Saturday, January 21, 2012

I Now Officially Hate RedBox


Technological advancements are all fine and dandy.
Compacting and streamlining a Blockbuster video down into the size of an ATM is wonderful.
Eliminating the need for me to talk to video-store clerks named Clint Westwood (this is another story) is another step in the right techno-hermit direction.
Waiting for the fat and the old to figure out: A. What movie they want to see, or B. How to operate Redbox makes me want to throw living human beings into spinning cement mixers filled with glass.
I HATE REDBOX.

A full fifty percent of the US population is not ready for RedBox.

If you go to the local supermarket on a typical Thursday evening because your spouse wants to see a movie, and you see an overweight bleach-blonde mom with sweatpants, two small children and a floral/viney tattoo-thing on her wrist operating the big red telephone-booth, beware: that bitch is gonna be there forever.
You might as well go the the part of the store that has birthday cards and those erasers that fit over the ends of pencils, get a pen and a spiral notepad (college ruled), sketch out a script, write the first and second drafts, get Jerry Bruckheimer on the horn, negotiate with Will Smith's agent, fight to keep his damned kid out of the movie, pay the unions, get one of those cool canvas director's chairs, go on location, avoid Nicolas Cage's phone calls, look scared while Harvey Weinstein yells at you, finally get a release date, go to the premiere with Megan Fox, cringe when your film doesn't make any money, wait for it to be shown on airplanes, get a copy for free from Bruckheimer, take it home and stick the damn thing in the DVD player (Blu-Ray if you are more fancy-pants than me).
These two operations will take the same amount of time.

Why these people are almost always fat, I do not know, I think it has to do with the fact that both things indicate a life of not-giving-a-shit.

I am not even going to mention waiting for old people, which really was the impetus of my whole rant. Yesterday, an old lady snuck in front of my at the 'Box (I was RETURNING a movie, by the way) ran her credit card first, waited, browsed, chose two movies, then turned and asked me, "What's a Blu-Ray?" All within the time of a Galapagos giant tortoise's lifespan.

Would it kill you, Mr. Red Box, to have a separate RETURN slot for those of us who are already so close to the edge?

Death, destruction and mayhem,
FPPInternational

PS. The movie we rented was Colombiana. What a piece of crap. Why does Hollywood Bogota always look like Tijuana?