Thursday, April 21, 2011

R is for Redbox and Randall

Redbox. The last man standing. Blockbuster and Hollywood video are gone. In my lifetime I saw the rise and fall of video rental stores. I remember when my family would rent the video player, in a metal cage, and a few precious movies for the weekend. It was a big deal because we could watch movies that we otherwise would have to wait to see when it was a Special Feature on TV.
Redbox came-- no employess, no big facility overhead, (no selection)... and that was that. The last remnants of a dying technology that will give way to Netflicks and all things digital soon enough.

AND... R is for Randall from Monsters Inc. He's on my mind because my youngest son is obsessed with him right now. Jack runs around insisting that he is Randall. I'm pretty sure it's because Randall is the creepy , bad monster in the movie and the best way to not fear him is to be him.


It's a study in psychology, really. Do we sometimes become our worst fears--or make our worst fears come true with negative thoughts--so that they won't take us by surprise or destroy us if they do happen? Because if you "knew it" or "meant to do that" then it isn't scary and we have control of it. Right?
If you can't beat it--join it?
Hmmm...
Are the things that scare you reoccurring themes in your life? If so-- maybe you are inviting them.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

If it were not for Redbox, my Friday nights would be even more lame. Or, maybe I would actually go out and do something FUN!

Olivia J. Herrell, writing as O.J. Barré said...

I love Redbox. From your post it sounds like we're of the same era. I remember having to leave notes to let people know where you are. No cell phones. No computers, either, for that matter. Much less an iPhone!

My greatest fear is being alone. Guess what. I am. Of course I also crave alone time. Such paradoxical beings are we.

Great post, that rebel, Olivia

Wendy@FabNouveau said...

Wow, you are dredging up some memories here. I can remember when we use to record on VHS. And we were the it, because not many in our community had them. LOL, nostalgic

Patricia A. Timms-McGehee said...

I still can't believe Redbox is it. I've been getting movies in the mail from Blockbuster for so long that I didn't realize all their brick and mortars were going by the wayside. I went to visit my mom in Utah and kept saying, "Let's go find something to watch at Blockbuster." She kept saying, "They pretty much all closed down."
I made her pull out her Yellow Pages, haha! Remember those? I've been inside my own computer for so long I couldn't believe what was going on outside the digital world.

And the second part of your post is so true. Life is what you make of it. Great post!

TS Hendrik said...

I'm of the belief that video stores will start coming back eventually the way record stores have come back. There are so many movies that never made the jump from VHS to DVD that are in danger of being lost forever. And I think that's where we'll start to see a market forming.

Love Monsters Inc. such a great film.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I think our Blockbuster is still there, but I've been a NetFlix user for years.
Hope you got some attention from my post earlier this week about your husband's new movie!

Theresa Milstein said...

I'm a big fan of Red Box. But I received a Netflix subscription for Hanukkah, and I have to say, it's been great. The instant queue has been great as a teacher too.

Tricia J. O'Brien said...

Soon DVDs will be gone and all will be streaming. I like my DVDs! I get most of my movies from Netflix these days.