Hrmph. Despite all of my rancor a few weeks ago about the deal between Warner Brothers and Netflix to deprive users of new releases, I can't honestly say it's made a huge difference in my rental activity. It's possible that this is because I haven't been keeping track of "big" releases from team Warners coming soon (can anybody? that's not sarcasm so much as an honest query. what are their major releases now that the holidays are over?)

The other determining factor may have something to do with what I've been renting instead. Truth be told, the movies I have at home are kind of a mixed bag, and none of them are from the Studio of the Shield. Right now I have Land of the Lost, The Girlfriend Experience, and The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard at home. Aside from a few people telling me to rent the former and the latter, I'm not really sure why they're here. I haven't been able to talk myself into watching either of them at the moment, especially when better fare like Blood Simple is waiting in the wings.

As for The Girlfriend Experience, I already watched the movie once on Instant Viewing, and checked out the disc for the commentary track and "alternate version", which it turns out isn't so radically different. I need to send that back, and I think Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma is atop the queue.

*edit* I just went and checked WB's Blu-Ray site, and I honestly couldn't find one major release in the next month or two. This makes their ploy all the more confounding, and I wonder if it really is tied to some asinine plan on New Line's part to force people to buy The Lord of the Rings theatrical cuts on Blu-Ray instead of renting them first. That's pretty cheesy.

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The Cap'n cannot vouch for Ti West's The House of the Devil at this time; I hear good things, put the trailer up yesterday because it looked cool, but I haven't seen it yet. Beyond the good buzz for the film, which is a throwback to early 80s style horror with Tom Noonan, Dee Wallace, and Mary Woronov, Dark Sky Films came up with a pretty ingenious marketing gimmick for old school horror fans:

That's right. In addition to DVD and Blu-Ray releases, Amazon is currently selling a DVD combo pack that comes with a VHS copy of the film in the old clamshell packaging. This warms my heart, as it reminds me of my beaten up tape of Return of the Living Dead, but what's more fun is that they slapped the Gorgon Video logo in front of the film. Because a particular segment of this readership might not be old enough to remember, Gorgon video is chiefly remembered for putting out the Faces of Death "films" on VHS, a staple of the "do you dare try to rent this" horror shelf selection.

I have to admit that as gimmicks go, it's almost good enough for me to order a copy. I do still have a VCR, and it might be fun to throw on The House of the Devil at a future Fest without telling people when it was made. I wonder what the VHS quality looks like. For once, I hope it's a pan-and-scan, which I never thought I'd hear myself say.

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Off to bed. You boys and girls behave.