With a site consisting mainly of film reviews, you’d probably never guess that I love the medium. Corny jokes aside, I’ve been watching and collecting films for as long as I’ve had change in my pocket. As a young adult, my DVD collection grew into the hundreds, and as my wife and I have moved a couple times over the past year, I’ve been reminded of just how many movies I own. To be honest, with a sizable collection and little kids at home who just love to touch and rough them up, I’ve found myself shifting over the past year in how I consume movies. Where several shelves of cased films have always been a source of pride, the increased convenience and speed of online streaming has pivoted me to buying digitally.
Now, I have friends that can attest that me making that change is a HUGE deal. I’ve been a strong proponent of the need for cinema to still leave room for film stock and physical product in an increasingly digital world, and if anyone was a holdout on “making the swap”, it’d be me. Over the past several years, digital copies have been a real mess with little to no chance of having a cohesive library across retailers…that is until something changed. That source of change is what got me to begin building my own collection online. That change was Movies Anywhere.
Originally an initiative from Disney for their own films entitled Disney Movies Anywhere, it expanded and rebranded in October 2017 to include the film libraries of several other studios, such as Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Sony Pictures. An absolutely free service, it allows users to connect multiple retailers of digital copies together, so that the user can access the films they purchase or activate through code redemption on any of the other platforms. As I write this, it connects your film libraries on Google Play, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Microsoft Movies & TV, Fandango NOW, and Xfinity. Basically, if a movie is part of their service, you buy it once, but you can access it on any of the providers you connect to the service in your account. Since the service debuted, I have basically went “all digital”. Granted, I’ve bought some physical copies, but by-and-large, I’m purchasing only the digital-copy in many cases. I can also say that I tend to look for movies that are on  Movies Anywhere, and I intentionally stay away from titles that aren’t. It’s incredibly handy for me to buy once and to have it on all the major platforms, but with other major studios like Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM not on board (currently), the reverse is also true. I’m hoping that they will join up and make movie-going even better on the go!
I have begun adding Amazon Affiliates links to the bottom of many of my film reviews for a number of reasons. First, Amazon Prime Video is a great platform to watch films on (with or without a Prime membership), and honestly, I don’t see them going away or really changing things up anytime soon. Personally, I purchase from there often, and I’d trust anyone to do the same. The convenience that comes from having a collection retrievable online on a wide selection of devices is great. Basically, almost any phone, tablet, internet browser, Fire TV Stick, or streaming device can get you going. Secondly, as shared, many of those films will transfer to and from other outlets if you sync them up alongside Amazon through the Movies Anywhere service.
I will also add that using any link I embed to purchase the film for yourself will benefit me in a small way financially. No studio or company is pressuring me to give a good or bad review, and by now, you should know I give my honest opinion. I receive no pay for my reviews, but helping in this way can act as a small thanks for the reviews I do share. Web-hosting and the like has its own costs, so every little bit helps. I know many over the past few years have expressed they love reading my reviews, and to each of them, I deeply say thank you. You’ll find these links on films I liked, loved, and even hated; in the end, if I didn’t like a movie, that doesn’t mean you won’t find things you love about it. If you are interested in a movie regardless of my own assessment, check it out for yourself, and form your own opinion. Even better, form that opinion, and discuss it online with me and others. Thank you for reading this and anything else I’ve shared, and God bless!
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