The Straw
Our local Blockbuster has finally driven us into the arms of an on-line DVD-rental site. We had been talking about opening a membership at an indie video shop that stocked a better variety of movies for ages. The problem was always convenience: Queen Video, either location, required a major detour and Bay Video, while slightly more convenient for me, sentenced me to riding the subway home. I don't like going underground. As for on-line sources, although convienent, they tended have uninspiring movies and bad reputations.
On Friday, we went to rent some fluff but wound up with The House of Sand and Fog in addition to Kill Bill Vol. 1. The copy of House of Sand and Fog that we had in our possession was labeled a full-week rental. When we got to cash we were informed that the movie was only a two-day rental by both the clerk and the manager. There was no offer to let us have it for a week because the staff there had made a mistake. Nothing. Admittedly, there's probably some Blockbuster version of Big Brother that doesn't permit tampering with the length of rentals and renders the employees helpless in the face of costumer service demands. This provides the surly employees with some slack and us with another reason to try something different. There were other reasons not to rent at our particular Blockbuster: the subtle racism, the poor selection, the lack of organization, the rudeness, the censorship from above. We opted not to rent it and vowed to do some research on on-line rental places.
After checking out several sites, we opted for the geekiest of the bunch: Rent a DVD, which is based right here in Toronto. Our queue of one hundred movies features a chunk of the foreign section, random other artsy movies, and a slew of guilty pleasures.
Now we're waiting patiently for our first shipment, which includes: House of Sand and Fog, This is Spinal Tap, and Spirited Away. It goes out tomorrow and will hopefully be in our grubby little hands come Tuesday. Here's hoping that we never feel the urge to set foot in our local Blockbuster again. -Zh.
On Friday, we went to rent some fluff but wound up with The House of Sand and Fog in addition to Kill Bill Vol. 1. The copy of House of Sand and Fog that we had in our possession was labeled a full-week rental. When we got to cash we were informed that the movie was only a two-day rental by both the clerk and the manager. There was no offer to let us have it for a week because the staff there had made a mistake. Nothing. Admittedly, there's probably some Blockbuster version of Big Brother that doesn't permit tampering with the length of rentals and renders the employees helpless in the face of costumer service demands. This provides the surly employees with some slack and us with another reason to try something different. There were other reasons not to rent at our particular Blockbuster: the subtle racism, the poor selection, the lack of organization, the rudeness, the censorship from above. We opted not to rent it and vowed to do some research on on-line rental places.
After checking out several sites, we opted for the geekiest of the bunch: Rent a DVD, which is based right here in Toronto. Our queue of one hundred movies features a chunk of the foreign section, random other artsy movies, and a slew of guilty pleasures.
Now we're waiting patiently for our first shipment, which includes: House of Sand and Fog, This is Spinal Tap, and Spirited Away. It goes out tomorrow and will hopefully be in our grubby little hands come Tuesday. Here's hoping that we never feel the urge to set foot in our local Blockbuster again. -Zh.
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