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Mon-Sat. 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 a.m.
Sun. 12:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.
This place is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
They have 'blocks' you can purchase, which is a concept way ahead of its time. For instance, for $30, you're prepaid for 15 rentals. That's right--a lower cost per rental (usually $2.50), more efficient, AND you get to keep the new releases out for 3 days instead of 1.
I am smitten.
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They seem to have everything. Obscure films, B films, foreign films, nearly every weird movie I've found out on the internet, they have it. (One time there was some anime I wanted to see but they didn't have, but they explained that all the copies out there were pirated, and they'd be happy to add it to their collection if I could find a legitimate source for them.)
Secondly... its pretty cheap if you buy a renters block.
I kind of wish there was a way to return videos without wading into campus, though.
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This is the kind of place where you can browse their selection of Australian sitcoms in PAL format. They have a section for that. The unusual "rental block" system means you can pay in advance at a discount. When it's time to check out just show them your ID and there is no need for money or charge slips.
The best video store in the world. Wish they still had their VHS collection but there is really never been or will be a better place to go and be overwhelmed at what to rent or not to rent, they have a lot of crap too, no snobbery. Puts Facets to shame.
Amazing collection of films from so many different countries and genres. As an avid fan of documentaries, I was very pleased with their selection of documentaries and art films in addition to their classic movies. They also have a bunch of cartoons (from different eras), anime, and tv shows.
Their movies are all easy to find and the staff is really fun to talk to, too.
Though like Deanna I am hesitant to pay for 2 or 3 days movie rentals b/c of the school's massive library etc, their prices are still cheaper than say...Blockbuster- and if you rent a lot from them, their block programs are actually worth it. ($1 per film!!)
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Best place to rent movies EVER.
I loved walking in without a clue of what I want and coming out with something great and 3 ideas of what to rent next time. I miss you, Rentertainment!
Best part - the $1 tv show rentals. And the only place I know of in Chambana where you can find Doctor Who.
Every movie rental place should take a clue from this place.
Great selection of movies. I wish I had known about the renter's block, it is a great deal, but I didn't find out about it until i was too close to graduation. The place has every type of movie you can imagine, and their prices are at least half of Blockbuster. The one reason it didn't get five stars is for the people who work there. They are sometimes friendly, sometimes rude, and always very slow. They hire a bunch of artsy campus kids who are more interested in movies than customer service.
I am a movie buff and this place has it all. I love this place ten fold. The place has the total package:
The Staff is very knowledgeable, which is something you do not get at blockbuster or Hollywood, where arguably they do not know movies. Rentertainment does and they are there to help. Many staff members take film classes at the U of I and so are able to answer a wide range of questions about movies.
The selection is huge. The store must have tens of thousands of titles in the tiny space the store occupies. Here is a case where looks are deceiving. If you think that by walking by the store that you will not have a selection to chose from. Ha! Your impression will change. If you are like me, my eyes lit up like a kid in a candy shop. I was amazed how much can fit in the store. It is impressive.
The staff are casual and nice. At blockbuster or Hollywood, I find that their service sucks. At Rentertainment you get caring people. They will go above and beyond to get you the movie you want, even if it means potentially having it ordered.
The rentals are very reasonably priced. They offer packages and these packages offer killer savings.
I could go on and on about how great this place is, there are no drawbacks, it just sucks that I am back in Chicago where ironically I can not find a store that even measures up to Rentertainment.
wonderful selection of movies. best selection of movies in town. new, old, indie, etc. wide array of genres to choose from. forget going to any other video store. this is a must!
Why bother with Hollywood Video, Blockbuster, Family Video, Schnucks's Video Rental - etc?
Rentertainment offers the lowest movie rental price in town and if you're a lazy bastard and can't return movies on time, you won't rack up a ridiculous amount of late charges here.
Eclectic movie rentals include Hitchcock, Band films, Gay & Lesbian, Documentary, Film Noir, Classics, Musicals, Comedy, B films, Woody Allen, Anime, International, TV series, Horror, Cycling, Bollywood, Opera and too many more to name. You want it. They most likely have it.
Rentertainment used to stock VHS tapes - but since they are a dying breed, Geoff converted 99.8 % of his stock to DVDs. You can probably find leftovers still being given away in the store. DVDs are also for sale here.
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Good Stuff
1. Greatest selection EVER.
2. Very knowledgeable, helpful and ....ahem cute staff.
3. Check imdb/rottentom movie ratings/reviews before you rent. They have a computer hooked up to the internet in the store!!
4. Rental Block. If you are planning on staying on campus for a couple of months you just have to buy their $100 rental block which gets you 100 movies for 3 days each.
5. On Campus, open till 11:59pm
6. Top Movie rental lists for each genre are put up all around the store.
7. Stuff on their website!! eg. http://www.rentertainm...
Minor issues:
1. Most of the time they will only have one copy of a old movie. And if someone misplaces that particular copy then it will take a couple of weeks/months for the replacement to come in (eg. "The Game" of Michael Douglas fame was missing for a few weeks).
2. 6pm/9pm return time !!
3. This place really spoils you. You will never be able to use netflicks or blockbuster again.
I really miss this place now that I've moved to CA... :'-( movie rental would never be the same.
Update: I just noticed that Apple has used the term "Thats Rentertainment" on their movie rental page !! http://www.apple.com/i...
Sue them?
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$2 to rent any of the roughly 2387634987643bajillion random indie and mainstream movies/TV shows in the place?
Hell yes.
Suck it, Blockbuster - Rentertainment til I die.
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Yeah! Rock on rentertainment. It's the only home-video option in C-U for the non-brain dead crowd. Documentaries, foreign and indie films, anime - lots of great stuff.
If there were a place like this in Chicago (please message me if there is) I might not use bittorrent!
Amazing stock of mainstream and art films (they were stocking anime on Laserdisc before it exploded), reasonable rates, nice staff... *sigh*. So jealous of y'all CU-ites.
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This place is wonderful. Go here.
I remember when this place opened - they rented CD's, which were still pretty expensive at the time. Oh man, how my friends and I loved that. I guess they were ordered to cease and desist by the recording industry. I'm really not sure why that wasn't ok. That was a golden age.
Anyway, for the last couple decades it's been DVDs and such, and it's great. There is no call to ever patronize a Lackluster Video. Rentertainment has what you want.
This location used to be a tiny little mom-n-pop grocery/convenience store. I'm probably the only person alive who remembers that. I think I shall start peppering my Yelp reviews with reviews of things that used to be there.
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Best video rental place ever.
Period.
Just walk through it once and you'll understand.
Oh and check out the Best B-Movie list. That's an amusing drunken evening just waiting to happen.
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So, story:
Freshman year of college I lived at LAR and one day decided to rent the Wizard of Oz (I also recently acquired Dark Side of the Moon) at the former Lincoln Ave location. Being the lazy and moody person I can be, that evening I decided to watch something more along the lines of Scooby Doo or Half Baked instead of my rental, saying "eh, I'll get to it eventually."
I didn't get to it eventually. And since it wasn't exactly on my walk to class (like, a 4 minute detour), I wasn't about to bring it along and make the stop. Dude, I didn't leave for class with that much time to spare (well, actually I regularly did leave for class that early but I'm totally paranoid of being late so I never thought I had the time).
2-3 weeks later, my guilty conscience drags me the 500 yards or whatever it is from my room to That's Rentertainment, never to set foot in that location again. Later that year it closed and I would go with my friends to the Champaign location, always renting in their name and ALWAYS making sure I was not the one responsible for returning the movie.
Throughout college, if I ever wanted to watch a movie alone I was pretty much screwed - it was Family Video or Blockbuster for me, neither of them with *nearly* the selection. (Until I discovered Netflix, of course).
Once I had a friend who had a friend who worked at this location, so I asked my friend to ask his friend to look me up and see if the records transferred and if, 3 years later, it still said I owed major late fees. The result was that I still rented under my friends names.
My one complaint: Some dipshit lost tape 5 of the Pride & Prejudice (A&E I think) mini-series. Of course, this lead me to discovering that That's Rentertainment had a DVD copy!
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I love this place! They really have the best selection anywhere - everything from the most obscure to the latest blockbuster. I took a class on Japanese culture and had to watch 2 relatively unknown films that I was able to find here. I just wish I had a place like this back home.
Hands down the best video store in the area, if not downstate IL. You've got yr domestic films, yr imports, yr anime, yr documentaries, yr new releases, yr old crap, yr teevee - it's all here. My entire family can go down to Renter and we can pick up a classic film for the Film Buff Teenager, the latest Avatar disc for the 8 year-old, and some teevee show on DVD for the two of us (no cable = being late to the party).
Knowledgeable staff, if not super-duper friendly. It reminds me of the record stores I frequented in high school and eventually worked in during (and after) college. These kids know their stuff and are more than willing to share their knowledge, but timid folk may be a bit put off by the indier-than-thou thing at first. Trust me - you want to rent movies from these people.
Disclosure: my husband works for the owner at another business, and I used to work for him at that same business. Doesn't matter - I wouldn't go anywhere else for video rental in C-U.
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I love That's Rentertainment. I go there often. I find many of the movies I am searching for...
...but do I find all of the movies I am searching for? No. Of course, when I do find the movie I am looking for I get it at Rentertainment, but the movies I can't find can often be found for free at Urbana Free LIbrary.
Also, while I have friends who work at Rentertainment, it has had its history of dickhead (cute people not excluded) employees. I'm glad that it is currently in a non-dickhead phase and hope it stays this way.
The most extensive selection of movies I've ever seen at a rental place. I bought one of the rental blocks (100 movies for $100) and it's the best deal ever! You can rent anything (new releases, BluRays, etc) for $1, and you even get to keep them a little longer than normal. The staff is always friendly and helpful - one of the managers always suggests movies for me to check out. And the BluRay section is fantastic!
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Hands down the best video store in Champaign. Maybe anywhere They have an amazing selection. They have things Netflix doesn't have. Amazing selection of things like foreign films, anime, television in addition to plenty of mainstream stuff. It's organized really well too. They have a specific section just for Hitchcock films.
Reasonable prices and late fees. Friendly, knowledgeable staff. I really don't know why anyone would go anywhere else when Rentertainment is an option.
Rentertainment was probably my favorite thing about Champaign. I miss it.
I have to echo all the praise for Rentertainment that other have given it. It is one of the best rental places ever and I have never been anywhere that had a better selection. I miss it so much now that I have left Champaign.
So I caved and am jumping on the That's-Rentertainment-Is-Awesome bandwagon. Seeing as renting movies from the dorms/library is free, I thought actually paying to rent a movie was lame, but when I had the sudden urge to watch My Neighbor Totoro and was unable to find it within the limited selections of the university, I trekked over to try my luck at That's Rentertainment. Lo and behold, Totoro!! Not only that, they have Hiyao Myazaki's other films like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Castle in the Sky!! Just perusing through their shelves, I saw about a dozen other movies I wanted to watch as well (just in time for finals, w00t).
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If you do not rack up obscene late charges, Rentertainment will be good to you. Even with a netflix account, I still found myself coming in. Why? Because not only do they have a really diverse collection, but the set-up is so convenient and exposes you to all sorts of films you might not have bothered to look up--particularly the lazy and film novice such as myself. Also, they have a pr0nz, including anime pr0nz to cater to the students of the schools of Engineering and Kineseology, which Blockbuster and Hollywood Video do not.
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This is my favorite movie rental place of all time. I moved away to Chicago, but I miss this place. Great selection, not impressive when you first walk in, but man you end up wanting to rent and watch a lot. They always had good music playing in it too. The other location was pretty cool too, but I always prefered the Champaign location, just for selection.
this is the best video store i've ever been to, and i've been to a lot, all over the country. their foreign film selection is unsurpassed.
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A venerable campus institution that has saved countless students from Blockbuster and general boredom. DVDs from just about every genre, hi-def disks, cheap rates, and a helpful staff. I'm willing to go here rather than the free library because they have the best hours and the most diverse selection.
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Champaign, IL
Category: Department Stores
Champaign, IL
Category: American (Traditional)
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