As most of the country, BPE has not been doing well financially since October. September was oddly one of our best months ever and then we fell off a cliff.

I've had to spend alot of time recycling things I own for X-mas gifts, and wé've had to cancel a few things no one is renting enough of to justify.

As for new releases, the 'new' popular movies are normally being rented and stolen, so if you want to know why we don't have enough copies of Inglorious basterds or District 9 it's because we have enough copies, its just the first people to ever rent them are going to keep them 25 days and then not pay late fees while complaining about a movie we don't have (see: irony).

We are desperately trying to get back on our feet but it is slow going. The volunteemployees are getting better but a unified front is still not there. We had an unforeseen and unpredictable calamity in the first week of December that set us back months financially, and we have 20 people with batches of movies over 25 days late from october and november that likely are people leaving town having avoided our phonecalls because who cares, right? One persons actions couldn't be responsible for the fate of a small business.

It's a bleak holiday, and we would like to plea for late fees, for rentals, for not loaning your movies out to your friends, not leaving our discs as coasters at someones dorm or house.

We haven't sold a single gift certificate for the holidays, which is unprecedented.

There is a website setup for the redbox late fee class action lawsuit against them. Google it if you wish to participate. The problem is we can compete with any other dvd source out there, it's just that we can't compete with there public relations.

Come in, cheer us up. Thanks to everyone who rents, have a better next year.

We're having electrical problems, so our open sign is off and some rows of lights, its being worked on as I type.

But we're hemorrhaging money as people walk or drive by and think we're closed.

Please come in and rent. Yes, We're open.

Everything in the store or building is breaking down from the small (our phone) to the big (our rental software), and we are struggling to come up with the monies to get back going. Our clock is ticking, we'll have an announcement early next year. Honestly, don't know if its good or bad yet.

But we are open, come in.

We will be closed Thanksgiving.

X-Mas Eve we close early, call ahead.
X-mas day we open late and close early, call ahead.

New Year's eve we will close at 9:30.


December movies will be up next wednesday on the website.

November's movie schedule is up at the website, remember to make sure your at the right month if your still looking for october. We'll be getting the Trailer Park Boys X-mas special in soon.

Our Annual Anniversary Film Screening is Saturday, November 14th (it's changed and final date). It's at 5 PM. Tickets are $10, $8 prepaid from the store.

The people at Criterion supporting it again through dvd giveaways, and we will have other goodies as well.

The film is an animated film.
It is a film that premiered at Tribeca in the states, and the Berlin Film Fest overseas. A film that played Roger Ebert's personally selected Ebertfest this year.

Part of the proceeds will go directly to the director, Nina Paley.

It is the animated, wonderful, 1920s Jazz meets Hindu Epic meets American marital discord of -




Sita is a Hindu goddess, the leading lady of India’s epic the Ramayana and a dutiful wife who follows her husband Rama on a 14 year exile to a forest, only to be kidnapped by an evil king from Sri Lanka. Despite remaining faithful to her husband, Sita is put through many tests. Nina (the filmmaker Nina Paley herself) is an artist who finds parallels in Sita’s life when her husband – in India on a work project - decides to break up their marriage and dump her via email. Three hilarious Indonesian shadow puppets with Indian accents – linking the popularity of the Ramayana from India all the way to the Far East - narrate both the ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the epic. In her first feature length film, Paley juxtaposes multiple narrative and visual styles to create a highly entertaining yet moving vision of the Ramayana. Musical numbers choreographed to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw feature a cast of hundreds: flying monkeys, evil monsters, gods, goddesses, warriors, sages, and winged eyeballs. A tale of truth, justice and a woman’s cry for equal treatment. Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."

Update #3

Our Anniversary film event will be Saturday, November 14th at the Varsity Theater (Time to be determined). Criterion has provided some dvds to give away, and it is an award winning animated film for all ages. The title will be unhidden November 1st. Here's a hint - 1920s jazz, San Francisco and epic Hindu stories. $10, $8 prepaid at the store (starting November 1st).

Update #2


Nurse Betty will be on the shelf soon, one new backstock on top of the one mentioned below.

Update 1: Wholphin Volume 9 is out now on the shelf this week. For those who check each issue out, the new one is here. Some cool Spike Jonze/Maurice Sendak stuff on it to coincide with the Where the Wild Things Are film coming out.

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October releases posted at the website. Make sure when you go to new releases your looking at the month you want if your trying to see September's list.

Besides The Score, really no new backstock. I have a list of backstock we'll get next, but for most businesses it seems from different people I've spoken with September was as bad a month as August was good, and that held true for us, so no crazy backstock ordering.

Quick update, we will be open on Labor Day, Laboring. We're just that backwards.

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New release schedule up at website.

Our anniversary screening plans are totally changed. So an announcement will be awhile as we sort out the what and wheres.

Oh, the only new backstock movie for this month is Viva Maria. That's all, see you in the store.

August is very lopsided with most of the movies coming out the last 2 weeks so please stop in. Expect one of my movie rental business rants soon, I feel it coming, like heartburn. Announcing our annual anniversary movie event in the next week or two, finally, so get pumped. I am. I ordered the perfect push-up, and should be wailing on my biceps to get appropriately excited.

Alright, for August's new release list which is up at the website, there is, like in July, a film or two that should be on it that somehow slipped through the cracks.

Only one this month, it is The Good Times Kid, put out through one of our favorite new dvd labels, Benten films, run and founded by two movie critics. They had not put out a release in some months and I was getting worried. Game on.


And, as posted on our email list, this is the new old stuff we received or will be getting over the next month, with yet an additional movie that didn't make it to the email list. And yes, I keep saying we're going to have to tone down the new backstock, be happy.

Couple Criterions

Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel (will be in New Release room)
For All Mankind (criterion's reissue of it from this year)
Brief Encounter
The dual Jimi Hendrix/Otis Redding release: Shake! Otis/Jimi plays Monterrey

Then,

Pixar's a Bug's Life
Mansfield Park
Emma (w/G. Paltrow)
Twelfth Night
Love's Labour's Lost

The Clean water doc Flow.

The Perfect Storm (somehow we didn't have it)
A widescreen version of the modern Ocean's 11.

In the fall, we'll be getting the Trailer Park Boys X-Mas special since the new seasons we picked up have done well. And early next year, maybe we'll get seasons 6 and 7 (there are just too many of them).

The first season of Eastbound and Down, produced by one Will Ferrell. Also, the 1st of the 4 Doctor Who 'Specials' leading up to David Tennant leaving the show for a new actor taking over the role comes out the last week of the month (the new guy is seriously like 19 years old and has dyed black hair....so enjoy Tennant while we can). Also, The new Torchwood Mini-series comes out the last week, and the first 'series' in BBC terminology of Life on Mars, NOT THE AMERICAN REMAKE TV SHOW, the original british one that actually got to have a real ending. I'm a big fan of the follow-up series Ashes to Ashes, so it's been forced on me to watch. The film "The Empress and the Warriors" is going to come out the last week but also isn't on the formal list.

Before august is up we will be receiving the entirety of the 3 Volume TV show Avatar:The Last Airbender. One of the most unexpected cartoons to come along in a long time, it manages a unique feat, being quality for adults and kids. Outside of Pixar, doesn't happen often. The show has a detailed mythology, and quite the continuity. M. Night Shyamalan is adapting it as a feature film (for better or worse) and a teaser trailers been released.

And Death Note Volume 1, this is the anime, not the live-action adaptations (which we carry).


The Date for our Fall film screening may be changing.

New Releases for July are posted on the website. Bestplaceever.com, it's that simple.

We're still very interested in nudging the following people to get in touch with us,

Daniel Bloomquist
Dustin Thomas
Fred Gaddy Jr.
Erika Lamadue

New backstock includes the criterion of otis redding and jimi hendrix playing the monterrey pop festival, the Coppola Restoration of the Godfather (mid-july), the boxset the Yakuza Papers, a doc called Frontrunners, Trailer Park Boys (mid-july) Seasons 4, 5, and a replacement of it's Season 1 Disc 1 that was stolen. Also, Scorsese's period peice, the Age of Innocence.

It's been an interesting month, some good things happened, the usual bad customers happened, a message was left on our landline phone at 6 AM by some unknown male telling us to never ever ever ever #$^$%^ text them again to which we say we'll do him one better and never have texted him to begin with, overachievers that we are, a great old customer returned from South Korea (he promises this whole North Korean thing is hilarious over there), and we learned to spend more on cooling the store than we may have made on a given day. But, the store is really comfortable right now.

I'm shirtless, it's that comfortable.

Our fall film screening will be September 26th tentatively at the Varsity, but this may end up not being our 'anniversary' party and just a cool fall event depending on if I can get another film scheduled sometime. I also don't want to let the title out until I know if I managed to get the director here for the screening or not.

More later.

That's all!