Because video stores don’t have the Herzog version. I had to get that one through Netflix. Took me 20 years, but I finally saw it.
They aren’t. Surely you know that Blockbuster is going bankrupt?
The video store is going the way of daily milk delivery, full service gas stations, shoeshine boys, and ground sloths trapped in tar pits.
They are being killed by Netflix, on demand cable, and dirt cheap retail DVDs, and the next nail in the coffin, streaming video, is just around the corner. The days of both the neighborhood video store and the corporate chain video store are officially over.
From memory
" Stand up and face, the enemy
And with the power of conviction,
there is no sacrifice.
It’s a do or die situation
We will be invincible"
Well, Blockbuster has started its own on-line service similar to Netflix. Perhaps too similar. Netflix is suing them for patent infringment.
So Blockbuster opened, and rather than support the independent video store that was so great and had a wonderful selection of movies, you went to Blockbuster.
And now you’re mad at Blockbuster.
Uh huh.
That must’ve been a mighty big gun the boys and girls at Blockbuster had pointed at your head, that they were able to compel you to enter its doors and fill out the paperwork and rent movies.
He joined Blockbuster after the indie store closed down, I’ll betcha.
What does it cost to join Blockbuster anyway? I think it’s free here in Brooklyn. I have a damn BB card, even though there are about six independent stores closer to me than Blockbuster is…once in a while, we want to rent some crappy movie for Banjo or Pianola, and BB lets us have it for extra days. And the Ukulele Lady is very fond of the sort of flying-glass films that make up a great proportion of their stock.
Also, they had a copy of Tampopo when, for some unexplained reason, the hipster shop two blocks away did not.
You know what’s really scary? I didn’t read that, I sang it.
:eek:
(Hey, I loved The Legend of Billy Jean!)
Uke’s got it right, Otto. Why would I go to Blockbuster when the indy store had a better and weirder selection? But what choice did I have after BB drove the indy into the XXX ghetto?
I have been actively boycotting Blockbuster since 1988.
When the moved in down the street from the family owned indy store that I worked at and managed.
They made a huge, huge issue about how they were not going to rent or own Last Temptation of Christ (and we did, because this is a free country after all, right?)because they were a decent family store, but had on the floor **Sorority Jello Wrestling and the like. We carried our soft porn and hard stuff behind the counter and you had to ask for ‘the sheet’.
Oh, and the staff thought Gene Kelly was a woman. The splinters.
I still smite them whenever I drive past and use a local video store ( Mammoth, not local but not soulless.) And only because Blockbuster killed The Little Red House Video Store that was Da Bomb in our town.
I really hope the next incarnation of video services has a niche for someone like me. Netflix looks great, but I’m not paying a monthly fee when I don’t watch enough movies to justify it. I like the video store for those rare (every three to four months usually) occasions that I feel like seeing a movie. It’s not worth the money I’d have spent on belonging to Netflix in the interim. I wish someone would create an on demand movie service that has tens of thousands of movies available at a click, so when I feel like watching Devil Dog: Hound of Hell, it would be there.
That sort of service makes so much sense that it’s practically inevitable. Every movie ever made available via streaming video. Every song ever made available via streaming audio. All available via an “all you can stomach” monthly subscription fee, or a per-view fee. Shipping physical disks around is pretty inefficient, even DVDs in paper envelopes. Once you’ve got the network pipes built then streaming the content is practically free for the providers.
I don’t know how long it will take before such a service is available, it might be 20 years before it becomes reality. Hopefully this will happen before I’m dead.
Yep, when that happens I will get a computer at home. One with a honking big screen.
Originally from Buffalo? I’m asking because it’s a city where people shop at Target’s, Wal-Mart’s, Rite Aid’s, Home Depot’s, Gap’s, and Pottery Barn’s.
???
I don’t understand this statement. The only reason I was using Blockbusters is that they essentially displaced the nearby video store. I certainly didn’t choose them. And aren’t most of those stores pretty widespread? What’;s it got to do with Buffalo?
It became a reality a few years ago. Unfortunately, the selection is crap.
Ahh – it sinks in. It’s that final “s”
No, I just honestly thought while I was posting that it was Blockbusters (plural) video, despite having seen the sign a jillion times.
I live in fear that my local video store will close down.
But, they’ve been open since I moved to Baltimore in 1996 and there’s been a Blockbuster the entire time, so I don’t think that’s happening. I’m sure I’ve spent more money there than anywhere in Baltimore except the liquor store and the grocery store.
They have a room categorized by director. NICE.
They don’t always have the new arrivals in stock, HOWEVER, if you know the clerks, sometimes you can get one of next Tuesday’s new releases on a Friday.
They’ve been known to wipe a late fee or two off the books for a regular, too.
See if Blockbuster does that for ya.
Netflix? Jesus. I have friends with Netflix that still have “new releases” in their queue that I saw last October. Besides, I’ve yet to figure out how getting some random movie out of my queue is going to be the one I want to watch on a particular night. . .“gee, I feel like having a glass of scotch, smoking a joint, and putting in ‘The Long Goodbye’ at Midnight, but I guess, ‘In Her Shoes’ or ‘The Incredibles’ will do just fine.”
Not to mention the latest greatest thing since sliced bread I’ve discovered. REDBOX! They are DVD renting/vending machines in all our McDonalds. They pack them with all the new releases and you can rent a DVD with your credit/debit card for $1 a day. And it can be returned at any McDonalds Redbox machine.
So if there’s 5 new releases I want to see in April, I’ll end up spending $5. If there’s 15, $15. If there are zero, $0. Keep it an extra day, $1 extra.
Sure beats $4.50 at Blockbuster or $15 Netflix whether I watch movies that month or not.
Really? I’ve always had good luck with new releases. I got Capote the day it came out. It’s the old obscure stuff that I have to wait for. Murder by Death has been in my queue for about 4 months now. I had to wait 6 months for Iolanthe.
That’s why you never put stuff in your queue until the day you return something.
I remember talking to someone about Netflix, saying that I always had fewer then 3 things in my queue at any given time. He boasted having over 30 in his queue. Premium service, I guess. I couldn’t understand how he could be proud of that.
Capote, sure.
Try to get King Kong or Narnia right now.