BIGGIE'S PLACE

Warning: EXPLETIVE-FILLED NETFLIX RANT AHEAD:

LOOK AT THE PHOTO CLOSELY BEFORE READING (click on it for full-size version).

A few weeks ago, I had the Netflix “rental” version of Fast Five at home. I watched the movie for a refresher before I did my end-of-year movie awards, and decided I wanted check out some of the special features, which are all there and listed for my browsing pleasure. It looked like there was some cool stuff. Except…when you go to click on them, THAT little error message (as seen in the photo above) comes up, basically saying, “You wish you could watch this special feature, don’t you, movie nerd? In your fucking dreams. You wanna watch the director’s commentary, get off your ass, go to the store and spend $30 on the REAL Blu-ray, not this piece of shit rental version. You’re lucky we even put the movie on this disc, asshole. THIS IS BLAH-ZEEL.”

O, RLY, Universal Pictures? This is how you treat your customers? It’s bad enough I have to wait 4 weeks to rent the movie-only version after it comes out to purchase. God forbid you cut me some slack, someone who makes the fucking effort to see all the movies I can IN THEATERS. I PAID to see this movie TWICE in theaters. I enjoyed it both times and recommended it to my friends. I did you a favor and supported the film, and THIS is how I get treated? With a special features cock tease? Motherfuckers.

At least with the cheapo Warner Bros. rental Blu-rays you can’t even look at the special features. It’s just PLAY – SCENES – OPTIONS, and sometimes you can’t even choose scenes. At least they’re direct. It’s, “Watch the fuckin movie and send it back. Simple enough, neanderthal?” I can respect that honesty, even if it is ultra cheapo. They don’t fucking tease you with this “Here’s what special features you WOULD be choosing from if only you’d BOUGHT the movie instead of renting it!” bullshit. Motherfuckers. If I just wanted to see a list of the goddamn special features, I’d have Googled that shit. If I see a list of features on a disc that’s currently in my Blu-ray player, I expect when I click on one of those features that it’ll fucking play it, not tell me to go screw myself with a pike.

And this isn’t Netflix’s fault. This is the studios’ desperation due to declining DVD sales over the past few years. If you want the full package the day it’s released, you have to buy it. Otherwise, you have to wait 4 weeks for it to get to Netflix/Redbox, and even then the odds of getting special features on the Netflix versions are now about 50/50. Yet it’s still strange. Other Universal titles I’ve rented from Netflix recently (Hanna and The Debt to name a couple) have had ALL of their special features on the rental disc. Why some and not others? Where’s the consistency? I guess it’s only the movies that made a shitload of money in theaters where they feel they can screw you in the ass because you’ll be more inclined to buy it. Motherfuckers.

Basically, people like me, purists who prefer the image/sound quality of the Blu-ray discs over what you get with faux-HD “streaming” with no features whatsoever, are fucking screwed in this new age of streaming, buffering, cloud storage “I’m lazy, I can’t wait, give it to me now” crapola. I’m sorry, but for some of us QUALITY > CONVENIENCE. Call me old-fashioned.

How about instead of cutting the special features out, you cut out the 9 dated trailers I can’t skip through. Scarface is coming out on Blu-ray for the first time? WOW! Oh wait, no, that came out back in October. Morons. Or how bout cutting the promo from 4 years ago telling me Blu-ray is the future. I just LOVE fast forwarding through those at 32x speed. That’s not a complete waste of time or anything. Motherfuckers.

They may as well have had that text over a picture of Dwayne Johnson giving me a giant middle finger. That wouldn’t have been much more rude or dickheaded. Motherfuckers. Don’t list all the fucking special features if I can’t watch any of them! Simple courtesy. So simple it should go without saying! I want my fucking commentary, my fucking behind-the-scenes breakdowns of the action sequences, my fucking gag reel, and my fucking deleted scenes that were probably deleted for good reason! Motherfuckers!

Rant over.