"Brian," you might be saying, "you're at the leading... no, BLEEDING edge of technologies and the internets, why are you going to a video store? That's so pre-2007." Well, first of all, thanks for the recognition. Secondly, I happen to like to rent the odd video and I especially love independent video stores.
In Calgary, we have Bird Dog - which is awesome & you should go there if you are from Calgary and haven't been. While in Austin, I went to I Luv Video. It was great. A few things that made it so great:- Giant mural on the back wall incorporating images from everything from Star Wars to Oldboy.
- Canada was a foreign films section.
- The wall of shame, which names the people who didn't return their videos.
- My favorite: comments from the staff taped on the covers of notable videos.
(for the record, we rented 'Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job, Season 3' and 'Broken Embraces'... but only saw the former)
There isn't much room for video stores in today's day & age. Big name stores in Canada (and I'm sure elsewhere) have been creating a lot of available retail space recently. The shops that survive are going to have to make sure they carve out a niche for themselves if they will survive for the next 10 years. Bird Dog & I Luv Video have done a good job of that so far - it is enjoyable to go to those places. They have created a brand for themselves that has allowed them to thrive when the big players are suffering big time. They are a few years behind what the record shops have been experienced at the hands of the internet. In the music world, the likes of Virgin, Tower and HMV are all but extinct. Megatunes, a Calgary & Edmonton institution, is now also closing up shop. I hope that in the next few years that Bird Dog and I Luv Video will be able to adapt & avoid the fate of their record store counterparts.