This entry marks the beginning of a blank slate and a new epoch of blog history, and for that reason I will address a topic close to my heart that is thoroughly trivial:
How to find and buy films.
Am I jesting? Surely we all know how to walk into our local retailer of entertainments and hand over our hard earned coins for a bag of goods?! Yes of course, anyone can head down to hmv and pick up a copy of the Hangover II and a terrible Roland Emmerich film on 2 for £10, but good film buying involves more effort and patience. Hopefully this will become clear as you read through my tips.
Part 1: Traditional Shops
The Highstreet:
I do most of my film buying on the internet. I am well aware that many people despise amazon and the big online retailers for killing business. At the moment I am not against online shopping because it is financially advantageous and I am unconvinced that it is more ethically suspect than high street retail. As far as our pursuit of film goes, a little needs to be said. First of all, in these hard times, high street stores selling films have pretty much all disappeared. There was a time when Our Price existed, as did Virgin (later Zavvi), music zone and a bunch of other chains. These all folded leaving HMV and Blockbuster - both of which are struggling and downsizing considerably.
Blockbuster is primarily for rentals but usually sells alot of ex-rental titles fairly cheap as well as chart and pre-owned. I find the selection is usually limited to recent titles, the prices are fair but nothing special, and Blockbuster is notorious for renting out badly scratched discs, so I don't feel confident about buying ex-rental stuff there. I did, however, recently by the French film 'Of God's and Men' (Excellent film) as a pre-owned title. I had never heard of the movie, it looked interesting and was £5. I felt pretty satisfied with that, though having watched it I'd really like to see the blu-ray.
HMV is interesting. Having worked there for a while I know a little about what goes on and its not overly inspiring. HMV stores vary in quality dramatically. The best ones that I know of are the London store near covent garden, and also the little London Victoria train station store (its tiny but the shelves are rammed full). Brighton store is big but I can rarely find anything I want in there. For along time HMV have run a 2 for £10 (or £7 each) DVD offer. This is mainly on new-ish titles that are in mass circulation. If you are after common thrift this is fine but uninteresting. They also have pink stickered sale films - the sale aspect is a myth. HMV always has some kind of so-called 'sale' on, but really its just a cycle of the same products getting different promotion to coincide with different holidays etc.. The back catalogue in HMV is usually very patchy and overpriced. Its really for people who only shop for films at Christmas as presents for unsuspecting relatives. Positives - Where HMV occasionally trumps other avenues is with box sets. Every once in a while a particular boxset (lost, heroes, the wire) will get a special run at a much reduced price. Sometimes only for a week, or until it sells out, then back to full price. When this happens it can be a genuinely good deal, but you have to look out for it. I snapped up 24 the complete 8 seasons plus redemption for £50 which was pretty good, at the time it was selling for £70-100 on amazon. I also got the incredible Alien blu-ray anthology (6 disc edition) for £17 in HMV, This was cheaper than anywhere online had sold it at the time, and still in my mind the benchmark for Blu-ray and dvd box sets. Blu ray in hmv is disappointing. Typically few good offers, the back catalogue is overpriced and the selection is not great. For a while they did 2 for £15 which was not bad. I picked up Zodiac and Bridge on he River Kwai in this offer as they are both great films and great blu-rays and the online price plus postage was no cheaper.
Supermarkets:
Tesco is alright for getting popular releases but a pretty weak selection. My local Sainsbury has proved pretty good for finding films in the last year - they stock all the chart stuff at chart prices, but also a very eccentric selection of cheap dvds sometimes starting at £2. I picked up Fight club for £2, Che parts 1 and 2 for £4 and quite often they have classics - I bought citizen kane, a touch of evil, marathon man, midnight cowboy and some others. These were £3 each which is pretty darn acceptable for classic films. They also keep selling weird things like The Shadow staring Alec Baldwin, and Darkman with Liam Neeson. I don't know who the buyer is for Sainsbury's but he has brilliantly strange taste for a major supermarket. There is a massive Asda in watford which has an overwhelming selection of low priced DVDs and a decent wall of blu-rays. Not bad in a walmart kind of way.
Independent retailers:
I'd like to rate them and say that I get all my films from quirky stores staffed by movie buffs. The reality is I find these stores to be way to expensive with a poor selection and very few have made the jump to blu-ray. I'll always have a browse but can't part with £10 for a single dvd. Having said that, on a recent trip to Whitstable I stumbled upon an independent rental store with a small for sale section where I found the 50s classic b-move 'Them' about giant ants for £6.99 new. This film is out of print and going for £20 new on amazon. So little gems do appear occasionally. I imagine that some people like to use the knowledge of the people running these stores to start a loving friendship, and to gain new insights. I don't like that kind of thing.
Fopp in covent garden:
Fopp was an indie chain with shops over the country. When I moved to Brighton in 2005 there was a fopp. It was great for music and pretty good for film. Fopp went bust. Dang. However, highstreet swines HMV swooped in and bought it up, enabling fopp to still exist in a few key locations under the HMV umbrella, but still essentially doing its own thing. Fopp in covent garden (although nearer to leicester sq. tube station) is pretty great. They have a a constantly changing selection of £3 movies ranging from cult, indie, foreign, to mainstream. Its great for a browse and is very hard not to leave with something. If you have a specific film you are after there is no gurantee that they will have it, I think fopp works better for a leisurely browse. Don't go with people who will try and rush you. The blu-ray selection is still quite limited and a bit pricey, hopefully this will change with time but I doubt it.
Next time - online buying!
