I own a copy of this poster, framed, and signed by Kirs Kristofferson, Ernest Borgnine, and C.W. McCall. I am very proud of this.

On my bookshelf, there’s an old VHS tape with a faded, hand-written label. It says, “Convoy, 1st Gen.” This is because in 2000, when I tracked down and rented a copy of the 1978 Sam Peckinpah movie, after years of searching, I was so excited that I made two copies of it. Then I made another six copies off of those two copies, and gave them away to friends. (I am blessed with the sort of friends for whom a bootleg copy of Convoy is a great gift.) Anyway, the “1st Gen” on the copy I’m looking at indicates that this one was dubbed right from the original. I’ve lugged it from apartment to apartment over the last ten years, even though I haven’t always had access to a VCR.

But I probably won’t ever watch it again. If I wanted to see Convoy now (and I kind of do, after writing the last paragraph), I could just put it on the top of my Netflix queue. They’d send me a nice new DVD that would look ten times better than my old videotape. Actually, I don’t even have to wait for the DVD. Convoy is currently a “Watch It Now” movie on Netflix, so I can stream it right to my computer. Or I can use my XBox to watch it on my TV. And if I wanted to buy it, the DVD is $13 via Amazon.

This is simultaneously awesome, and a teeny bit sad.

It’s easy to forget that only 15 years ago, finding a movie was a very different experience.

As much as I’d like to, I can’t take credit for the nitpicky complaint that follows – it was pointed out to me years ago by an old co-worker of mine named Jory. And now it seems so glaringly obvious I can’t believe no one making Pirates of the Caribbean noticed.

Specifically, I’m talking about the climactic duel in the first film between Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Here’s the setup: Barbossa and Sparrow are both cursed, and neither can be killed or even injured until the Aztec gold is returned to its chest, along with the blood of the person who took it. There are two pieces of gold still missing: one taken by Will Turner’s father (currently turning into a crustacean on the Flying Dutchman, so Orlando Bloom’s blood will do the trick), and one taken by Jack Sparrow right before the swashbuckling broke out.

Let’s see what unfolds, shall we? Video after the jump.