All you can Alcatraz

I have a mild fascination with Alcatraz.

A couple years ago I felt the urge to re-watch Escape to Alcatraz.

I prefer old-school styles of movie watching, including going to a movie rental store and renting an actual hardcopy disque.
Unfortunately my local Blockbuster didn't have stock of all movies created in the 70s. So I was out of luck.
I quickly forgot about the movie and rented Indiana Jones instead. 

Fast forward to present day.

There's a small independent movie store close to where I live. The chances that it would have this particular Eastwood film were pretty slim, but I still had high hopes.
I walk over to the store around 8pm on a Friday night.
It was closed.


Are you kidding me? 

It was at this point that I decided to take my movie renting up a notch.
It's not like this movie is going to be around forever! I need to watch it before it disappears!

So I jumped on the iTunes movie renting bandwagon. (Wait, is it a bandwagon? is anyone renting via iTunes?)

During the renting process I noticed that there is a free Alcatraz iPhone app!
For Alcatraz nerds enthusiasts.

by Geoki

It describes the history and lore around Alcatraz and escape attempts. There are also movie trailers and Alcatraz-related videos.

Josh & Chuck from the Stuff You Should Know podcast did an episode on Alcatraz not too long ago.




I think that's what reminded me to watch the movie.

Here's another free app, "Alcatraz Breakout".

This one's a game.

Is it just me, or is this kind of creepy?

Maybe I'm just a bit somber about Alcatraz at the moment. Escape from Alcatraz reminded me that aside from being this unique prison on an island, it was in fact a real prison. People did live and die there.

And I can't get that finger chopping scene out of my mind.
creeepy.