Red Box

Is it just this little corner of heaven, or are these Red Box things sprouting up all over the place?

Yours truly stumbled across one today during a run to ye olde neighborhood grocery store.

Thought I'd give it a try.

Amazingly simple.

Almost TOO simple.

Must be why Blockbuster and Netflix are hurting so much lately . . .

For more info, check out www.redbox.com

Cheers.

Feeling a little irresolute . . .

Nothing like being a day late to start off 2010, but I was too busy with out-of-town company this past week to worry much about compiling any list of resolutions for the new year.

I really don't put much stock in them, anyway.

Probably, because I don't have the greatest record of checking-off the items on them.

But, for auld lang syne sake, I decided to give it one more whirl today.

How sad is it that the most-ambitious-yet-still-achievable thing I could come up with was to clean out my car?!

I mean, I even scratched out the second half of the original draft of that resolution. (Which was, "and keep it cleaned-out!")

I think I'm just gonna set this fruitless task to the side for the moment, and pop in one of the Netflix DVD's that arrived in the mail . . .

Pass the popcorn!

Twin Cage Flicks

Well, ye socks, this week Netflix sent me two random movies because they apparently didn't have enough copies of the ones I actually wanted to watch.

So, what were the odds that both would star Nicholas Cage?

Perhaps it is symbolic of Nick's career, but one was pretty good and the other was absolute crap.

The crap was "Ghost Rider," based on the Marvel comic series of the same name. Ironically, I thought it was going to be the better of the two based on the supporting cast:

• Eva Mendes is smoking as the love interest.
• Peter Fonda plays The Devil. What's not to like about that casting?!
• Sam Elliott is an undead Texas Ranger who sold his soul over a century ago and serves as a mentor.

There were also a couple of familiar faces--you know, those character actors you recognize but don't know their names offhand. Two of my favorites were Brett Cullen, who plays Nick's dad but is also on just about every CBS drama I watch from "NCIS" to "The Ghost Whisperer" (and was also Alan Alda's running mate on the last season of "The West Wing"); and Donal Logue, whom you may remember from his fairly recent lackluster series "Grounded for Life," but also appears in "The Patriot" alongside Mel Gibson.

Anyway, it's pretty sad when all you can say about "Ghost Rider" is what the cast did *before* they ended up in this stinker. Sure, there's some ok special effects here and there, some explosions, etc. But, at the end of the day, I didn't buy into the overall concept at all. Not worth watching a second time, probably not worth watching the first time.

Okay, now to the second Cage flick, the one I thought would be a stinker but actually turned out to be pretty good: "Next".

Again, the supporting cast is good. Jessica Biel plays the love interest, and Julianne Moore plays an FBI agent who's trying to track them down. Add in some chase scenes, explosions, and an opening sequence in Vegas, and what's a guy not gonna like, right?!

The premise is good in "Next," too. Cage plays a cheesy lounge magician who has the ability to see 2 minutes into the future, and the feds want him to help them locate a nuclear bomb the Russian mob has hidden somewhere in LA.

Bottom line: skip "Ghost Rider," but check out "Next."

I'm going back to Netflix

That's right, ye socks, I'm giving up my blockbuster.com account.

I have enjoyed their service for years, but lately they've been cutting the little things that gave them an edge over the competition.

The plan I *had* until this afternoon, would allow you to return the DVD's you got in the mail to the nearest store for exchange.

This was tremendously convenient, especially since my Blockbuster is within walking distance of my home.

Until just recently, upon aforementioned exchange of DVD's, blockbuster.com would automatically send out the next title(s) in my queue.

Not anymore!

They won't send anything out until you return the movies you check out of the store. This creates a lag time, an unnecessary lag time in my opinion. And, it makes them no better than Netflix.

So, doing the math, it makes sense to save the $3 extra I was paying for the convenience that isn't there anymore, and take my business to the competition.

Ain't the free market economy grand?!

Well, the portions of it that the hope-and-change drivelers haven't gotten a hold of (yet) are still pretty grand, anyway . . .