The Big Felafel

Netflix arrives Israeli style at DVD Yashir, plus 12 Movie mini-reviews

Slowly, but surely, Israel is catching up with the convenient services available in America like supermarket deliveries, second-hand marketplaces, and most recently, unlimited movie rentals through the mail with DVD Yashir.

In the notorious style of Hebrew websites, DVD Yashir sports the required scrolling text and flashing images, but at least it works in Firefox.

If you can get past the distractions and navigate your way through the site, you’ll learn that they sell and rent movies, and claim to be offering video rental in the “American style” with different fixed monthly rental plans. The cheapest plan costs 19 shekels for the first month and then 59 shekels for every month after that but doesn’t seem to include new releases. They let you keep a movie as long as you like and request new movies as often as you like, and like Netflix, it runs through the mail. But, let’s play this scenario out logistically in Israel. Just thinking about finding the nearest mailbox that would fit a dvd or attempting to go to the post office at a time when it’s open is starting to give me an anxiety attack.

While this service does seem to be promising, I’m a little skeptical of the reliability and convenience of the Israeli post office/mailbox thing and 59 shekels seems like quite a lot to shell out each month considering the dvd machine near my house is 16 shekels. So only if I rent more than 4 movies a month does it start to become worth it. I think I’ll stick to watching movies online for free.

Mini Movie Reviews

If you decide to try out the service, here are some mini movie reviews to give you some ideas of what to rent — or what not to rent. Continue reading this entry »