The store,
which was rather large, never made much out of itself, and that was one of the
reasons I liked it. It probably could have used a bit of renovation; it could
have been a tad trendier. No matter. I liked it as it was, somewhat organized,
somewhat messy. You could always find the new films--the top 10 films; you
might have to search for some of the older films you wanted, but it was fun to
do so, like going through bookshelves in a library trying to find a specific book
or author, and discovering something else along the way, like some
long-forgotten horror film from the early 1990s. I enjoyed talking to the
people who worked there; sometimes they recommended films (like Exit through the Gift Shop—about Thierry
Guetta and Banksy, the street artist), other times we briefly discussed films
we had seen. Stopping in to Showtime was something I often did on Sunday evenings
after I had attended mass; I would walk up the hill in Ullevålsveien, make the
right onto Waldemar Thranes gate, and there it was, right next door to the
pharmacy. I would often rent three films at one time and purchase some candy or
other snack to enjoy during film viewing. I will miss that little routine on
Sunday evenings; I almost asked the young woman tonight—what am I going to do
now without you? She looked unhappy, probably about as unhappy as I did. I feel
sad about their closing. I’m not always so fond of change, especially when it impacts on
what I love doing —watching movies. I don’t think it will be easy to find
another such store in our residential vicinity; I have a feeling that this
closing is a portent of things to come—that most such stores will be closing
their doors eventually. Many major cable TV companies offer online video services
now, and there are any number of companies that have sprung up to provide that
service if your cable TV provider doesn’t. If you have an internet connection,
you can download whatever film you’d like to see without paying a fortune. If
you own a tablet of any sort, you can download films for viewing onto your iPad
or similar. So why would you want to physically walk into a store and rent a
film?
I guess my
answer would be that I don’t want to spend my entire life in an online world. I
am on a computer each day from early morning until late afternoon for work purposes:
emails, Google searches, reading journal articles, writing journal articles,
visiting scientific sites—the list is long. Many hours are spent online each
week. It’s a limited way of living in the world, even though the internet
exposes you to a huge amount of information. I feel constrained at times when I
am online. So I like actually walking into a video rental store and perusing
the shelves, trying to find a film I’d like to watch. I suppose people will
point out to me that you are really doing the same thing when you are on Netflix
or other online video services; you’re checking out their ‘film library shelves’.
I guess that’s true, but I will still miss being able to physically pick up a
film DVD and turn it over to read about the film on the back cover, deciding to
rent it, buying some candy on my way out, and looking forward to watching the
films when I get home. Goodbye Showtime, and thanks for many enjoyable years.
(For those of you who read Norwegian, here is a link with three reviews of this store. It's nice to see that others also had pleasant experiences dealing with Showtime: http://www.yelp.no/biz/showtime-oslo)
(For those of you who read Norwegian, here is a link with three reviews of this store. It's nice to see that others also had pleasant experiences dealing with Showtime: http://www.yelp.no/biz/showtime-oslo)