tv or movies

you should print that out and post it on their window when they go out of business in 2 years

A major source of international films for me is the New York Public Library.

(I imagine other major cities' libraries stock many, many fewer)

including most people in sf

there's at least 4 throughout the city that I know of (Le Video and Lost Weekend are the best ones tho)

okay so I guess you should print out 4 copies

you should print that out and post it on their window when they go out of business in 2 years

people have been saying this for at least 5 years and not only are they still in business, they're expanding so whatever

anyway the point is these things are available if you are interested and willing to look for them on something that is not an internet service

don't understand why this thread got hung up on NEW TV shows and movies, that seems like a totally irrelevant and outdated way to assess viewing material in this day and age, when everything is available all the time

I totally get this. But I'm judging this silly poll in terms of "What brings the most pleasure to my life right now?"

hipster videostore economics aside, it's pretty easy to film relatively obscure films in 2011, 100x easier than it was in the 90s

esp if you don't live in a big city

There are going to continue to be niche video stores even after everything [sic] is streaming, the same way there are vinyl record stores for fanatics.

A major source of international films for me is the New York Public Library.

Yeah, my father-in-law actually gets lots of international films from his local suburban library and does interlibrary loan for the titles he can't find there.

so basically you guys are saying that movies are better than tv, but only if you do research to find the few obscure foreign movies that are actually good and have a niche hipster video store in your area that stocks these movies

eh I doubt it, everything is digital, there's no real difference between walking to a store to get those 1s and 0s or pressing 3 buttons on your computer, whereas record stores offer something 'different' from downloading on mp3

xxp

an

like there is such thing as vinyl fetishism there is no such thing as 'borrowing a dvd for 2 days fetishism'

afaik

this is not it at all, at least for me. the simple fact is that the number of pleasurable viewing hours to be derived from movies (and I mean ALL movies going back to the dawn of film) is larger than the number of pleasurable viewing hours to be derived from TV (and I mean ALL of TV going back to the dawn of television). Some of this is attributable to the fact that so little TV bears re-watching - even the stuff that is pretty good (I never need to see an episode of Cheers, or MASH, or the Wire, or Happy Days ever again, for example). There are some exceptions (Simpsons, Sopranos, Twin Peaks, Twilight Zone, KITH, Mr. Show) but they're pretty rare.

i guess it's impossible to crunch the numbers on this but i feel like there are more shows with like 50 hours worth of episodes that are all watching at least once than there are movies that are worth watching 25 times or whatever.

I am saying it's stupid to choose one or the other. AKA what is the purpose of this poll

lol "few"

like I said before the hit:miss ratio for movies is just better for me. If I want to find something decent to watch for two hours I just walk to the store - odds are I will enjoy whatever I rent there more than whatever new 22-minute episode of the one halfway decent show currently in production available on demand. for example.

I don't do "research"

many xp

there's no real difference between walking to a store to get those 1s and 0s or pressing 3 buttons on your computer,

this is wrong and you know it!

the best thing about Lost Weekend is actually going there, hanging out and shooting the shit with the people there, discovering new stuff I didn't know about etc.

i guess it's impossible to crunch the numbers on this but i feel like there are more shows with like 50 hours worth of episodes that are all watching at least once than there are movies that are worth watching 25 times or whatever.

yeah see the problem is I have seen all those shows that have 50 hours+ that are worth watching already. And I don't need to see them again. Whereas with film I feel like I've barely begun to scratch the surface of all the material worth watching 25x.

I meant w/r/t to the product you see not the 'experience'

but I don't think very many people actually care about 'the video store experience'

heaven forbid you should actually have to find a physical place, walk somewhere, and talk to an actual person to find a movie

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, December 13, 2011 6:23 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

this snark is so misplaced. there is, honestly, not a single place within walking distance where I can rent a video that isn't bolt ii: hamster of death. the closest two places are blockbusters, and after that I'd need to take a bus to a train to another bus to get a place that charges a $90 annual membership to take out the remaining half of the criterion collection and old miss marple VHS tapes

you don't have a library?

ha ha ha you know nothing about public libraries in 99% of this country do you?

You can ILL all kinds of DVD's via ILL as Jaymc pointed out.

if you are really that into movies and you don't live in a place w/ an enormous library you should prob just get netflix?

Every interlibrary loan request I've ever made has been like pulling impacted wisdom teeth. "WHY in god's NAME would you ask me to do something like THAT, you think you're too good for these Touched by an Angel videotapes? ok, FINE. FINE!"

Whereas with film I feel like I've barely begun to scratch the surface of all the material worth watching 25x.

for ex. y'know, one day I will get around to going through all of Sam Fuller's films. Or Ozu. Or De Palma. I am fairly confident that these are treasure troves that I am likely to enjoy. I do not feel this way about diving into the entire run of, say, Lost.

xps

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s320x320/381407_10150408507856548_683531547_8780150_621217801_n.jpg

Yeah, and I've seen everything I want to see from them. Unless I take up a marathon viewing of Armenian miniseries concerning the effects of genocide and the problem with Turks, that is. ILL is a great option in theory, but the wait time for anything that isn't Anne of Avonlea is +/- 6 months. I still do it sometimes, but by the time I get the movie I've ILLed, I've often moved on to something else or forgotten why I put it on the first place. I live in a suburb that's suburby enough (sorry, iatee) that I don't have access to the large city collection that I did even 5 miles on the other side of town. I do netflix, greencine, hulu, and DVDs by mail from Sprockets when I need, and I see a ton of movies through them but there is honestly _no_ local option for watching them.

ha ha ha you know nothing about public libraries in 99% of this country do you?

hahaha I was raised by a librarian, have two close friends that are public librarians in the SF library system, and go to our branch on a weekly basis. and get ILL all the time (primarily for sci-fi books and not for movies tho)

in conclusion, fuck you

Every interlibrary loan request I've ever made has been like pulling impacted wisdom teeth. "WHY in god's NAME would you ask me to do something like THAT, you think you're too good for these Touched by an Angel videotapes? ok, FINE. FINE!"

― William (C), Tuesday, December 13, 2011 6:46 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Permalink

that's a function of a person at your library being a total dick, not ILL itself as an idea.

Yeah, I loved the SF library system. And the LA library system. And the Seattle library system. And the Boston library system. Unfortunately I'm not near any of them.

remy is there stuff you can't find on those internet services? (I've never used any of them)

xp

"DO I KNOW ABOUT LIBRARIES!? YOU GO TO HELL, SIR" may be my favorite haughty comeback in ilx history

ILL is a great option in theory, but the wait time for anything that isn't Anne of Avonlea is +/- 6 months. I still do it sometimes, but by the time I get the movie I've ILLed, I've often moved on to something else or forgotten why I put it on the first place.

6 months? Really?

that's a function of a person at your library being a total dick, not ILL itself as an idea.

I agree completely, but a barrier is a barrier.

some of my BEST FRIENDS are librarians

your results may be somewhat affected by the fact that you live in San Francisco btw, i can't believe that you're arguing that someone who lives in topeka or basically anywhere that isn't an urban/upper-middle class suburban area is going to be able to get a steady stream of iranian art movies or whatever through inter-library loan

ps i am a librarian

there's no real difference between walking to a store to get those 1s and 0s or pressing 3 buttons on your computer

Well, the diff is the vidstores will have stuff you are not going to find on your computer. We lose titles every time there's a technology change, as Dave Kehr has pointed out.

even if they magically did have access to this type of movie through ILL, they won't for much longer thanks to national library budget cuts

ILL would be a great setting for a hilarious TV comedy (not really)

6 months? Really?

Really. I waited for almost a year to rewatch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and then got kicked off the list b/c I didn't pick it up w/in 4 days of it arriving at my branch.

Shakey,

I'm pretty pleased with what I can find through the various internet-based sevices. It's not 100% - more like 70% - and it takes a _lot_ of time to track down some titles. Generally I'm 6 or 8 months behind the curve on new releases unless I get screener copies, and that's a good 3-6 months behind where I was when I had local video stores or libraries pipelining me new stuff. It's not a bad setup, but it leaves a lot to be desired, and I've been moving from movies toward TV just for ease of procurement.

btw I would never disagree that major-studio US films are worse than ever, and will be worse 5 years from now. He seems to agree:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/8919102/Where-are-the-great-movies-asks-Spielberg.html

some of my BEST FRIENDS are librarians

your results may be somewhat affected by the fact that you live in San Francisco btw, i can't believe that you're arguing that someone who lives in topeka or basically anywhere that isn't an urban/upper-middle class suburban area is going to be able to get a steady stream of iranian art movies or whatever through inter-library loan

I work for an academic library that sends out DVD's, VHS tapes to small town middle of nowhere libraries on a daily basis. Our holdings include all kinds of stuff, including IRANIAN ART MOVIES. Neat, huh?

slightly off-topic, another weird thing about TV is that it requires this bigger emotional/time-commitment to pay off, imho. For example, I've watched episodes of Community and Parks & Rec and Arrested Development, not laughed once, and happily ignored them ever since. But you get this phenomenon of people telling you you have to watch several episodes before you will enjoy it - it's like you have to perform this mental trick to get anything out of it, you have to first invest time and energy into it and then the cognitive dissonance kicks in and you figure you better watch it/enjoy it now cuz you've already watched 1 1/2 hours of it etc. Like you have to develop this familiarity/immersion in the show before you get anything out of it. I find something about this phenomenon off-putting.

And I don't get this from movies.

xps

that is neat

xpost