redbox

This new thing call redbox is pretty cool.

They have ‘em at McDonalds, Albertsons, Wal-Mart . . . and probably some other places as well although I don’t know where they all are.

Anyway, you rent movies from the red box! It’s that simple. Walk up to the “vending machine,” use the touch screen, scroll through the movies and pick the one you want.

Then slide your card through, and voila! you have a movie to take home. It costs $1. What? Yes. It really only costs $1. Get new releases for $1. Yes, you heard me right. $1. For a new release at Hollywood, I think it’s around $4.50. Hmmmm. $4.50 or $1? It’s a tough decision, but I think I’ll go with redbox.

Another advantage of redbox is that you can pick your movie from home. Go to redbox.com, scroll through the movies, pick one you like and find the location that has it, pay with your credit card, drive to the redbox location, click the “pick up an online rental” button, slide your card and your movie’s vended. Pretty slick.

If you bring your movie back before 9 P.M. the next day, your movie only costs $1. If you pass the 9 P.M. deadline, your movie costs another buck. If you wait 25 days, the movie’s yours – for $25. So, all in all, I think this is about the best thing to happen in the movie rental world, in, like, ever.

Will redbox ruin Hollywood Video or Blockbuster? Who knows? But I know they’ve lost my business, at least when I’m in the market for a new release. At the very least, hopefully, this’ll get them to wake up and lower their prices a bit.

Tell everyone you know about redbox. Blog about it. Talk about it. Write about it. Email about it. Let’s get those big stores to lower their prices.

Sorry, Ketchikanites, you don’t have a redbox up there (at least not yet). Maybe you should write redbox and tell ‘em you want one up there.