Between the Spaces

Most everyone has heard of Blockbuster Video simply due to it’s nearly uncontested reign in the movie rental industry throughout the 80’s and 90’s, save for Hollywood Video’s appearance in the mid-90’s. Netflix took the industry by storm in the very late 90’s with it’s never-before-seen online rentals. Renting a movie on the Internet and having it mailed to one’s home was an uncomfortable concept for some, but for others, it was like the movie rental industry had finally reached a place where it would be able to offer services that matched their online life-styles. Blockbuster soon caught wind of this change and followed suit. So, that’s pretty much it regarding the history of each of these two rental giants. Sorry, Hollywood Video, you apparently didn’t want to play this round…

Now we come to who is better and why in what areas. Both obviously have their strengths, they are both doing quite well. Netflix seems to be doing a tad better in the market, but we’ll save that for another article.

I’m going to be focusing on the last two parts of that chart. Why? Two reasons, which tie together quite nicely. 1) Because they are important to me and I’m the author of this blog, that and you’re not here to hear your opinions. 2) Because Blockbuster is just about ready to release the new version of their Online store. It is currently in beta and, I must say, it looks pretty slick. I have no been using it as if yet but plan to from now on.

Netflix has tempted me to try them out on a few occasions due to one thing. They have an API available which many people have taken advantage of and made software, mash-ups and widgets which allow one to control one’s queue from a tool other than the netflix website. If Blockbuster did not allow me to rent movies from their stores as part of my monthly subscription, they would have lost my business a loooong time ago. But they do, so they have been safe. It does not stop me, on the other hand, from liking what I could be doing with Netflix.

So, what does this new beta site have to do with Netflix’s API? It seems as though Blockbuster has finally come into their own and is now providing, at the very least, RSS feeds of their newest movies. They still don’t seem to have a generic feed for their customers’ queues, but I will give them a few months after the new site’s launch to see what happens. It could very easily be done securely, it’s really just a matter of whether or not they want to put forth the effort.

There is something wrong when we as consumers pay around $7 to $8 for a movie ticket, $5 to $10 for concessions, after which we are subjected to 15 to 20 minutes of commercials (the average amount for an hour long television show in the US). We’ve paid how much money to be shown an hour or two of video only to be advertised to more?!

I understand that a theater makes almost no money from the ticket sales themselves and rely mostly on the concession sales to stay afloat. I can live with that. Okay, sell me consessions that would normally cost a quarter of what you’re selling them to me for if I were to purchase them myself. For the sake of the arguement, say we’re all going to accept that. Now, they’re not making much off of any individual. That does suck. Why are they not making much? Is it because they’re not receiving much revenue from each customer? Not at all! We know that an individual pays between $10 to $18 for the ticket and concessions. That’s by no means cheap! So where’s the leak?

There has to be something wrong in the movie theater industry when a movie-goer is paying that much money and the theator industry is still not making a large enough profit to keep commercials out of the theater. The problem seems to be obvious: give more from the ticket sales to the theater. The whole thing is not quite right. But what can we do? I personally only go see the movies I wish to promote regarding box-office numbers anymore. I hate paying to see commercials with a passion. My wife and I even have a DVR so we can fast-forward through commercials. Are there enough of us out there to make a difference if we spoke out through our actions? Please, make your opinion known!

With all of the recent video game-based movies which have been popping onto the scene lately, the Xbox classic Halo, originally released in 2001, has joined in on this new trend.

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As if the first game was not popular enough, Microsoft released a second game in this apparent series: Halo 2. The even higher popularity of this sequal has apparently made the splash necessary to catch the attention of movie makers. (more…)

In 2002, a television series called Firefly was born. It didn’t last beyond the first season though, due to a lack of interest. Strangely, the series has been picking up speed since its cancelation, not losing it.

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Wendy and I had a short stop over in Dallas/Ft Worth which left us bored in the terminal for about 45 minutes. It was nice to be on the ground at least. As we sat there eating our Wendy’s cheeseburgers, I noticed someone who looked a lot like Kirk Cameron (IMDB). I was taken back a little, but Wendy confirmed that it did look like him. Well, turns out that it was him!

Poor guy… how do you get from one place to another with everyong gawking at you!? I’d hate to be a well known movie actor for that reason alone. Well, I HAD to try to get a picture or two, but in effort to respect his privacy, I didn’t want to make it obvious. So, to that end, I got two crappy images since I left my flash off and never took a picture when he was looking right at us.

Overall, quite exciting. Yet somehow, it was even more satisfying that we saw him and didn’t disturb him. He looked like he was in the middle of a very long day. I’m sure the last thing he wanted was gawking fans. I hope he had a better day after that… (more…)