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The lost civic life of movie rental stores

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Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#71

Post by jimbokun »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #59
pseingatl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries are daycare for the homeless. At one city's public library, one of the librarians was mopping up vomit and was heard to comment, "I didn't go to library school for this." Washrooms double as a place to shower, reading rooms a place to sleep.

libraries are also just daycares for... kids. My library (which is on my block) is only open a few hours week in which gainfully employed adults would be able to go. The rest is geared to grannies and kids

That is a very good thing.

Kids desperately need third spaces too.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#72

Post by pseingatl »

julienchastang wrote: post #15
mirmor23 wrote: post #5

more romanticizing of the bygone era. late fees (due at midnight!), restocking fees, etc; some of these fees to the tune of a new dvd/vhs; good riddance.

That's true and when the Netflix DVD service arrived, I thought it was really a situation where the consumer had finally won. (No late fees! Yay!). That said here in Boulder we had the Video Station which was a phenomenal place for browsing and discovery with a super knowledgeable staff especially for foreign and art house cinema. They survived for a surprisingly long time, but finally closed about ten years ago [0].…

Coral Gables, Fla had Lion Video. If Blockbuster carried it, Lion didn't: instead it was art house films, foreign films and lots of Spanish-language titles impossible to find elsewhere. One day the owner died and...that was it.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#73

Post by [deleted] »

kstenerud wrote: post #56

> That same time-traveling video renter might find herself startled by the employee offering to recommend a movie, or by the knot of customers hanging out by the counter, shooting the breeze and discussing film. What universe is this person from? I must have missed it...

[deleted]

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#74

Post by tartoran »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #59
pseingatl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries are daycare for the homeless. At one city's public library, one of the librarians was mopping up vomit and was heard to comment, "I didn't go to library school for this." Washrooms double as a place to shower, reading rooms a place to sleep.

libraries are also just daycares for... kids. My library (which is on my block) is only open a few hours week in which gainfully employed adults would be able to go. The rest is geared to grannies and kids

I think it's great for kids to grow up amongst books. As for the homeless, it's fine if they don't stink and use the library for what it is, a place to read books or possibly go online. Any other behavior should not be tolerated.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#75

Post by pseingatl »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #63
julienchastang wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true and when the Netflix DVD service arrived, I thought it was really a situation where the consumer had finally won. (No late fees! Yay!). That said here in Boulder we had the Video Station which was a phenomenal place for browsing and discovery with a super knowledgeable staff especially for foreign and art house cinema. They survived for a surprisingly long time, but finally closed about ten years ago [0].…

Some things just need to survive the crash. We have THREE drive in movie theaters within an hour of here. All are doing well. One doesn't even have a digital projector, and they almost closed multiple times yes, but now there's a cult following around vintage flicks they play from horror to comedy. If you can survive long enough it seems like you can make it, if you work hard to build a social group around things lik…

Expensive motel rooms, a lack of housing and not renting rooms to teenagers or college students might have something to do with the continued longevity of this business. And don't forget that on weekends they become flea markets.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#76

Post by jimbokun »

triceratops wrote: post #47
autoexec wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malls have been in decline for decades. Public pools barely exist anymore either. ( https://www.poolmagazine.com/pool-news/america-is-losing-pub... ). If you're in a wealthy city you probably still have a decent community center. Libraries are probably the most common space avilable, but they are also under constant attack by republicans. In wealthy cities you can find all kinds of services there. Smaller libraries w…

> Malls have been in decline for decades People voted with their wallets. > public libraries are under constant attack by republicans Voters get the services they vote for. All of us are to blame.

True but not very constructive.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#77

Post by tomjakubowski »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #59
pseingatl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries are daycare for the homeless. At one city's public library, one of the librarians was mopping up vomit and was heard to comment, "I didn't go to library school for this." Washrooms double as a place to shower, reading rooms a place to sleep.

libraries are also just daycares for... kids. My library (which is on my block) is only open a few hours week in which gainfully employed adults would be able to go. The rest is geared to grannies and kids

It grinds my gears a bit when "works 9-5 in an office" is equated with "gainfully employed". There are lots of working people who have free time during these hours: restaurant and retail workers, hospital nurses and doctors, firefighters and EMTs, artists and artisans, YouTubers and professional HN posters, actors and circus performers, authors and architects, homemakers and remote office workers, and so on.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#78

Post by buildsjets »

rdiddly wrote: post #49

I feel like this overstates the point a bit. The video store was always just a means to an end for me, the clerks always sullen, the process of agreeing on a movie always long & difficult. Maybe I missed out on the phenomenon he's talking about.

Perhaps the clerk was not sullen, and just preferred to stay out of other people's affairs. You're not allowed to rent here anymore!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEEj6d3GTOU

I don't think any movie could better capture the atmosphere and culture of a 1980s video store better than "Clerks." For example, the various types of annoying video store customers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9khHJTztKk

Ordering obscene videos from the warehouse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwFjw798mPI

And some period-era fanfic filmed in an IRL video rental store.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiPC2pIJNzc

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#79

Post by tartoran »

mirmor23 wrote: post #5

more romanticizing of the bygone era. late fees (due at midnight!), restocking fees, etc; some of these fees to the tune of a new dvd/vhs; good riddance.

> more romanticizing of the bygone era. late fees (due at midnight!), restocking fees, etc; some of these fees to the tune of a new dvd/vhs; good riddance

Well, they were a business after all. And what's being romanticised is the civic experience of that bygone era. The modern experience sucks. It is devoid of any real human interaction. That is highly missing part in the modern landscape and it will only get worse.

Re: The lost civic life of movie rental stores

#80

Post by Taikonerd »

So many people are nostalgic for these kind of interest-based stores that there's a whole subgenre of simulation games.

For video stores, there's Retro Rewind: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3552140/Retro_Rewind__Vid...

There are also games like that for trading-card stores, video arcades, and record stores.

(I'm probably going to buy the record store one, "Wax Heads." Being a music-genre nerd and recommending bands to people is a fantasy that I was born 10 years too late to do in real life.)

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