Petard Hoisting

I'm back. The guy who rambled on about his amazement at technology and prattled about the neatness of his toys is now impaled upon his own petard, sort of.

See, I'm a huge Quentin Tarantino fan. I resurrect Kill Bill I/II from the bookshelf about every three months and immerse myself in five hours of gore. I laugh at the black humor of Pulp Fiction. And I sit in awe at the evil of Reservoir Dogs. That's why I want to see Inglourious Basterds.

I can't though.

The gods of the Blu-Ray world conspire against me in my quest. I don't know why or how they know I will be frustrated, but they do and they succeed in their goal of vexing me deeply.

When IB became available on disc about four months ago, I ordered it from Amazon. When it arrived I popped it in the Panasonic BD player which handles BD 2.0. The logo was displayed and the main menu loop ran nicely. I selected "Play movie" and waited. I saw the studio logo and the warning that the FBI would treat me like an illegal alien in Arizona if I copied the movie I was about to see.

Then the screen went black and the little "Reading disc..." advisory showed in the corner. Then nothing more happened...ever.

I tried again. Same result. Risking insanity, I tried several more times. I packed up the disc and returned it to Amazon. A few days later a replacement arrived.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Shipped it back and got my account credited. Since then, I updated the firmware on my Blu-Ray player. I got the new TV. I joined Netflix. I put Inglourious Basterds in my queue and yesterday it arrived in the mail.

Last night I poured a glass of wine, fired up the equipment, tossed in the disc and got...same old story.

Only this movie behaves this way. Maybe when it comes up on video on demand, I'll try again. Or, maybe the gods are benevolent and protecting me from a really crappy movie?