Movie theater previews are at the top of the list. A ten out of ten. Trailers on a DVD are all the way, the other way. They’re just a roadblock. Every low-budget movie that would normally, and rightfully, fall through the cracks, gets its two minutes of pub (publicity) on your latest rental. Press the DVD Menu button and it’ll say “Function Not Permitted.” It won’t let you skip it all and go straight to the movie. Not permitted? It’s my DVD player and I rented the DVD, right? But these guys, they make you go the long way around and skip each preview chapter by chapter which can be pretty nerving. I don’t know if there’s anything you can really do about it. This frustration is not the reason I hardly rent movies, but I don’t need this stress. I’m a theater man, I always have been. I saw a RedBox tonight, though and, well, here we are.
On a side note, the movie I rented was 50 Dead Men Walking, a story loosely based in fact about a mole in the IRA in Belfast. I love other cultures and I’ve watched plenty of BBC America, but the dialogue in this movie, the Belfast dialect, really comes at you quick. With some embarrassment I hit the subtitle button. All that came out was Spanish.