The Writers Coin

This week shall henceforth be known as “Free Week.” Every post this week is going to focus on one thing I’m passionate about that you can do for free. From listening to music to getting into shape and reading books, you’ll find it here.

I mentioned yesterday that I love books. Well, I love movies too. The feelings a great movie can stir up inside you have no comparison. It’s the best kind of high there is.

But they can be expensive. Going to the movies has gotten ridiculous, especially if you want to have some popcorn and a soda too.

But it turns out you don’t have to spend a lot of money—or any money—to see all the great films that are out there.

• RedBox: By now you’ve probably seen them at your local grocery store. These little red kiosks are everywhere and all they are is a glorified vending machine for DVDs. You pay $1/night, which is a great price. But that’s not free, is it? Use my handy Google tips to find codes for free movies. There are tons out there, so make sure you have a couple handy at all times and never pay for a rental again!
• Public Library: I’ve talked up the library in the past and I’ll keep doing it—it’s one of the greatest services out there today. Your library card can open up a whole new world of knowledge and learning, sure, but it also gets you free rentals. Just beware of late fees, my library is pretty expensive if you hold DVDs past their due date.
• Hulu: Kind of like YouTube, but totally legit, quality, and your favorite shows won’t get randomly taken down. Hulu is how I discovered Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a hilarious show. I’ve written about Hulu before, but here again are some of the great shows on the site: Saturday Night Live!, The Office, Heroes, 30 Rock, Cops (the best show ever), Prison Break, Doogie Howser, etc. But wait, there’s more! They also have movies: 28 Days Later, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Hoop Dreams, Requiem for a Dream, Jerry Maguire, All three Karate Kids, and more.
• YouTube: Believe it or not, you can find some great documentaries on YouTube. There are a bunch of sites that point out specific ones (like this one), so do a little research to see what kind of stuff you’re interested in.
• Advance Screenings: If you can figure out which radio station hosts these in your area, you can get on “the list” that will get you some free passes. Now you can watch the latest movies for free AND you’ll see them before all the suckers who shell out $12!
• Five Buck Club: This program only works with Kerosotes theaters, but it’s the best thing since Hulu. After a movie has been out for two weeks, Five Buck Club members (joining is free) pay only $5 to see movies. Pretty fantastic isn’t it?

All right, well, that’s it. If you don’t know which movies you should go out and see, here are some recent ones that I’ve really enjoyed:

• Frozen River
• In the Valley of Elah
• The Visitor

Photo by ToastyKen

By francis-gt

A few months ago I wrote a post about how to listen to music for free on the Internet. For the most part, I wanted to stick to legal options, so I talked about Seeqpod, Pandora, and iTunes.

I did mention illegal downloads at the end because they felt like the elephant in the room the whole time I was writing the post. After all, the music industry is claiming that 95% of all music downloads are illegal. That’s a lot.

I also wrote a post about watching movies and TV shows for free: it was mostly about Hulu and how convenient (and free and legal) it is.

But for millions of people, these options don’t come close to the cost and convenience of simply downloading what they want, when they want it, as much as they want to. The Internet and the technology that is out there has made it too easy to get what you want without having to pay for it. But is that a good thing?

You read about all these people who have downloaded songs illegally getting taken to court and it’s pretty frightening. Regular people just like me and you are going through these awful times because they downloaded Oops I Did it Again. Some of them had no idea it was illegal.

You would think the prospect of being hauled into court would be enough to discourage people from downloading content illegally, but it looks like people don’t care. We want the cheapest price and if it’s out there for free we will do what it takes to get it.

The other issue is that it’s so easy. You don’t have to be a hacker or have access to the Internet underground. The websites that allow you do all this are in plain view. It’s gotten to the point that people think it’s OK to do it. If it isn’t legal, wouldn’t these places be shut down by now?

What’s the answer? How can we get artists to get the money they deserve for the work they’ve done and also make it cheap and easy to get what we, as consumers want?

I think the first step is iTunes. Look at how easy it is to download and pay for stuff. It’s so easy that most people that buy iPods for the first time think that’s the only way of getting music. And that means they’re paying for it. By making it so convenient and easy for people, they’ve gotten them to pay 99 cents for each song they want. I think that’s great.

Downloading stuff illegally is always going to be around, but eventually it needs to be controlled a little bit more. If 95% of music downloads are illegal right now, how are record companies and movie studios going to stay in business?

Last week I wrote about a couple of cool (and free) ways to listen to music, and now I want to talk about one way to watch a ton of TV shows and movies without shelling out any money. As you may or may not know, I love watching movies. And I’ve shared tips in the past about how you can go to the movies and rent movies without spending a ton of money.

But if you really want to go frugal, cheaper isn’t what you’re after — free is what you want. Hulu.com is fast becoming one of the most popular ways of watching your favorite TV shows (and some movies) for free. When it comes to TV shows, they have everything from Family Guy and The Simpsons to The Office and Late Night TV clips.

A friend of mine recently told me about a show I had never heard about called It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He figured I would like it — the humor is crude, rude, and totally un-PC. But I just never got around to figuring out when it was on and what channel aired it. Then one morning I figured I’d see if Hulu.com carried it. They sure did: it’s one of the most popular shows on the site. So after a few clicks and a 15-second ad, I was watching the first episode of the first season — all for free!

Here are some of the shows they have in store for you:

• Saturday Night Live!
• The Office
• Heroes
• 30 Rock
• Cops (the best show ever)
• Prison Break
• Doogie Howser

Curious to see if they carry a show you like? Check out the full list here.

And if movies are your thing, here’s a sampling of what you can watch for free:

• 28 Days Later
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Hoop Dreams
• Requiem for a Dream
• Jerry Maguire
• All three Karate Kids

You can check out the full list here.

I had heard of Hulu.com for a while, but I never really had the itch to check it out. Turns out that it’s free, it’s fast, and it’s legal (which is a big deal to some). It’s also a peek into the future of what TV and movies will be like down the road. Everything will be streamed via the web and everything will be in one place (I hope).

The downside? People don’t want to watch movies and TV shows on their computer. But have no fear! In a future post, I’ll tell you how you can watch Hulu.com (and anything else on your computer) on your TV. It’s really easy and once you hook it up, you won’t have to worry about it anymore.

When M and I bought our new TV, it was a big deal. We usually don’t spend that kind of money (even though it wasn’t ours) and it felt weird since we’re usually pretty frugal. But it also meant we had to get the HD box, which they didn’t have. They only had the HD/DVR combo box, which we ended up getting (and paying extra for). This was tough because before we moved in I wasn’t paying for cable (I didn’t have it), and then I went to paying half of a $35 bill for regular cable. Then to go up to the HD package and the DVR box, we started getting billed around $70. So the frugal part of me grumbled and complained, but watching the Cubs and any DVD in HD eventually calmed Mr. Frugal down. The DVR was great for taping shows on a regular basis, when we weren’t home, fast forwarding through commercials, and so on.

Then a couple of days ago we got a notice that the monthly fee for renting that box is going up a few dollars. This after I called and got us a $10/month credit on our bill. I was trying to get that bill down as much as possible and now RCN has managed to cut into that savings too.

Crap.

Then it hit me out of the blue and for no reason — I could use DVR for something different altogether. Turns out that when we got the HD/DVR box, RCN also gave us some free HD channels: HBO, Cinemax, Starz, Showtime, etc. Not all of the different HBOs and Starz channels, just the basic ones. But it had never occurred to me before that these free movie channels were sitting there, waiting to be plucked. And thanks to DVR, I could pluck them whenever I wanted.

So I went on the guide and scrolled ahead a few days to see what movies were showing. I found a couple I wanted to watch: 300 and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. So I told the DVR box to record them for me — one was playing at 2:30am and the other at some point on Friday. And it hit me: this is like having a mini-Blockbuster attached to my TV. These movies are pretty new and all I have to do is scroll ahead to see what will be on, press a button, and that’s it — free movies.

I haven’t figured out how far I can take this since I don’t have an external hard drive or if the DVR box has any kind of security measures to prevent it, but eventually I think I could store these movies somewhere if my box gets full. This would give me a virtual library of movies (in HD, mind you) that don’t take up shelf space like DVDs do. This “saving” part of it isn’t that important to me — once I watch a movie it’s usually enough, I don’t need to see it twice. But that frugal part of me is again trying to get something more out of this added expense to make it more “worth it.”

Does anyone else have any tricks like this, whether it’s with DVR or any other service? I can’t believe it took me a few months to figure this out and put it into practice. What am I, Stupid?