Hats off to Scott Grill of the Examiner for digging up this little nugget. If you are a fan of the rocker turned film director Rob Zombie, he’s hosting a viewing of The Devil’s Rejects whereby he’ll provide live commentary to an audience of Xboxers. Whether the audience can ask him questions is yet to be determined, but I’m guessing it’s going be a one way conversation so to speak.

While this does sound cool, leave it to Microsoft to screw it up. Here are the hoops that one must jump through to possibly participate:

To participate, download the free Zune Marketplace application if you haven’t already and purchase or rent The Devil’s Rejects. You’ll also need to send a friend request to RobZombie GwF and log on to Xbox Live by 7:30 PM EST. If selected, you’ll get to watch a portion of the movie with Rob Zombie providing director’s commentary.

Seems kind of silly to make this a drawing. If the XBox team are abiding by the Gamertag limits, then only 100 people can listen to the live commentary. Why not let everyone participate? I don’t want to pay five bucks to enter this weird contest. This could have been an excellent promotion but Microsoft in general cannot seem get out of their own way. I think this a corporate problem as opposed to a divisional one, but it sure does rear its head with the XBox division.

That said, I’ve only seen one of Zombie’s film which was his remake of Halloween. I surprised at the slow pace and character development and although I didn’t like the movie, I’d definitely watch other films that he directed. He’s a more than competent director unlike some people who have been doing it for years. See Michael Bay or George Lucas.

If any one does manage to attend this, let me know how it turns out.

Watch a movie with Rob Zombie on Xbox Live this Friday (examiner.com <- new window)