Yet another Stephen King book to be adapted into a movie

[The STE]

So, a popular opinion is that big business is an evil, soulless fist crushing the small, often family-owned businesses. But, really, there's something to be said about national chains and big businesses to a certain extent. Take movie rental places for example. Yeah, you can generally find some obscure titles at the "Mom & Pop" place, but a lot of the time they can't match the volume of selection at a Hollywood Video (Blockbuster doesn't count, it is evil and soulless), and Netflix just crushes any other rental place. So, what do you think? You can't do away with the big chains entirely, but the small businesses are definately important as well, so what's the medium? Where do you draw the line between the two?

[alkytrio666]

What the hell does this have to do with a Stephen King adaption?

[The STE]

Nothing ^_^

[Unaboner3000]

I confused. Is the original poster implying Stephen King = Netflix?

[Roderick Usher]

Nothing wrong with capitalism. Business grow, it's normal.

But how a business treats its customers and employees must be examined. Some companies are inherently bad, seeking profits at any cost. Others do it the right way.

[Unaboner3000]

Some companies are inherently bad, seeking profits at any cost.

Wal Mart? Halliburton?

[The STE]

I think Wal-Mart's problem is that they're adding as much stuff to their stores as they can. Groceries, DVDs, clothes, toys, barber shop, bikes, et cetera.

[ferretchucker]

Randall Flag does not like Wal-Mart or big oil.

thanks for quote sigging me!

[stubbornforgey]

The day big stores introduced selling alcohol
the whole shopping buzz went all to hell

[AsylumSeeker]

In my opinion, Walmart isn't the devil because it's huge. It's the devil because it manages to bend the laws to treat it's employees like cattle. How does it accomplish this? Well, they are richer than god, but in addition they dump a buttload of money in the far right Republican coffers in exchange for consideration. That doesn't make it much different from Halliburton. Except that Halliburton is going to Dubai to make up for that whole "we're going to give you guys our ports, mazel tov" debacle. Walmart refuses to carry explicit lyrics and many movies, music, and manufactured items that don't fit with their very proudly stated Christian oriented business agenda. In addition, they are leading the fight for pharmacies that refuse to dispense doctor prescribed medications because it is against the moral beliefs of anyone that works in the store (i.e. the personnel in the pharmacy and the managers all the way up). They have recently made a decision not to carry the morning after pill at any of their stores because it goes against their mission.

Blockbuster has recently pissed me off in all kinds of ways. Blockbuster stores are geared toward the local environment. That's a business decision. I live in an extremely repressed area that doesn't approve of a whole lot, so our pickings were pretty slim. The close by college town, however, has an entirely different stock. It used to be that I could request a film, they would get it sent to the store by me and I could return it there to them. They decided not to do it any longer, so I'm on NetFlix.

I've tried to shop at the small, local stores, but many times that is sincerely overrated. Forget the prices. I was willing to pay an extra $10 for a pair of tennis shoes. The service is, many times, no better than the larger stores. I've decided for my own peace of mind that I will shop where I get good service. I refuse to shop at Walmart at any costs for numerous reasons, but I'm also not going to pay more money and select from a smaller stock in order to be given shoddy service to keep someone in business just because they are a "mom and pop". Sometimes Mom and Pop are jerks who have only stayed in business because they were the only game in town.

[Zero]

personally i'm resisting netflix and all the mail-to-you dvds. i still shop my local independent videostore and try to send as many friends there as possible. once the indie shops go away it will be trouble for anyone who loves odd, indepdent and foreign films . . . you mark my words!!

[Despare]

personally i'm resisting netflix and all the mail-to-you dvds. i still shop my local independent videostore and try to send as many friends there as possible. once the indie shops go away it will be trouble for anyone who loves odd, indepdent and foreign films . . . you mark my words!!

I don't have enough good indie shops around to get that, and with its new "watch now" feature Netflix keeps getting better and better.

[Zero]

I suspect I will eventually succumb to the dark side - but where I am there are a couple of good indie video stores left and i'm going to try to support them until the bitter end!

(damn, I'm noble!)

[AsylumSeeker]

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally with you guys in theory, but I live in a rural, very overly christianized area where there are no indie stores and the local Blockbuster has the most bizarre area restrictions. They won't carry alot of R rated movies because they think they "violate the area standards". Can you imagine trying to get a UR foriegn film? Not freaking likely. Besides, I like being lazy. I work an average of 70 hours a week. If I get a rare day off, I want my pizza brought to me (we don't have any delivery places) and my movie in my mailbox.

[The STE]

The thing about a place like Netflix is that they can have a much wider selection than a Hollywood Video or an indy store, because it's an online place. They're not tied down to the storage issues of a single building, so they could ship you a movie from wherever or have movies in multiple warehouses around the country, et cetera. And Netflix has plenty of weird or odd or obscure movies. Like Child Bride of the Ozarks. That fits all three of those.

[The STE]

Aye, there's that, but what Netflix lacks in "watch the movie now" (although that's becoming less of an issue even than with the stores with "Watch it Now"), it makes up for with the possibility to get a constant stream of movies. Say I get three movies on Monday. I watch one on Monday, mail it Tuesday, watch another on Tuesday, mail it Wednesday, watch the third Wednesday, mail it Thursday. Well, Thursday I'll have a new movie, same with Friday and Saturday. Same with Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week if I stick to watching a movie a day. So I could theoretically get a movie a day in the mail depending on how fast the mail is with Netflix (it's fast here). But even if I just got three a week, that's 24 movies a month for less than $20. And this is on the 3-at-a-time account. Get a 5-at-a-time account, you could very easily have a new movie every day if you watch them fast enough.

[The STE]

Aside from this weekend when I put Borat and Paradise Lost on the top of the list, I haven't "ordered" from Netflix in I dunno how long. Our rental queue has almost 150 discs on it. The only drawback about it that I can think of is when you rent a TV show series/season you get it a disc at a time (aside from getting more than one disc in the mail on a particular day or something). But I'm not so hot on renting TV shows anyways.

[AsylumSeeker]

I can understand the both ur views and for those reasons its good. But the two indie stores by me have a great selection. And they can get what they dont have. So its just a matter of convienience. When I wanna watch a movie, I want it now, lol. I dont wanna wait til tom or the next day for it to come in the mail. I may not be lazy, but I am spoiled. :D


Ha! I'm so jealous. I used to live on the East Coast in a major urban area and had the most amazing selection of indie stores to choose from. It was great. Now, I swear, we have 1 music store (Christian only), 1 book store (Christian only), and Blockbuster (fascist version). I would love to be able to grab something cool when I'm just in the mood, even if it was in addition to my Netflix.