Go Home Happy!

Struggling Blockbuster Eliminates Rental Fees

Let me tell you right now that I don't feel the least bit sorry for Blockbuster Video and their current woes. Why? Well, several years ago, when it was still fashionable to rent movies, I would go to Blockbuster looking for videos of independent movies. I would rarely find them there. Sure, they had 50 copies of "Gladiator", but what of the smaller stuff?

Turns out Blockbuster refused to stock movies that were unrated. Now, I'm not talking about pornos. I'm referring to indie movies that were a bit too hard to get an R-rating or were from overseas. I had to go to a non-corporate video store (Premiere Video) to get an unrated (the version preferred by critics) copy of "Requeim for a Dream".

Blockbusta did this in order to ensure their rep as a "family" store. However, they were fine with stocking DVD's that had unrated extras on them (such as "Fight Club").

Around this same time, Blockbuster struck deals with some movie companies in which they would be the only place to stock various lesser-known movies (stuff no one had heard of). They would stock 30 copies of each of these titles and then people, seeing the vast amount of copies, would wonder why they had never heard of the movie and, feeling that they had missed something, would rent one of 'em (they were mostly crap).

Suffice it to say that Blockbuster sucks and I am quite pleased that the last BB in town a few months ago.