Ever heard of Cofer Black ? As a distinction between trivial and non-trivial I am more concerned with the fact Mr. Black exists than that Charlie Sheen — whom I think a good actor and a generous man — gets fewer millions to add to his 125 piece collection.
I’m finding it amusing to see people saying they haven’t rented a movie from their local video store in months - and then being surprised when they decide to go there and find it went out of business.
My teenagers tell me there is some sort of site called a torrent and you can find movies there. I asked them recently about buying music and movies only to learn that they have hardly ever purchased a DVD or CD in their lives. Except when getting a gift for mum and dad. They were genuinely puzzled.
I quite like the small library of DVDs which adorn my bookcase but apparently this is stone age stuff.
Edit: and damnit, I love my substantial collection of vinyl records.
This. I still rent movies from Netflix. I pay something like $5-$6 per month for one or two films. I don’t need/want more than that at a time, and often don’t even get around to watching the one I have. So, yes, you CAN still rent movies.
Amused. It does appear that Willow is the cilantro of cinema. Either you love it or it’s soap in your mouth. Me, I gag. Willow ???!! 
I am fortunate to be RIGHT around the corner from an incredible independent video store. I’ve also found some great stuff in pawn shops…
Decry pirating. Would rather not see a movie than support illegal streaming.
I’m not responsible for Blockbuster’s decline, because the movies I’ve watched probably wouldn’t be available from them anyway. I have been able to see so many obscure things via Netflix that I would never have had the opportunity to see otherwise.
Plus, Blockbuster and Family Video don’t carry NC-17 titles, and many libraries wouldn’t either, but Netflix does. “Pink Flamingos” was the second movie I got from them. 
I will never understand people who say things like this. There have been maybe 50 movies rated NC-17 in the 30 years or so the MPAA has been handing them out. To write off an entire chain because of just a handful of films seems… odd.
If I understand this thread correctly, the complaint is not that the movie can’t be watched “on demand,” but that it costs $9.99 to"own it" instantly rather than $5.00 to rent it. And this is considered a flaw in our media delivery system and a call to return to the good old days of video stores. If you’re only facing this problem two or three times per year, and you have access to any movie you might ever want to watch, I’m not getting the outrage. Ten bucks seems like a very small price to pay to get a movie in your home without having to put on pants or drive to the store. I sense the hang up is over the terms used. If they were charging you $9.99 to “rent” it, then you could either do it or not, depending on the value you place on the transaction.
“Owning” Iron Man for $9.99 and getting it on demand is, in my mind, a much better system than having to go to a video store (twice) and paying $5 for borrowing it for three days.
All these people encouraging the use of library DVDs do not live where I do. Older movies are pretty much uniformly scratched to hell and essentially unwatchable where I am.
So, my experience for older, somewhat obscure movies has been:
Streaming rental - Not available (Cable provider, Netflix, iTunes. Amazon, etc)
Library - Scratched to hell if available
Redbox - Not available if it didn’t do more than $100 million in box office
Rental places - Mostly out of business. Hour round trip at least to find one.
Torrents - Illegal. I don’t want to steal my movie.
As far as purchase goes, yeah I could go online and find a copy, but I want to watch it tonight. Retail stores may have a copy for purchase tonight, but it’ll be expensive and they may or may not have a copy.
It’s a fact that we’ve taken a step backwards in the admittedly small niche market for the convenient single viewing rental of less popular movies. And it’s a pain. A small pain, but I think it’s unfair to criticize a person when this very specific problem is real.
My two cents.
Yeah, I guess. And buggy whips became much harder to find after 1910 perhaps. A small pain, but for some people a very specific problem that was real.
The pushback I’m seeing on this thread boils down to “yes, in some limited circumstances there is a small increase in inconvenience for finding something a very few people want occasionally. Balanced against the huge advances we’ve seen over the last 10 years, I guess it’s too much to ask everyone to suck it up and pay the extra 5 dollars two or three times per year.”
I wish you’d been a bit more polite in your response, but I can’t say I disagree with you. When I rented a movie in the past, I had to make a trip to my local video store and there was a decent chance that what I wanted to watch was unavaible or all rented out. Plus, I had to return it on time. And, it could be difficult to find the video in the store.
All those challenges have disapeared. The system is, in general, far better, but it’s disapointing that in this great advance, we’ve left a legitimate market desire behind. It’s surprising and aggravating.
Sorry about my tone.
I recently tried Netflix streaming free trial. (I’ve commented on it’s really crappy selection, etc. on previous threads.)
Regarding the NC-17 issue: Two of the films I watched were the Bowdlerized versions. No warning in the description that they had been cut.
Another option to consider: The local used book/media store. Got one near me. Buy the DVD for not much. Return it later for store credit. Lather rinse repeat. Not going to be as cheap as Redbox, but a pretty good selection. Especially for some TV series.
You can rent Iron Man on Amazon right now for $2.99.
The last remaining Mom & Pop video rental outlet in our town closed years ago. Before they closed, they were looking for a manager to run the whole show – employees, inventory, etc. My wife casually asked the guy how much they were paying, and he said “13.”
Well, $13.00 an hour isn’t TOO horrible for this sort of work, she said. No, he corrected – $13,000 per year. And that was the best-paying job in the store.
That’s what they had to do to hold costs down, I guess. No wonder the place folded.
How much is cut for “basic cable”? I remember The Simpsons Movie airing on FX, and the only change from the original was, they put a black bar across the screen (with the caption “EUROPEAN VERSION ONLY”, I think) in the short scene where Bart’s penis was exposed. (They could say “penis” - one of the cuts Fox made from the network broadcast - just not show it. They also left in Homer giving the rest of the town the finger with both hands.)
Family Video carries NC-17. Hell, they carry hardcore porn. They may not have every NC-17 movie that ever existed, but that’s probably more due to them being kinda obscure, less popular titles anyway. They certainly don’t balk at unrated movies and versions, though.
You left of the quite reasonable alternative.
For older, somewhat obscure movies any brick and mortars store probably would have had one copy (if that) and it could already have been checked out. You could do DVDs with Netflix and get them pretty quickly depending where you’re located. Not the same night, but probably less expensive and a much better selection of the types of movie you’re discussing. I get a three day turnaround on DVDs from Netflix. If I drop a return in the mail on Monday before pickup, I get the next movie on Wednesday.
On Demand is a good feature, but there’s one advantage to an actual DVD copy: the director’s commentaries/extended or deleted scenes/special features.
There are only certain films that I really like to have these features for, but they are worth the actual DVD copy. (But then, those are the ones I usually end up owning.)
Tell that to my DVD player. I keep getting messages that to see the extra stuff I have to use a blu-ray player. :mad: