There’s a thread in the pit now about Blockbuster’s late fee policy, and I realised that I’ve never rented a movie there. They have a very limited selection, and, well, aren’t local (yeah, I’m one of those ).
There’s a great video rental place here in Burlington, Waterfront Video, where I go exclusively. They have a massive selection of all genres, films old and new, popular and obscure. Now that I’ve moved out of Burlington, I found a small place in town here that I’ll check out. A much smaller selection, but still the same kind of thing.
So, where do you go to get your movies? Blockbuster? Netflix? The local rental place?
I do Netflix now, but when I lived in Ann Arbor, MI going to school, I used to rent from the place on E. Liberty St (I think it was called Liberty Street Video). They had a pretty small selection of popular stuff, but a good selection of foreign/cult/indie/non-mainstream stuff. Plus, they had the 666 deal, where you rent 6 movies for 6 days for $6.
The library in Ann Arbor has a very good selection of DVDs and VHS. You just have to put in a request on any you want. And it’s free!
I haven’t rented videos in forever, but when I do it’s from Four Star Video Heaven, a local indy place in downtown Madison. I was once offered a job there as an assistant manager and whenever I think about it I kick myself for turning it down. Damn my desire for affordable health insurance!
I’ve always rented from Blockbuster. All of the independant rental placed from where I grew up always had a horrible selection. I’ve never had a huge issue with finding what I’ve wanted at Blockbuster, and for any movies I’ve had trouble finding, I bought them from some place else (if I found them at all).
Hollywood Video, especially now that they have a month-by-month plan.
Of course, if Blockbuster does take over, I’ll probably drop it and go to Netflix. When Blockbuster was here, it had an absolutely lousy selection. If you didn’t want to see this week’s hot flick or two, there was nothing.
Hollywood still has plenty of classics and foreign films I’d love to see. If Blockbuster takes it over, they’ll all be gone, as will I.
I have membership with a local Blockbuster, and two other local video places. One of those sometimes has offbeat stuff BB doesn’t get, and the other has a great (for a rental place) selection of older movies.
I also rent from Hollywood, mainly because it’s right across the street from my building. I do find they have a pretty good selection of movies, and I’m sometimes surprised by the more obscure DVDs available for rental.
I rarely rent movies, which is why I haven’t subscribed to Netflix in more than a year. But when I do, I go to Blockbusters because the alternative, Hollywood Video, has the worst selection of movies I have ever seen. It’s really pathetic.
I was reading about one great rental place with a lot of rare quirky movies that none of the large chains carry (like “Eraserhead”, amongst others). Unfortunately, it’s 45 minutes from where I live.
Netflix, though we tend to go off and on with our subscription.
We’d had it for a couple of years, and really loved it, then found ourselves out and away from home alot on weekends, so we canceled the subscription and had cable turned on. We were happy with the cable until the final episode of The Sopranos and the news that there wouldn’t be a new season for a couple of years, so, we had the cable turned off, and subscribed to Netflix again.
I love Netflix, I could never go back to the Blockbuster way of renting.
I bought a subscription for my sister as a Christmas present a couple of years ago, and she didn’t really care for it. She said she’s more of an instant gratification movie renter/watcher, so she still rents from Blockbuster.
Different strokes.
Netflix.
I do understand the instant gratification thing; about ten months ago I sheepishly stopped in at the local mom-and-pop video store. But I gotta say it’s usually Netflix, three movies at a time is usually enough gratification for me.
Ain’t never going back to Blockbuster.
Used to do Netflix, but as I have posted in the past, was getting some slow service here in Las Vegas and finally decided it wasn’t worth it.
Now I go to the local Hollywood Video…they have a better selection that Blockbuster (across the street from Hollywood Video) and their staff doesn’t seem quite as dopey - although that might just be my neighborhood employee situation.
Hollywood is pretty good at keeping up with a fairly decent selection of foreign films and they usually have the new releases I want in stock.
I have, however, used the Red Box at the local grocery store and for 99 cents per day, you can’t beat the price. Gets tricky if the disc is damaged as there is no real person to complain to, just a machine - but that only happened once and every other film has been just fine.
Blockbuster. There is a new one in Chipley (near where I live) and their DVD selection is incredible. The customer service is excellent. I have the Movie Pass for unlimited rentals, 3 at a time. I keep track of all my rentals, and I’m averaging about 80 cents per rental unit, not including freebies from their “Guaranteed In Stock or it’s Free” program.
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