4 for 10

Last weekend I went to Blockbuster.

For those of you who don't know, Blockbuster is a film rental shop in the UK, pretty much the only main film rental shop chain that still exists in these times of online film rental, on demand downloads and cheap-as-chips retailers where you can buy the stuff for 99p more than to rent it.

But I still like going to Blockbuster. I like the whole experience of browsing through the boxes, maybe even buying some popcorn or ice-cream from the big fridges. I also love the ridiculous special offers that they love to run (desperate times and all that). Some of them are ridiculous in a bad way, like the loyalty card which expires after 60 days. Others are fabulously ridiculous: the 4 movies for £10 offer being my favourite.

Me: How much is three movies?
Them: £12. You can keep them for one night per film you rent.
Me: So, 3 nights? So, wait, how much would 4 films be?
Them: Um... £10.
Me: For four nights?
Them: yes. Oh, and by the way, your loyalty card has expired.

So although I originally went in for one film, and then the people I was with got distracted by another film, and then my eye was caught by a third film I've wanted to watch for a while, and then we were pretty much done, I simply had to get a fourth film. So I chose one that I'd heard was very good, but never particularly wanted to see.

The first film we watched together. Or rather, I was coerced into watching He's Just Not That Into You despite heavily protesting since its release months ago that this looked like the exact type of film I would never want to watch.

What a pile of misogynistic crap. Just way too long a film filled with normally very good or good or OK actors in an unintentionally, horribly, depressing film. And not even in a high-brow arty way like the next film I watched, the one I picked out last to get the £2 off and the extra night.

Rachel Getting Married turned out to be the best film I watched out of the four.

Still, the main character in He's Just Not That Into You definitely had a better haircut than Anne Hathaway's character. I really want short hair right now.

The other film I wanted to watch, Religulous, turned out to be a disappointment. Personally, hopefully I won't offend anyone here, I loved the idea of a movie which agreed with me even down to the title that religion is ridiculous.

That doesn't mean that I don't find religion also absolutely fascinating, and I love studying and hearing about it. So I was very excited about this film, and also to hear a bit of knowledgeable atheist talking, as most of the interesting and informative religion-related material out there always seems to be written/presented by devout believers.

Instead I was treated to an irritatingly unsubtle and manipulative insulting of all religion for two hours. All the believers were complete freaks and, of course, all the captions and narration and editing was done by smart arse atheists.

On the fourth night, I didn't bother watching the first film I took out.