries and more foreign films. The problem was that I was not on the Westside. With Greencine, I got to see quite a bit. After a few years I decided that I was too adult for any movie! I stopped watching any movies as I do not find them too enlightening. Most art films, documentaries and foreign films are made by people who don’t know much. I am too old for them just as I became too old for almost all television and cable in my 20’s. I see film and Cable as a waste of time that could have been spent reading.
Now Greencine appeared to have a lot of listings, but like the illusion of intellectual cinema, that was an illusion too. You could never get the titles that were marked high in demand. They probably never existed. It was a waste to have a lot of them in the queue. You wouldn’t get any for weeks if you had even 100 dvd’s marked as not green and easy to get. So in practice, their collection was small. The community comments and lists also helps you realize what immature people are attracted to film in general. They were of no help to me, kinda like most wine reviews on most sites are worthless.
Film types there were falling for cheap effects and tricks just as most public falls for cheap Hollywood tricks, just not to that level of ignorance. Film lovers are a few steps ahead of the general population but think they are way ahead. The problem is that they basically have not lived a *life* or don’t want to live one. I had been a refugee, an immigrant, a scientist at an ivory tower, a great salesman, a businessman, an investor, a wealthy kid, a poor young man, a wealthy mature man, a tenant, a landlord, an ignorant foreigner and an intellectual already.
Greencine made me realize how bogus the lure of film is and how silly film types are.
I have been reading ever since and heck, I feel a lot classic works are over-​rated. Download and read for free Gulliver’s Adventures by J. Swift. It will make you laugh hard, shed tears and it will be the most philosophical novel you ever read. Wiki it.

This place is a complete scam. They WILL NOT RESPOND to emails even concerning dvds that never showed up but they claimed to have shipped. I live in their immediate area and DVDs still took four to five days to arrive.
It might look great from the outside but do not sign up for their service.

Pretty long, pissed off review ahead, but I can back it up.
In theory, GreenCine should be the best DVD rental company out there: They genuinely seem to care about movies and creating a community at their site for like-​minded folks.
Unfortunately, reality intrudes. They don’t stock lots of movies or TV shows which should be no-​brainers. Their search engine is absolutely awful, even if you’re using the advanced search. (I can’t tell you how many times I coudn’t find a movie by some director and would have to pull up a different one of the director’s films and click the director’s name to pull up other titles. Shouldn’t the movie title or the director’s name be enough to search with? Guess not.)
Then: the quantity of available titles is just this side of miserable. Yes, they do indicate which titles are in supply from green (most available) to blue to yellow to orange to red, but even when I would leave yellow and orange titles in the top forty or so in my queue, over a period of three months I never got a single one. Not one. (I think I got a couple of blue ones.) And we’re not talking about the level zero availability: unless the title I was requesting was «available now» (which the green bar indicates), 98% of the time, it wouldn’t be shipped to me. So even though I had a two– or three-​at-​a-​time account, sometimes an entire week would go by with none of my fifty or so titles shipping.
What value!
– and the shipping is slow. Unless you’re in southern California, you can forget about getting your movie a day or two after it ships. More than once, I waited four days or more — and I’m in San Jose, California.
Compounding the troubles even further: the discs are in really bad shape. Over a period of three months, I’d say that probably three discs ever played all the way through. Most were scratched or scuffed so badly I’d be ashamed to lend them out. Some — the menus wouldn’t even load.
Customer service is less than helpful about these things, and very slow to respond, if they respond at all. Regarding availability issues, I was told to load up the queue with more movies in the «green bar» range. Why should my selection be modified so that I’m mainly renting movies in which I have no interest? The company advertises itself as one which caters to film buffs: so why should, say, «After Hours,» «The Limey,» or «The Dark Knight’s» bonus disc be so tough to get? These aren’t exactly obscure movies.*
But at least, on that issue, I got some sort of an answer, wrong-​headed as it was. When I questioned why GreenCine sends out movies in such poor shape — or even when I just stated flatly that I was unhappy with the service — my issues were never addressed.
On top of all this, it’s more expensive than their competitors. More expensive for less availability, slower shipping, and terrible customer service. Think it over.
Lousy, lousy rental company. If zero stars were possible, I’d still go with a one star rating, because, to be fair, some of the site content is pretty good, though it’s still no destination site.
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*By the way, I canceled my account and restarted with Netflix (which I’m also not completely crazy about, but they’re better than these folks). Rented «After Hours» and the first two discs of a season of «The Shield» GreenCine didn’t have. Placed my order in the late afternoon Thursday and had all three discs in my mailbox Saturday. No problems with condition on two of the three I’ve played so far, either.
We try to support independent companies over the corporations, but, you know, sometimes the corporations really do do it better, and then it’s kind of like tilting at windmills to reward a company like GreenCine for doing it worse AND more expensively.

Other members have better eloquently stated why we’re fans of the service.
Greencine is like renting from a ginormous eccentric DVD shop. You get all the typical commercial releases, bluecine’s adult inventory (ie. PORN!), and a treasure trove of obscure and meaningful cinema. In addition to that, they do original content with the oh-​so interesting «Greencine primers», and frequent updates via their Greencine Daily and Greencine Central so you’re always in the loop of the latest happenings in the film world. I would also say the members tend to be really thoughtful and sometimes hilarious in their reviews. Take for instance, this review on Richard Kern’s Hardcore Collection:

When I first signed up for GreenCine, a friend made a stink about how I was one of those annoying wannabe-​elitist snobs. He asked me for reasons why I didn’t sign up for Netflix instead. I replied:
1. I don’t want to support a large corporation that has enough business. Monopoly is evil.
2. I don’t have a PC to use Netflix’s instant streaming feature.
3. I like GreenCine’s well-​written reviews and movie picks.
I stand by those reasons today and more; in particular, #3. Because of GreenCine’s recommendations, I was exposed to a number of relatively obscure movies that I would have never known or heard about and quite grateful for the insight and knowledge gained.
More reasons to love GreenCine:
4. Quick return feature is nice. Once you put the dvd in the mail, click quick return and they will send you a new one. It cuts down on processing time.
5. The lists compiled by other subscribers are very useful. Most of the reviews are intelligent and thoughtful. Thank goodness for elitist movie snobs, you guys are awesome.
6. Loads of documentary films for a documentary junkie like me.
7. Great selection of foreign, animé and cult films.
8. Oh, unlike Netflix, you can rent porn. SUCK IT, NETFLIX!
Maybe I am indeed a wannabe snob? So be it. Although there are some minor inconveniences (e.g. inability to easily manipulate the queue list and longer waiting time for highly demanded movies), unlimited movies at $ 14.95 (2 DVDs out at a time) is totally worth it. Keep the awesome movies coming. However, I probably should cut down on dreary documentaries. My eyeballs still hurt from crying during «Silverlake Life: A View From Here» (gritty and heartbreaking documentary about a gay couple dying of AIDS, if you are interested).
Netflix has its virtues (esp. convenience) but for those looking for an alternative, check out GreenCine!

Thank you Greencine for taking me back after all these months of being MIA with a past due balance.
Once I finally settled into my new place of living, it was time to get back on track when it comes to feeding the cinema obscura beast within. How happy was I to know that not only did they keep my bulbous rental queue in tact, but it would only take 30 bucks to reactivate my account. Score!
I joined Greencine ages ago, back in the day when they used to come in protective cardboard sleeves and mailers that were postage stamped by hand. Now they’ve seemed to evolve to using «netflix» like postage features. Good stuff.
A membership to Greencine automatically includes one to Bluecine, if you should choose accordingly. Oh yes, a searchable porno plethora if you shall. And you can mix and match your porn with your art or art with your porn… living together in one harmonious rental queue.

GreenCine is Netflix’s edgier stepsister. A $ 10-​$ 30 monthly membership fee will buy you unlimited rental access to their dizzyingly massive collection of rare exploitation films, esoteric cult films, independent films, vintage porn, b-​movies, art house flicks, animé (the largest collection on the internet– doesn’t interest me in the slightest), as well as standard new releases. They ship from Van Nuys, CA, so expect 2 – 3 days for west coast deliveries and 3 – 5 days for east coast. Overall, this is an excellent option for any vainglorious self-​appointed film connoisseur, or for those sequestered in a town with limited access to NC-​17 films.