I should have written that last line as follows:
“Still, they are more reliable than most when you want to find a copy of a new release that fits their ridiculous notion of standards.”
I’ll also add that they carry an unbelievable amount of straight-to-video crap, most of which are just excuses for women with breast implants to take off their clothes. That, in itself, wouldn’t be bad, if they carried more “real” films.
Evil, evil franchise, hell bent on parting innocents from their money, and their souls. Willing to spank you and your loved ones, flagellate you till kingdom come, and then stare vacantly at you while you politely inquire about the Griffith section. Fun times. Now on video at a Blockbuster near you!!
Let’s just say that ever since I discovered a Kim’s in the city, I have come to realize just how evil Blockbuster is. (Martha Stewart evil as opposed to simple Osama/Saddam evil.) I would gladly shove Carl (and that other one…the guinea pig) up the rectum of the nearest Blockbuster manager (I said manager, Stccrd, not bitch- er, employee, you can’t kill me!) if I could.
That needed to be said…it really did. For my sanity, if no one else’s.
A video(not a new release DVD or video), just a plain old video that never gets checked out costs $4.29 at my local blocbuster.
I checked out the old video of The Producers and got that price.
Unbelievable.
About four miles away, the other Blockbuster charges about $3.00 for the same video.
Please tell me that after posting this you realized what a stupid question it was.
I’ve been unfortunate enough to frequent two separate Blockbusters until I wised up and remembered that I hated Blockbuster.
Anecdote 1: Years ago, I rented “Lost Boys”, because I like it and I hadn’t seen it in a long time. Pop it in, push play, and the movie starts up as they’re driving past that billboard in the beginning. This is not the first scene in the movie. I stop, hit rewind, and that’s as far as it goes. Tape investigation reveals that it’s some sort of hack job: the coming attractions and about 5 minutes from the beginning of the video are just GONE. Returned it the next day, tell the clerk there about it. He says “It doesn’t work?” I re-explain the exact nature of the problem, and he ends up pulling out the tape from the video, breaking it and trashing it. Next time I went it was about a few months later. I had, like $50 of late fees. Tapebreaker had never documented that we returned the tape. I explained the situation, they let me rent a tape. Next time I went in, they said I owed close to $100. A loud furious rage filled speech about how they were ripping people off on purpose in front of a LONG line of people was the only thing that would make the guy remove the charges.
Anecdote 2: Different Blockbuster, different problem: They only maintained the “New Releases” section and the “Videogames” section of the store. If you asked them why the foreign movies section (which wasn’t huge, but still had some decent movies in it) was in such disarray, they would tell you that nobody really rents movies from there. Of course not, they can’t find anything! Shelves and shelves of movies that were misalphabetized and not in their proper boxes or behind tape-boxes of completely different movies. You just couldn’t find crap, and they didn’t care at all.
Close to my house. Expensive. Mediocre selection of movies.
The single biggest annoyance was mentioned above - that they refused to carry widescreen editions if the WS and the P&S were not on the same disc. Said “more people liked it that way”. However, they have recently reversed their decision, apparently. Unfortunately, it doesn’t erase the fact that they do cater to the lowest common denominator.
I signed on to Netflex and have not gone back to Blockbuster. Better selection and its delivered to my door.
While Blockbuster here doesn’t have the greatest selection, it’s almost exclusively unedited versions of the movies. No cut scenes or pan&scan crap, thank you very much.
Courteous service, slightly higher than average prices and loads of porn (although nothing like the local underground rental place).
shudder
But I think that goes for a lot of the franchises here (no, not the porn). I’ve certainly never encountered or heard of anything like the McD horror stories I read here. 
Petter
Does your Blockbuster have the unrated versions of The Piano Teacher, Sex & Lucia, and Killing Me Softly?
If so, where on earth are you??
Their site only returns Killing Me Softly (required age 15) on VHS & DVD. I haven’t used it before, so I don’t know how accurate/up-to-date it is, but like I said earlier, they don’t have the greatest selection.
The running time is listed 96 minutes, whereas IMDB says 100 minutes, so it could conceivably have been edited. Do you know how much is supposed to have been removed?
I just did a quick check on the Danish newsgroups and I should mention that Blockbuster is of course another big US company come to squeeze the independent, national chains out of business using enormous marketing budgets, deliberately underpricing the market and so on. 
On preview, I just checked another local chain and they also list the running time as 96 minutes, so BB probably haven’t edited theirs.
According to rotten tomatoes, the running time for the unrated version of Killing Me Softly is the same as it is for the rated version. So that alone is not enough to go on. The box will say whether it is rated or unrated.
What about the other two movies? Again, the box will say if it is rated or unrated.
Since you’re in Denmark, the discrepency in running times is probably due to the film to PAL video conversion. Film normally runs at 24 frames per second and the PAL video format runs at 25 fps. When transferred to video, the movie runs at 25 fps, slightly speeding up the movie and decreasing its run time.
I don’t have any particular problem with BlockBuster. I think their rentals tend to be a little overpriced compared to other video stores, but I seldom rent movies now anyways. I do check BB regularly for the used DVDs that they sell off, and I’m happy to see that they run frequent specials on pre-viewed videos and DVD for sale. Like the current 25% off marked price special running right now, or the more frequent “buy 2 get 1 free” deal on used stuff. I’ve picked up a number of DVDs that way, and I look there more frequently since they realized (perhaps a year ago or so?) that there was a demand for widescreen format, and they stopped getting only the pan-n-scan versions (at least in my area – most of the DVDs I’ve picked up there are widescreen).
Meh, I don’t have any qualms with my local Blockbuster. Every video that isn’t a new release only costs 99 cents and I get to keep it for a week. That doesn’t matter so much to me since I tend to rent DVDs nowadays, but $2.50 to have the DVD for a week isn’t bad, either.
They tend to have a decent selection, too. Not earth shattering, but I was actually suprised when I was able to get All Quiet on the Western Front and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust in one trip. Lots of cheap pre-rented games and movies for sale, too.
If I had a complaint, it would be with the whole “It’s due Saturday before noon!” thing they tell you, which initially registers as “it’s due Saturday,” which is a problem since I don’t think I’ve been out of the house before noon on a Saturday in the last 5 years, so I wish they’d just say “bring it back Friday.”
BB is kind of the Wal-Mart of video stores for me. It’s alright, but I could probably do better. But since I or my GF drive right by it on the way to work and it’s open way late, it gets most of our business.
plastic conspiracy: I don’t have access to the boxes, I was just looking it up on BB’s site. The other two movies aren’t available from them (Sex & Lucia is available uncut from a local renter and no one has The Piano Teacher, at least not online.)
Any particular reason you’re interested in these three movies?
Hodge, the math certainly agrees with you.
I’ve never considered that before, thanks for the clue.
Those are just three examples of recent releases that have both rated and unrated versions.
I’ll look into it next time I’m there, but since they rent porn, I can’t see why they’d censure Heather Graham webdesigning in the nude or whatever it is she does in Killing Me Softly. 
That makes sense. The unrated versions of the other two movies I mentioned actually show penetration. But if your Blockbuster rents porn, then I guess that’s that. Being in Denmark obviously makes a big difference.