A quick recap: REDBOX ROULETTE is a continuing series of articles where we rent $1 DVDs from those ubiquitous red boxes located at Walmart, McDonalds, and wherever fine cuisine is served. The only stipulation is that the film we choose must be one we have never, ever, EVER heard of.

But there’s a twist this week: instead of picking the film out myself, my lovely wife Kristena made the selection. Not only does she run her own craft-tacular website called Thimbly Things, which is cuteness incarnate, she also is quite the witty writer (I know, I’m biased, so sue me). We sparred back and forth over email on the film, and our interaction forms the article this week. My words in black, hers in red.

So your favorite genre in the whole wide world is horror films. Oh, wait, it isn’t. Which is why I thought it odd that you brought back The Tattooist, an obvious horror film, when you could have picked out anything your little heart felt like seeing.

This is what happens when you’ve been up since 7 am with babies and then decide to go to the grocery store at 10:30 in the pm. By the time I was at the Redbox, it was nearly midnight, I had a cart full of food, and I had no idea what I was doing.

Okay. Do I slide my card first? Am I supposed to press a button on the box? Oh, it’s a touchscreen. Alright. Not exactly like a Coke machine. Got it.

It was all downhill from there.
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Note: This is part of an ongoing series. One of us goes to a Redbox DVD rental, picks a movie, and writes about it. The movie has to be one we’ve never heard of.

This NOT clip art. These were the ACTUAL RINGS!!! (Just in case you thought I was lazy.)

It all started when my brother got married. My lovely wife and I drove up from Tulsa, OK to Kansas City in order to take part in the festivities. And festivities there were. Most of them involved me standing at the front of a church in a moderately ugly tuxedo. Man, were my feet sore. But alas, this is the price we pay to get rid of our loved ones. (Note to my bro: I keed! I keed!)

Anyway, the whole thing went off without a hitch. Or, with a hitch, as it were. Vows were exchanged, pretty dresses were worn, unnecessary photographs were taken, dances that were popular ten years ago were danced, and an enormous cake was cut and duly shoved into the couple’s faces. The whole nine yards. And also there was a chocolate fountain. Those things are awesome.

Hey, where are you going? I promise, I’ll say something about a movie soon. Real soon. Keep reading, you’re just getting to the good part.
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Redbox Roulette is a continuing series of columns where we delve into the wonders of the magical box, the only rule being that we can never have heard of the selected movie. I know, I know, that’s crazy talk. But at MovieZeal, we take the risks so you don’t have to. No need to thank us. We do it for the children.

After previous comments by Redbox apologists, I chose to sample the box’s online capabilities. For some reason I’ve been unable to get The Deaths of Ian Stone out of my head (which I was denied my first time around), so I set the internets to work on finding me a copy. Redbox.com is surprisingly robust, and it quickly found every box in the area that had a copy of the film. The closest one was at a Sam’s Club across town, so I purchased the rental online and hopped in my sweet pimp-mobile (i.e., a dull grey Hyundai Elantra with too much bird poop on the windshield).

Seeing as my car ride probably cost twice as much as the actual DVD rental, I might have been a bit more patient, but “patience” and “practical” are not two words I would use to describe my filmwatching habits. When I want to see a film, dadgummit I’m going to see that film no matter how much ludicrously priced fuel it takes. My enthusiasm, however, is usually based on critical reception or premise or a director’s previous work, but in this case it was based on nothing more than a marginally interesting DVD cover. Ah common sense, I know thee not.
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Note: This is the latest entry in a regular MZ column. The rules are simple: The writer has to go to a Redbox automated DVD rental and select a movie. Then he has to watch it and write something funny and/or profound about the experience. The only stipulation? The movie has to be one he’s never heard of.

I have a confession to make: I’d never used a Redbox before this. The very idea of renting a movie from a machine seemed bizarre to me, if not downright scary. Machines are there to sell you things—candy bars, life insurance, used panties—not rent things to you. The very thought is absurd—I can’t rent a car or a tuxedo from a machine; why should I rent a movie from one? Entering into such a transaction means that eventually, I’ll have to return the item to the box—which, of course, makes me beholden to a machine. Is there any denying that these things are yet another step towards the looming robot dictatorship? One moment I’m pulling 2 Fast 2 Furious out of a little slot; the next, Laurence Fishburne will be handing me a little red pill.

And yet—they have such pretty colors…
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Perhaps you’ve seen them. The large, ubiquitous red boxes hanging out in the shadowed corners of Wal-Mart or McDonalds or any other pedestrian-saturated destination, boldly advertising $1 DVD rentals. Perhaps, like me, you scoffed. What true cinephile would get his films out of a vending machine like a cheap piece of Laffy Taffy? Check that snobbery, for the Redbox holds (cough) untold delights within its ruddy depths.

Redbox Roulette will be a new, semi-regular column where we dive into the world of the scarlet container, boldly going where no rational film lover would go, and delivering our discoveries (the good, the bad, and the ugly) to you. These columns will be more like personal essays than critical reviews, delineating our experiences plumbing the murky abyss of the Redbox. There is only one rule: the film we choose must be completely foreign to us. It doesn’t matter how we reach the decision (instinct, blindfold, darts, cage match to the death), but the chosen flick must be one we’ve never heard of.
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