“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is a funny film. At least I think it is. I only managed to get about 45 minutes into it before my Blu-ray player sounded like it was grinding corn for the day’s tortillas.
Lo and behold, upon inspecting the disc, a crack near the edge. So I used the handy “Report a Problem” link on the Netflix site, and they’re sending me out a new one tomorrow. End of story, right?
Well, it would be, except that this happened to me two weeks ago with a copy of “Hancock.” The replacement Netflix sent out worked fine, so I managed to finish watching that one. (It was about half of really good movie, but that’s a story for a different blog post.) I didn’t think anything of it at the time — but now that it’s happened to me twice, I had to use the Google to find out if something is amiss.
Sure enough, there are plenty of annecdotes about cracked Blu-rays from Netflix. When pressed, Netflix apparently blames the Post Office for mishandling the discs. The Post Office apparently blames Netflix for using crappy paper envelopes for shipping the discs. They’re probably both right. All I know is that it’s enough of an inconvenience that the missus thinks I should drop Blu-rays and only order regular DVDs from Netflix. Cooler heads prevailed, but Netflix should take note: Since you’re charging extra for these things, you should probably find a way to have them delivered properly.
Edit (04/21/09): Replacement copy of “Forgetting Sarah Marshal,” also cracked.
Edit (04/24/09): Replacement of replacement copy of “Forgetting Sarah Marshal,” also cracked. Netflix customer service gave me a Post Office number and basically told me to bitch to them.
Edit (04/28/09): Replacement of replacement copy of replacement copy of “Forgetting Sarah Marshal,” also cracked. I’ve switched to DVD-only. If anyone knows how to contact Netflix executives to express displeasure, please let me know.
Edit (04/29/09): I thought I was going to get a DVD, but my Blu-ray subscription runs through the end of the month. So they sent me another cracked Blu-ray.
Edit (05/02/09): Another day, another cracked copy of “Forgetting Sarah Marshal.” This time, I didn’t ask for a replacement.