TLA Video

See ya, TLA South St. I hardly knew ye.
I live on the other side of town, and only a few weeks before I heard the 4^th Street location was closing, I started visiting the Locust St. store, which happens to be very close to my job. I am enamored by their selection. I both love and hate the way the store is organized (by favorite directors, actors, then by genre), but appreciate that all you have to do is ASK. I went to the 4^th Street store several times during their fire sale and picked up a whole mess of dvds, including some hard/​impossible to find goodies. Although I am, admittedly, a cheapskate and an on-​again/​off-​again Netflix subscriber, I will not forget this store, and will continue to oogle the selection of obscure horror movies at the Locust St. location.

Unfortunately, I discovered this when it was in the middle of their closing sale. I picked up a few good DVDs like Whit Stillman’s «Last Days of Disco» Criterion Edition and Patrice Leconte’s «Intimate Strangers» in French with English subtitles (out of print). Here is the breakdown of the sale.
$ 7.99 for first used DVD
$ 2.99 for each additional used DVD
$ 15.00 for used Criterion DVD (not included with used DVD deal)
30% off all new DVD
I’ll be checking out the Bryn Mawr location for my rentals. The Blockbuster stores in Wayne, Conshohoken, and King of Prussia are closing their doors. I also found a few other gems like Charlie Kaufman’s «Unbearable Lightness of Being» Criterion Edition, Hayao Miyazaki’s «Castle in the Sky», and Patrice Leconte’s «Man on the Train».

These days, you can get movies from a lot of different places. You can even get them for free. The TLA on 4^th street makes a good case for renting, though.
The folks working here are the same breed of pretentious know-​it-​all that you’ll find at your favorite record store. And yeah, they’ll give each other a knowing smirk when you rent something stupid. But they’ll also tell you about all the really excellent stuff you are missing out on, if you ask.
Check out the employee picks wall, by the sales room. Find someone you agree with, taste wise, and start following their picks. You are bound to find some good stuff you never knew existed. This video store makes you feel like part of a community. They have cute little notes taped to the cases of a lot of videos. They have a really good selection of «adult» films, covering the whole GLBT range (seriously, even the T, which I know because a friend asked one day for help finding something. Honest.)
New releases can be hit or miss, but if you go in on a tuesday morning looking for a specific thing, there’s a good chance they’ll dig it out of the box and make you the first person to rent it and that’s pretty awesome.
Summary: the store is well organized, well staffed, well stocked. You’d have a hard time doing better in the internet age, and I sincerely hope they stick around for a long long time.

TLA Video is the only video rental store worth bothering with in the current days of Netflix. Their selection is amazing, with lots of indie and art films. The have a decent selection of adult titles for the pr0n lovers out there. They also have a pretty good selection of animé, which is rare for a video store these days.
The employees are also true movie geeks! They almost always know enough to answer any questions you might have about any movie, and manager Kenny is always super nice and friendly.
If you’re not going to join the Netflix bandwagon, then you better rent your movies from TLA.

If it wasn’t for TLA, I’d be stuck watching garbage movies along the lines of The Pacifier. Instead, I have the freedom to be chichi and rent Goodbye Lenin! Yay!
*Here is a great one from Romania they carry: «Gadjo Dilo» (crazy stranger). Romain Duris stars… need I say more?*

Thinking about video stores makes me sad. What a wonderful service they have provided over the years and now, with technology taking over our lives, they are becoming obsolete. It doesn’t cost much more to buy a DVD than it does to rent one. And then you can re-​sell it for almost full price. Or you can have videos delivered right to your door for a very low monthly rate. So why rent?
I will admin: I have a Netflix account, and I watch a lot of movies. It doesn’t make sense for me to frequent a video store, but on the occasion that I need/​want a video immediately, I head on over to TLA (and, no, not just because they are the only video stores left in the city — R.I.P. West Coast).
I started going to TLA (the one over by Rittenhouse, at the time) because Blockbuster didn’t have Wet Hot American Summer. TLA bailed me out when I was writing my thesis and needed The Spirit of the Beehive. More recently, TLA has provided hours upon hours of weekend fun with a sporadic rental of M*A*S*H Season 1 (all three discs [24 episodes!] are only 1 rental!!!).
So although I maintain a strict Netflix queue and movie watching itinerary, there is a special place in my heart for TLA.

As good a video store as you are going to find. Huge selection, well organized, nice staff, great hours, reasonable prices/​return schedule. And there is something about browsing covers in a store that beats searching NetFlix.

tla video, i do love you, you always have great and awful new horror movies and you usually have employee reviews on them. your staff for the most part are helpful, nice and knowledgable. you keep those vhs movies around for guys like me who have the good common sense to own a dvd/​vhs player and your selection is unrivaled in the city. yes i know that you know that my girlfriend got me a subscription to netflix and im sorry, i never meant to hurt you baby but they do some things you just dont. dont worry, i’ll always love you and i’ll always shop here though the frequency of my visits has lessened. on a slightly different note, i’m glad you canned that one guy with the crappy big hair who always acted like he was nodding off when i came to the counter, and that one other guy who works there, please tell him i’m cool too and he can smile and act like we speak the same language the next time i go there. i cant wait to see you again, actually ive got to return some movies to you today. (do not rent the remake of «day of the dead» i can still taste the disappointment in the back of my throat)

I love TLA Video. They have everything you could possibly want. Sometimes the more popular or newer titles are out of stock, but generally ok. The staff is fine as video store staff goes, and they have a rent-​two-​get-​one deal that makes things more affordable. They also carry a great selection of pre-​viewed DVDs for cheap!

Let me begin this with the TLA Video gets a third star just because they have a pretty vast selection. Ok with that being said, my girlfriend and I have rented several times from this TLA Video and have had serious issues with DVD playback (50% haven’t made it through the whole movie with out it getting choppy or just completely stopping), many of these DVD have come to us in cases where the DVD is actually just floating around, not secured at all. We love the accessibility hell its literally two minutes walking from my house and the variety, but we’re calling it quits on the TLA Video, sorry.

With a vast selection which includes everything from new releases to hard to find foreign flicks from Korea, Taiwan and India as well as classics from the early years of film and a «rent two get one free» deal, who needs Netflix? Oh yeah, for those moments when you’re too embarrassed to be seen renting «Van Wilder’s: The Rise of Taj.»

I love TLA for every reason that was already stated. The selection is really unmatched by any other video store in the city and one could spend hours searching through the endless rows of DVDs. I just thought I should add that you should not really expect deals on new DVDs as prices are about the same, if not more than Blockbuster. However, they do have a nice group previously owned movies at appropriate prices.

It seems as though I’m just reiterating what two folks have already said, but TLA Vid really is the place to go when you’re in the market for foreign films– they have plenty, and they’re easy to find.
Foreign films to see from the past few years that you should be able to find at TLA:
Italy: The Tiger and the Snow (w/​the guy from Life is Beautiful, and featuring a Tom Waits cameo)
Mexico: Duck Season (directed by Alfonso Cueron, but significantly more artsy than Y Tu Mama Tambien. Not for people who only like Hollywood films.); Nicotina (featuring Diego Luna, the OTHER guy in Y Tu Mama Tambien) is stylistically comparable to Inarritu’s good films (e.g. Amores Perros, and anything BUT Babel, which was lousy and forced – END OF STORY!!!)
Iraq/​Iran: Turtles Can Fly, a must see coming of age film for anyone with a pulse. Dated filmography is compensated for w/​timeliness and brutal honesty.

I agree whole-​heartedly with Nicole. I’m one of those bozoes that’s ruining the video store as we know it (i.e. a Netflix subscriber), but I am also a TLA member.
Their foreign film section, specifically in the Italian genre is unmatched by any chain on the East Coast. TLA gets all the movies people who value film want to see, and none they don’t. (Sorry, you won’t see your ‘80s Patrick Dempsey titles Grey’s fans.) Equally, they don’t try to overwelm the shelves with 28 copies of Wedding Crashers to show you how rad it is.
TLA is very cool… and with its many locations (this being the best), it means a lot to the city. Oh yeah, I step in that backroom time to time to see what’s regular titles are for sale. This place tracks enough strange birds where even if somebody wanted to judge me, I’d laugh — most of the time.

I personally like going into a video store that has their rentals arranged by director, sub genre, nation of origin and various other mechanisms that defy the Blockbuster organizational scheme. They have a lot of DVDs that are rare that one will not find in one of those national chain stores. It’s hard for video stores these days to compete with Netflix. They are forced to reconsider pricing structure and late fees. However, sometimes you just want to see something that night and don’t feel like adding it to your queue on Netflix and waiting for it to come in.
Also TLA has a back room with videos for purchase. They have both new and previously rented titles that are usually cost effective. Unfortunately these are located by their adult video selection and the whole section is roped off in a back room so you might feel a little seedy. It’s worth it, though, because they do have good movies and box sets.