Your Video Store

[Mr-K]

I'm always interested what local video stores people go to when Blockbuster or whatever won't do the trick.

When I was a kid I would always go to this place called Videorama in Churchland, VA, which became Got It Video. Nothing really special about it, they had a pretty good collection of horror and anime before anime became huge, and it was right down the street from my house in a crappy, past it's prime shopping center. In the late 90s, when they moved to a bigger store they put a small corner room in for pornography. As the years went on, that corner grew into an entire section which took over more than half of the rather large store. I stopped going there around then. Their movie selection is a joke now and it has basically become an undercover sex shop.

Now my current favorite store is the Naro Expanded Video

This place is a *video store*. One of those places that still catalogues their members and rentals by pen and paper, and know about every move ever made ever. And this place has everything I've ever wanted (except for Star Trek seasons). The guys that run the place can be a bit closed off to a lot of people, but if you go int here enough and get movies that they like, or talk about what you get with them they can be really forgiving about late fees or give free rentals and shit. They do a great system as well where you can spend $50 and get a block of 30 or so movies. So all you have to do is go in, grab a movie and leave. It's a pretty cool feeling. And they'll usually cut you a deal and throw in free rentals if you get them often enough.
The only problem is that they way that they organize (meticulously organize) can make things hard to find if you don't know like the director or what country it's from because foreign films are split up by region and then by director. Major directors all have their own sections as well. Everything else is organized by genre though. I like it because it has both film snob movies and it has genre sci-fi horror trash as well. So it has everything I need and more. Rentals are... $3 I think, and you get them for two nights.

In London I haven't been so lucky. I live down the street from, from what I've read, is the "best video store in London" called Video City:

They do have a pretty large selection, and is organized similarly to the place at home. The problem is nothing is alphabatized, the shelves are too shallow so the boxes always fall off the shelves, and they have one of the worst selection of sci-fi and horror ever (what kind of English video store doesn't have *a* Hammer movie?). I went in to get First Contact the other day and the owner brought me Star Trek IV on fucking VHS. It's really impossible to find anything just because it's so poorly organized. Seriously. I can't find a rentable copy of First fucking Contact in this city. Gragh. Rentals are £3 (!!!) and you get them for one night (!!!!!!!), but they have a weird system where if you call and ask to keep the movie another night you can for free. Except for last week when I did it, and they charged me £2 extra. They also sell TVs and shit in there as well, which is taking up space for expanding their video selection as well.


Oh, and in college I would go to this place that also sold fireplaces and furnaces in the front. It was called, I swear, Acme Video and Fireplace.

Anyway, where do you guys go?

[Despair]

I go to Holywood Video, one block from my house. Nothing all that great, or remarkable about this store. But it gets the job done.

We used to have BlockBuster also block away, but in recent huge
rebuilding of the area, including mall we have nearby, it got moved couple miles away, which made me no caring about it anymore.

As for the rest, I use Netflix once again, so that covers all of my hi-def rentals.

[SpoDaddy]

Lately I've been using those supermarket redbox machines.

[Mr-K]

How do those things work? I've never bothered to look into it.

[Cowutopia]

Lately I've been using those supermarket redbox machines.

YES.

[Samba De Amiga]

I usually just get my movies OnDemand. I also had NetFlix for a while.

[Rumpy]

Netflix. Before that it was Blockbuster.

[Konketsu]

When I was young, I would walk to Landmark Video. They had a good section for Nintendo games back then and it was where I first encountered the Neo-Geo machine and competition.

They too have a section for porn that you can see into. They simply had another attendant at the entry way so you wouldn't have to go far to rent your selection. They were using pen and paper when I first went there with my dad and then they moved to the card option. It was a great place then and it is still in operation. Funny enough, they also own a convenience/porn store diagonally across the street with the 'quarter' booths.

Just remembered I also went to a place called Ragu Video. My dad would rent anime for me from this place along with other movies which were usually kung fu flicks. However, Landmark was the more frequented spot.

After them it was Blockbuster for a bit.

Now, just ze Internets.

[cka]

my friends parents used to run a video store way back in the day, so we'd always get free movies and new snes game rentals for the weekend there... infact, I still have a vhs copy of Masters of the Universe from there despite the fact they closed up like 15 years ago

[Revoltor]

The best video store in Manhattan was always Kim's back when they had more locations. I think all but the main one closed down (I could be wrong)

I live in San Jose now and it sucks balls. There's supposed to be a video store around here with a collection of 8 pinball machines though.