| Editorial March 2009
Buy or Rent? Thoughts on Video Viewing
During the Recession
 When Hollywood first decided
to release films on videocassette, they were priced exceptionally high and were considered
rental items only. Video stores could recoup the cost of an expensive title through
multiple rentals. Only the very affluent and the addicted actually bought movies on
cassette. The studios then came up with an idea: after a title had been out for three or
four months and rental stores had made the bulk of their profits from it, the studios
could reissue the film, sometimes with new cover art, and sell it at about a third of the
original cost. You might think this would have squelched the rental business, but it
didn’t, instead extending their profits. Then DVD came along, and both sales and
rentals of movies went through the roof, peaking in 2007 and bottoming out in 2008.
For reasons to which I’ve never fully subscribed, most
people scramble to rent or buy movies they saw in the theaters only four or five months
before. Now, as a movie reviewer, I have to watch the latest titles and report on them if
I want to make a living. But there are nights when I’d much rather revisit Giant,
An American in Paris, Blood Simple, or Werewolf of London than watch
the latest, greatest blockbuster, especially as older titles continue to receive new video
and audio transfers that make them look and sound as new as they did the first day they
were shown in the cinema.
The rest of you have a choice, yet many of you still choose
to watch heavily hyped recent movies on disc as soon as you can. I can understand that if
you’ve sworn off going to the theater at all, and sit at home waiting to see new
films for the first time, or if you want to see the extras to find out how a particular
movie was made. But buying a DVD just to be the first kid on the block to see a movie that
played in theaters only three months ago seems a bit crazed, and people end up collecting
titles that then sit on shelves unplayed, gathering dust. Be honest -- how many of the
movies in your collection have you watched more than once?
I used to run a small newsletter that reviewed first
laserdiscs, then DVDs. I gave one rating that I’ve never seen anywhere else: a
film’s Potential For Repeated Viewing (PFRV), with which I tried to indicate how
often I thought the average viewer might want to watch a given title. This doesn’t
have so much to do with good or bad as with content. I think Oliver Stone’s Born
on the Fourth of July is a brilliant movie, but its topic is so
graphically depicted that I’m not sure I want to risk being as bummed out again as I
was when I first saw it. On the other side of the coin, the James Bond movies are romps I
can watch a dozen or more times for the action; and complex, high-quality mysteries such
as Laura will hold my attention even though I know how the story will turn out,
because I can now watch how the actors’ masterful performances lead up to it.
Most people I know would rather own moves than rent them. I
think it’s because we’d all like to own a piece of the dream of Tinsel Town.
The current recession might make us change this habit. At
this point in history, it makes more sense to rent a title for the weekend than risk
owning something you won’t watch very often. When you rent, you can be less careful
about the choice of title -- if you don’t like it, you can ship it back and pick
another. The downsides are that the cover art is not included, or all the discs of a set
aren’t necessarily sent at the same time, or you’re sent a damaged disc. That
last happens seldom these days; most rental companies give each returned disc a look-see
before sending it out again. And if it does arrive damaged, it’s still a plus
in that it’s not your disc that’s broken.
But if renting movies is not your thing and the economy has
taken a bite out of your entertainment dollar, you can save a lot of money by purchasing
discs online. Amazon.com and other similar companies heavily discount the prices of movies
on disc. I once calculated that I could buy 10 titles online and spend $100 less than what
I’d pay for the same movies in a local mall store. And that was only 10 movies -- if
I bought 40 titles a year, I’d save $400. If you’re patient, you can do even
better by buying only used DVDs. If a disc has been handled properly, it will give the
same results used as it did new. A multitude of online vendors -- Amazon.com, eBay, you
name it -- sell DVDs and Blu-ray Discs well below list price.
So although times are tight, you needn’t eliminate
entertainment from your life. It’s just that your buying habits need to change. Learn
to rent, or be patient enough to make selections based on good shopping habits, not
impulses. Learn how to shop for used discs, perhaps selling some of your own and using the
money to buy new titles. Look for patterns in terms of which sort of movies you never
watch again and which you play more often. This will be different for each viewer.
Yesterday at Walmart I saw the DVD edition of Disturbia (a
guilty pleasure) -- factory sealed, Dolby 5.1, the works -- for $4. Bargains can be found,
but you have to look for them. Around Mother’s Day there are always sales on romance
titles; around Father’s Day, it’s war movies. Like going to the grocery store
armed with coupons, you eventually become aware of the rhythms of distribution and
discounts. And now that a generous number of Blu-ray titles have been released, I’m
starting to see sales and promotions on them, too.
The studios, too, need to break some habits. They release
DVDs and Blu-rays assured that all their sales are going to come in the first three weeks.
Recently, I had a polite altercation with a studio rep who said that our review of a
particular title had been too late to include in the report. They don’t seem to want
reviews that are published after their predicted "window" has closed. But what
about the movie itself? Is it chopped liver? I maintain that, especially when a new format
such as Blu-ray emerges, every title is a new title to someone, and if it
was valuable in the first place, it still is.
If you want to save money on entertainment during the
recession, you have to stop letting studio hype push your Impulse Buy button. Pick out the
one or two titles each month that you really want, and find the best price on them. As for
the rest, wait or rent. Like it or not, times are changing, and every industry and person
has to adapt if they want to still be around when the smoke clears.
. . . Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com |
