Background
I’ve been encouraged to write more for my own blog, so we’ll see how this goes. Technically speaking, this is actually my second blog. Many, many years ago, I had a very simple website. On Tuesdays of every week I would publish an update that included the movies I’d seen that week, and the movies that had become available to rent on that day. It was a very simple design, and I ran it for about 18 months or so. I only shared the link with a few friends, but I don’t think it ever received all that many hits…certainly less than a dozen per week. Eventually I just stopped updating it.
The problem was this: I love movies…well, that’s not the problem. The problem was that it became difficult for me to watch a movie and think about what it was that I was going to write while doing so. It drove me nuts. As soon as a movie would start, my mind was racing on what it was that I was going to put on the website about that particular movie. The other problem is that I love lots of different things about movies. I don’t really have a favorite genre; I will watch anything although there are some types of movies (rom-coms for instance) that require me to be in a certain mood to watch. Thinking about the words I was going to write while watching a movie just didn’t make the movie going experience all that fun for me anymore, so I stopped the “blog”.
The other problem was that I found myself repeating myself for the movies I was reviewing. And I’m sure that problem will creep up again, but I figure if I just write one or two lines, it will be fine. At least enough to justify whatever rating I happen to give a movie. I’m sure this site will evolve as we go along, though. I’m sure what will be my first review post will definitely not look anything like the 10th or 15th or 100th (assuming we get that far).
The Evolution of Madness
When I was younger, I loved to read. Loved it quite a bit…all the way through most of my college years. I could read three or four books simultaneously, and I would read mostly fiction: thrillers, horror, intrigue, science fiction, fantasy…all the usual types of fiction. My favorite authors were Piers Anthony, David Eddings, Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Stephen King and, well, you get the idea. While I also did watch a ton of movies when I was younger, I didn’t quite get up my current volume of movies watched until my latter years in college.
Tuesdays is when all the new rentals would come out at Blockbuster. So nearly every Tuesday morning I would walk into Blockbuster and rent as many new arrivals that I could…usually 4-5 depending on what was coming out on that particular day. I would spend the entire day watching these movies. This became extremely useful when I got my job at AMD working a compressed shift. Since I had to sleep all day on Wednesday to be at work Wednesday night, I would stay up all Tuesday night watching these movies, turning them back in on my way to work on Wednesday. So my love of reading as many books as I could became a love for watching as many movies as I could.
Incidentally, TWISTER is still the one and only movie I’ve ever rented and watched multiple times (five I think) before turning it in the next day. I don’t know why I loved that movie as much as I did, but yup…that was The One (but not my favorite movie; I’m not giving up the answer to a security question that easily!)
I didn’t have cable in college, and there was only one local station that you could get without it: Fox. So I didn’t watch much television at the time. However, as the years went by post-college, I started picking up more and more television series. I would watch shows that somebody would recommend to me like BUFFY or STARGATE SG-1 or any number of genre shows that came out. As the years have gone by all the way to the present, the number of television shows I watch has gone through the roof. My poor TiVo is currently stuffed full of shows I want to watch or series that I’ve continued to watch over the last few years.
By the way, I was one of those that had both a Netflix account and a Blockbuster account for receiving DVD’s in the mail. I would use Netflix to receive movies and Blockbuster to receive television shows. My wishlist for both was filled to the max!
So basically I went to a love of books to a love of movies to a love of television shows. While I don’t read as much as I used to (although I’m constantly adding books to my Kindle library), I do still watch a lot of movies and a lot of television shows…when I can.
Slow Adoption: Technology, the Drafthouse, Redbox, and Subscription Services
I’ve actually been a little slow to adopt new technology or services…mainly because I was comfortable with what I had. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I was still using a VCR all the way up until 2007, and the only reason I stopped was because both of my VCR’s broke at the same time. That’s when I purchased my first TiVo, and oh how sweet it was. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to record shows without having to set a specific channel like you would with a VCR!! (Yeah, remember that crap?!?) I had actually tried out a DVR that my cable company had given me before that, but it was incredibly unstable. It kept rebooting itself, and it wouldn’t record what I wanted to record. I ended up just turning it back in to Suddenlink. But that TiVo was amazing! Unfortunately it’s also a subscription service since you have to pay a monthly fee to keep using it. Actually, now that I think about it, I really should just buy the lifetime plan…think of how much money I could have saved over the last 11 years!!
The Alamo Drafthouse was a place I had never visited until about 10 years ago, maybe? I had certainly heard about it, but I just never really had any urge to go there. Granted, at the time, I think the only location open was the Ritz downtown (and maybe South Lamar…my knowledge of particular venues is limited), and I hated going to downtown Austin at the time. I have this thing about parking…if I can’t find readily available parking within a minute of arrival, I would just leave. Just a weird quirk (not so much a problem now, but yeah, it was a thing). I wish I could remember the first movie I saw at the Alamo Drafthouse though. At the moment, the title escapes me. But I fell in love. I actually had a rule for the Drafthouse for a while; I wouldn’t go see a first run movie there. I felt that the waitstaff moving back and forth in the theater was way too distracting so I would only see movies I had seen before at least once. Obviously not a problem since they love to feature all sorts of movies there, new and old.
Redbox was also something that was slow for me to adopt, but once I “discovered” it, it became a newfound love! I didn’t start using Redbox until 2011; a friend of mine “introduced” me to it. It soon became what Blockbuster used to be for me. On Tuesdays I would rent as many of the new arrivals as I could…actually I think the max now is four. These days I go to Redbox in spurts. I mean, I’m still a “Legend” in their particular rewards program (have to rent 50 movies in a year to reach that!), but I often go a few weeks without going. But when I do, I rent and watch what I can catch up on…usually movies that I had already seen in the theater but wanted to watch again or movies I just completely missed.
By the way, the trick to Redbox is to reserve a movie from a box after midnight CST (1 AM EST). That gives you the maximum amount of time to keep the movie. If you rent before that, then you have to return it by 9 PM the following night so if you rent at 11:59 PM CST on Tuesday night, you have to return it by 9 PM Wednesday night. However, if you rent it at 12:01 AM CST early Wednesday morning/Tuesday night then you can keep it until 9 PM Thursday night! Love that little trick…
Rolling that thought on adoption of new services forward to the present, though, I was a little slow to adopting MoviePass. I actually had not even heard of MoviePass until last year when they first dropped their subscription price to $9.95. But I wasn’t really interested in it.
A year ago I was living in Upstate New York, Saratoga Springs specifically (or just Saratoga to the locals). Saratoga only had two theaters, and they belonged to Bow-Tie Cinemas. Around July of last year, I paid $20 to upgrade to the Criterion Gold Club. You can read about the program here. A part of me still thinks there was something broken on their website, but it turned out to be the very best rewards program for me. I earned so many free movies, it was ridiculous. I even left New York with one more free movie available on my account that I just didn’t use (too busy getting ready to move I guess).
Of course, I also belong to the Regal Crown Club as a Diamond Member (had to drive to Clifton Park, Colonie, or Albany to get to a Regal theater), the AMC Stubs program (had to drive all the way down to West Nyack for that in New York), Cinemark’s Connections program (no Cinemarks in that part of New York…closest may have been in Hartford, CT) and, of course, the Alamo Victory program (yeah, I made that drive to Yonkers multiple times during my stay in New York! And, oh, by the way, I’m three movies away to achieving Top Brass Status!!) I still think the Bow-Tie rewards program is the best, but since the Gold program is a paid service, and the others are not, I guess you really can’t compare them fairly.
When I moved back to Austin last December, I had a $25 Fandango Gift Card that somebody had given me as a going away present, and I received a $50 gift card to the Drafthouse for Christmas. So I was good for a lot of free movies during that time. However, I had several people tell me that I would be perfect for MoviePass: $9.95/month and you can watch as many movies for “free” as you want. It wasn’t until early May that I finally signed up for that particular service.
But that wait to get my card took forever. The post office lost the first card. I get that e-mail that lets you know what mail you’ll be receiving that particular day. In mid-May, about 10 days after I had signed up, I received an e-mail that I was getting a letter from MoviePass. I rushed to the post office, but it was not in there!! I went to the counter, showed them the e-mail, but they couldn’t tell me where it was. I never did get that letter. I had to call MoviePass to send me another card. It was late May before I received my card…and away I went!
MoviePass is a beautiful thing. Well, at least it was, until recently. Their business model is not exactly the most stable, and they’ve been faced with all sorts of problems most of which I won’t go into here. As it is now, the $9.95/month will get you three free movies plus a $2-$5 discount on any additional movies per month. It’s not ideal, but it does still effectively pay for itself since most non-matinee movies will run you between $11-15 anyway. I just don’t like being limited to just three free movies per month. I average three movies per week!! But I’ll continue to be a MoviePass member…for now.
Oh, and before you say anything about AMC’s Stubs A-List program, there is only one AMC theater in Austin. Since it’s at the mall, they do not have late night showings on weekdays (generally after 9 PM) which is pretty much my preferred time to see a movie. It does sound like a pretty good deal, but I’d rather have more than one AMC theater in town before I start thinking about dumping MoviePass for that.
What’s Next?
This ended up being way longer than I had thought it would when I first sat in front of my keyboard. The point to what I’ve written above is to give you, the reader, a background on where I’m coming from. The people who know me well already know about what I like, but I’m sure there will be plenty of random people coming through with no idea of who I am or what motivates me. And I guess there is still more that I could write, but I’m over 2400 words already (by the way, am I getting paid for this? Who owns this site?)
So this is what I think I’m going to do. Starting tomorrow, I will publish the movies I’ve seen in the theater, from Redbox, or from some streaming service from July 26th until August 15th; it may even be an older movie I see on HBO or at the Drafthouse. I will also post my thoughts and possibly give some kind of rating. Like I said earlier, what I publish tomorrow will probably be way different from what I publish on September 1st on this particular subject or even further out. I’m learning how to do all this blog stuff again, and I imagine there are all sorts of cool things I could be doing with this site. Then on or around September 1st, I’ll publish anything I’ve seen between August 16th and then and on and on. Will see how this goes. I honestly don’t fancy myself to be a good writer, but that’s not for me to decide.