XboxLive Marketplace Movies

So Microsoft has started "renting' movies over their Xbox Live system for the 360. You download them, you have 14 days to start watching it and then 24 hours after you start. Around $6. The system downoads them in the background (so you can play games and the download will continue). Considering that a non-hidef movie is over a gigabyte, that's a good think. It is certainly not play-on-demand, but not a horribe system. If they REALLY wanted to push the Zune, they would allow you to transfer your movies to it... but they don't.

This is of course Microsoft trying to take stabs at Apple's iTunes. I have to say, that I am more likely to download a "rental" that I can play on my TV than to purchase a movie that I can only play on my Mac or iPod. (Okay, yes, there are all sorts of way I could move an iTunes movie to my TV, but the resolution isn't all that great and it is not seamless.) Yes, this system isn't great, but it is an interesting move.

But what I find most interesting is the initial movies available.

9 1/2 Weeks
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
Analyze This
Art of War
Ask the Dusk
ATL
Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever
Batman Forever
Chariots of Fire
Chinatown
Clash of the Titans
Congo
The Core
Cradle 2 the Grave
The Dead Pool
Deep Blue Sea
Exorcist III: The Heretic
Failure to Launch
Gallipoli
The Hunger
The Lake House
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
The Matrix
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Natural Born Killers
Patriot Games
The Perfect Storm
Pootie Tang
Poseidon
Rat Race
Rebel Without a Cause
Romeo Must Die
Rosemary's Baby
The Shining
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek VII: Generations
The Sum of All Fears
Superfly
Tequila Sunrise
Three Kings
THX
Timeline
Unforgiven
Untouchables
V for Vendetta
We Were Soldiers
Zoolander

A lot were the kinds of movies I expect. V for Vendetta, Zoolander, Romeo Must Die, Rat Race, Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever, The Matrix. General action and comedy stuff.

Also some weird choices when it come to sequels. Star Trek's Wrath of Kahn and Generations, but not First Contact (actually I think First Contact is over rated, even for a Trek film). The first Matrix but not the others. Batman Forever? Exorcist III: The Heretic?!?

But there are some really interesting choices too. 9 1/2 Weeks? (What? Are we going to get Last Tango in Paris too?) Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby? Is Polanski an Xbox fan? THX, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, Chariots of Fire, The Hunger, Gallipoli? Superfly? Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World? And his there a huge market in the video game community for films like The Lake House (which I caught on an airplane recently... eeep!)? Fingers crossed for On Golden Pond and Terms of Endearment.