The Broke Movie Fanatic

I love movies.  While I was in high school I went and saw at least one movie each weekend.  Well, if anything good was out.  The summer and Christmas were the absolute best.  There was always something to see and I in my younger years did not really care that I was shelling out around $11 a week to fund my obsession.

Sometimes the movies were not that great...

Over a year ago, I started hanging out with this cute boy who also loved movies.  We saw everything together.  Monday night for FHE was a movie, Tuesday was movie night, Wednesday was ward movie night, Thursday was TV night because The Office was on and I would not miss that, Friday was date night which involved going to the movies and then it was the weekend which involved more movies.

Then, I got engaged.

I've been told that it's important to have some sort of outlet, and unfortunately I picked a rather expensive outlet.  The summer passed and I only saw a couple of movies that came out because my family took me to see them.  Gone were the days of jumping in my car and frivolously spending money on days out with my friends.  Gone were the days where my fiancé and I would splurge to make sure that we were caught up on the latest and greatest films.  Christmas and my wedding came and I watched my list of movies that I wanted to see grow longer and longer, but married life leaves little money for movies.

What can a couple of poor married college students do to keep funding their obsession?  Thankfully, new technology has helped cut the cost of watching movies with a little patience of course.

When I was little, my mom would take me to Blockbuster on Friday nights to pick up movies to watch during the weekend.  I can remember wandering the shelves and finding VHS tapes to bring over to my mom who was always looking at all of the boring adult movies.  As I grew older, I'd head straight to the new release section where I'd catch up on the movies that my family didn't go see, and finally I reached high school where I was allowed to go see movies all by myself.

Now as a true adult, I've had to come up with another way to watch my movies and that answer has come due to the miracle that is Redbox.  I love Redbox.  Now I can run a block or two to find recently released movies that I've been dying to see for months.  This technology has completely changed my life, and it has changed the movie industry as well.

According to McLuhan's Tetrad, new technology has four impacts on society.  It enhances, obsolesces, retrieves, and reverses.  In the case of the introduction of Redbox, it has enhanced my ability to see movies.  Yes, I do have to wait to see movies until they come out, but when they do come out those movies are just a short walk away from my apartment and just over a dollar, and sometimes free, to rent.  For a broke college student, that has enhanced my movie obsession just as it has enhanced the ability for many other people to see movies because it is now less expensive and with so many kiosks, easier to access.

However, the days that I would spend wandering Blockbuster are now over.  Redbox, with a little help from Netflix, destroyed the idea of the traditional video rental store.  Two of the largest video rental stores, Hollywood Video and Blockbuster are both officially out of business as of the end of 2013.  These stores have been completely obsolesced by the introduction of a cheaper alternative.

Now that I among many other people wait to watch movies once they come out on DVD because they are so much cheaper, one type of business is starting to become more relevant again, the dollar theater.  There wasn't a reason to go to the dollar theater before I stopped going to the theaters and paying full price because I had already seen everything.  The dollar theater was for repeat watches, that's it.  Now that theater has been retrieved because it offers the inexpensive prices that Redbox offers along with the theater experience.  If I go to the movies now, it's the dollar theater.  Thank goodness for that dollar theater or else I would never be able to see Gravity in 3D for $4.

Lastly when pushed to the extreme, Redbox becomes those old video rental stores.  If you keep a movie longer than 24 hours, charges begin to add up.  A three day rental at Blockbuster was around the same price as a three day rental at Redbox.  You still have to return your movie at a specific time to avoid those overcharges, but if you think about it, Redbox is Blockbuster with a smaller selection and a much, much smaller staff.

Even though waiting for movies to come out on DVD is tough, I still adore Redbox.  Thanks to them, I can still be a movie fanatic during these financially tight times.