Oh things like that with the Blockbuster still happen to some extent. I found out a couple of months ago that Gamestop had been telling their customers that my store ONLY sold retro games. One of my employees had been in the store because as a rule we like to keep a good working relationship with other retailers in the area. Hell The manager of one of our branches is an ex Gamestop manager and we are friends with employees from many other locations. The idea that a store would be deliberatly spreading missinformation about us was unthinkable.
MovieBob's Re-Tales: Blockbusted
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Ugh I still remember when DVDs came out and their Advertisments advertised "crystal clear high resolution Pictures",
Oh Bother
http://www.rtings.com/images/resolutions-ultra-hd-4k-1080p-720p-dvd.png
Oh Bother
http://www.rtings.com/images/resolutions-ultra-hd-4k-1080p-720p-dvd.png
Some of the local video rental places managed to stay in business when Blockbuster set up shop by renting porn. Actually wasn't too bad of a business model because people in a small Southern town felt like they had to rent some non-porn movies to sandwich the porn movie between in case they ran into someone they knew before they could get the movies home. When my mom worked at one of the stores there was always some sort of amusing story about the types of porn films people were renting.
Can't say I'm sad to see the stores go because I live in a rural area so streaming means not only can I get movies while in my pajamas but I save money on gas as well.
Can't say I'm sad to see the stores go because I live in a rural area so streaming means not only can I get movies while in my pajamas but I save money on gas as well.
I've usually avoided the big video chains (especially Blockbuster) in favour of smaller independently-owned video store. I'm glad to see that one such store still exists in my town. And it seems to be doing fairly well, too! Probably because it's the only one left so it has cornered the market of old-school physical video renters.
Growing up in a small town in rural Texas, Blockbuster was like the second coming of the plague on the mom and pop shops (the first was Walmart).
When they opened their first store, we had three family run video stores. Within a year we had zero. Then came the price increases and the gotcha fees. And with our second and third Blockbuster videos came the "I'll call the other store and have them your video for you" which was inevitably followed by a poor schmuck at the other store saying "Nobody called us and someone already has your movie".
I feel for the people that will lose their jobs due to the shutdowns but I am damn happy to see this crappy company cease to exist.
When they opened their first store, we had three family run video stores. Within a year we had zero. Then came the price increases and the gotcha fees. And with our second and third Blockbuster videos came the "I'll call the other store and have them your video for you" which was inevitably followed by a poor schmuck at the other store saying "Nobody called us and someone already has your movie".
I feel for the people that will lose their jobs due to the shutdowns but I am damn happy to see this crappy company cease to exist.
I cannot even begin to summarize how often I had to have that widescreen conversation in my twelve years in video retail. I think my favorite was in 1997 when I had a customer demand a refund for the rental of a VHS copy of the classic Brad Pitt film Seven Years in Tibet because the picture was all cropped down. As it turns out the copy this customer had WAS in fact a Pan & Scan release of the film, but the opening credits were letterboxed. I tried in vain to explain to the customer that if it had not been letterboxed the opening title would have been "even Years in Tibe" and that his TV would be full (and the sides of the picture gone) if he would simply wait until the opening credits were over. As I recall he refused to believe me and instead got his money back and stormed off.
My area must be the exception. One local video store not only survived, but expanded to a newer, larger location in the face of the big B, despite being within a few blocks. Another local store that's been around since the mid-80's just kept on chugging along as though Blockbuster's rise and fall was completely irrelevant. We had a Hollywood Video for a while after to fill the corporate-video niche, but that's gone now, too.
I'm not going to miss them, or rentals in general. It's a peculiar part of history, like demo disks on magazines, that was completely of it's time and was over. There are better alternatives nowadays.
Do you get to be nostalgic over a Clerks reference though Bob? Considering your barely concealed vitriol for Smith? Just kidding, that's an ace reference.
Do you get to be nostalgic over a Clerks reference though Bob? Considering your barely concealed vitriol for Smith? Just kidding, that's an ace reference.
In a way, this is kind of sad, remembering those "family film nights" where we popped down to Blockbuster (or Ritz before that - anyone remember Ritz?) to pick up a video we wanted. However, given that it was always just my dad and I that went down to the shop, we weren't as fond of the herculean task of picking a film we liked the look of that my mum and sisters wouldn't turn their noses up at.
Our local Blockbuster must be one of the last ones to go, it seems to have had a very long stay of execution. Really, we're not going to miss it though - the "renting" of films after all is one area where I am happy to accept the switch from physical copies to the digital format.
Our local Blockbuster must be one of the last ones to go, it seems to have had a very long stay of execution. Really, we're not going to miss it though - the "renting" of films after all is one area where I am happy to accept the switch from physical copies to the digital format.
Thankfully never worked in a Blockbuster Video, but I did spend 3 soul crushing years as the assistant manager of a Suncoast Video (Sorry, Suncoast "Motion Picture Company"...feh) that pretty much put the kibosh on my desire to ever hold down a retail job ever again.
I always tried my damndest to put on a smile and provide decent service, but it was a thin glamour hiding what eventually became a boiling cauldron of contempt for our customers.
I always tried my damndest to put on a smile and provide decent service, but it was a thin glamour hiding what eventually became a boiling cauldron of contempt for our customers.
@Strazdas
Hooray for people loosing their jobs?
And yes, I agree. Once all the stores are gone we can move to all digital and pretend like we own ANYTHING.
*rests forehead on desk*
OT: This was a cool read. I never worked at Blockbuster, or even set foot inside one, as there was never one close enough, but I did work at the local movie rental place and I absolutely loved it. Knew customers account numbers by heart, hell knew them and they knew me. Sometimes they'd ask my opinion on movies and games and it was just so cool.
Reading this kind of reminded me of it and now I'm a sad.
Hooray for people loosing their jobs?
And yes, I agree. Once all the stores are gone we can move to all digital and pretend like we own ANYTHING.
*rests forehead on desk*
OT: This was a cool read. I never worked at Blockbuster, or even set foot inside one, as there was never one close enough, but I did work at the local movie rental place and I absolutely loved it. Knew customers account numbers by heart, hell knew them and they knew me. Sometimes they'd ask my opinion on movies and games and it was just so cool.
Reading this kind of reminded me of it and now I'm a sad.
I worked at a small local video store, then for the Blockbuster that drove them out of business and forced me to look for another job. Actually the Blockbuster portion was a little better than the local, but my experience was an unusual one. The BB I worked for just barely fell under the regional management that was really too far away for them to give much of a crap about what my manager did with "his" store. And the store manager was actually really cool and realized that in our little college town his largest audience didn't have much money. So our store's prices were about 1/3rd of what the prices were in the closest large city about 100 miles away. He let us zap whatever movie into the stores display TV's we wanted, and as long as we brought them back the next morning at open we could take whatever movies we wanted home at close for free. We weren't paid well, but I saw a lot of movies. I left before a new regional manager took over and tried to "whip the store back into shape" and prices rose and revenue fell as we lost customers to family video and another regional chain called Harrahs and quickly "our" BB was driven under and shuttered.