I’m trying to find a copy of this film on VHS for my grandmother, who is never, ever going to convert to DVD. I’ve tried Amazon and eBay, to no avail. Where can I find one?
It’s not available on VHS and never will be, apparently. All you have to do to find out the answer to this sort of question is to look at the entry for the movie on the Internet Movie Database and look at the upper-right-hand corner of the main entry page for that movie. You can see that they list a DVD but no videotape version.
Or… Looks like I’ll have to pack up the DVD player and take it with me next time I visit.
I remember there were rumours when Matrix came out that it would only be released on DVD. Those were untrue, of course. But apparently I missed the transition point, as there now is at least one film not available on VHS. When was the first time that happened?
You know, you can buy her a dvd player for about $30. Just take it over with a few DVDs and hook it up for her whether she likes it or not. Damn old people have to be force-fed everything. 
She’ll get over it.
Revenge of teh Sith was the first movie I heard to take this step, but I’m sure there would’ve benn others before it.
There have been tons and tons of movies released on VHS only for the rental market, and not for the retail market. That’s been happening for years. I assume the rental VHS market is finally dying a slow death.
Thats verry funny, a Forum member referenicing another members Ren and Stimpy quote.
Have you thought about getting someone to copy it from DVD to VHS for you? Or you could do it yourself if you have both a DVD player and tape player.
It may not be legal to copy it to VHS if there is Macrovision on it
We have had success getting techno-challenged relatives to enter DVDland. We buy them a DVD player, as mentioned above, set it up for them, and rave about the picture quality. With the player we give them their favorite movie or one that we know will hook them and play it for them, walking them through the simple controls. In several cases, the clincher has been to show something with a lot of noise *(e.g., Blackhawk Down) * with the subtitles on, demonstrating that a person with hearing loss can still enjoy scenes with explosions. If your grandmother doesn’t swing that way, I agree that penguins could do it.
I also think you can get granny to be hip to the DVD. My dad (who is not really granny-aged) took some prodding but now he loves it. And his DVR.
With my grandparents we had to go sort of the same route as Shoshana suggested. Just give her a player, show her what it can do, and supply her with an abundance of movies she’d like on the player. You can rifle through the $1-3-5 bin at Wal Mart and find a lot of cheap “classics” for her to enjoy.
I think you would make a great crack dealer. Start with a freebie, put some in their favorite cigarette/marijuana/whatever, give them a colorful pipe maybe. BAM, their hooked.
Making the move from cassette to CD last year was bad enough
Yes but actually if you’ve already switched her to CDs from cassettes, it should be easier to go to DVDs from videotapes. Just emphasize how similar the DVD player is to the CD player.
The problem I’ve seen with older people trying to learn how to use a DVD is that they always want to go to channel 3 or 4 on the set and just hit play. It’s very hard for them to grasp the concept of changing the input to the tv and letting the DVD remote control the set. My mom and dad never got the swing of it. We would watch DVD’s together and at the end dad could never get the set back to TV mode, even though all you had to do was change the channel on the TV remote and it would default back to TV input! He was like a deer in headlights and he died not knowing how to work the DVD. Mom still waits for my brother or me to come over and watch a DVD with her.
I believe that the major studios stopped releasing new films on VHS a couple of years ago. It’s probably only a matter of time before no one is producing them.
It’s nice to know that if being a psychologist doesn’t work out, I have an alternate career skill.