For example, Movie Gallery Inc. is shutting down 400 stores in the U.S. on top of the 520 stores closed late last year. This move is part of their bankruptcy restructuring, so Apple’s new service didn’t force them into this. However, Movie Gallery is keeping open 3500 stores, and how they run those is probably going to be affected by whether consumers take to renting online.

With more consumers having the option of high-speed Internet access and unlimited bandwidth subscription plans, the possibility of a significant shift to online video rental is obviously there. However, Apple’s current setup isn’t anything that would satisfy me - particularly because you only have 24 hours to watch a video after you start watching it.

I may be old school, despite spending 60-80 hours online per week, but I prefer the tangibility of discs and tapes, as well as being able to rent a bunch of flicks on, say, a Friday night, scanning a few, then watching whenever I feel like over the weekend.

From what I understand, most online video rental services only allow you to rent out two or three videos at a time. And you have to wait until your selections arrive. If they arrive via courier, then your movie time is more predictable. If you had to rely on regular mail, forget it. I couldn’t handle that.

For me, video rental stores are preferable over online ordering or downloads. And for the present, I’m guessing that most video renters are the same. Though that doesn’t mean that the bricks and mortar side of the industry are not on their last legs. What do you think? How do you prefer to rent movies?

But here’s something crazy: I never liked either Cattrall’s or Parker’s roles on the show. I watched only because of Kristin Davis (as Charlotte York) and to a lesser degree Cynthia Nixon, when the latter’s character, Miranda Hobbes, was dating the quiet Steve Brady (David Eigenberg). So will I be watching the movie? Only if Charlotte’s getting naked. Though Davis told the irritating Cojo on TV the other night that she couldn’t say if nudity would be happening.

If you’ve ever partaken of a torrent site, you already know that some of the downloads are there illegally, and that technically you’re breaking the law. But guess what? There’s actually a filmmaker, Eric D. Wilkinson, who’s thanking pirates for downloading his film. That’s because the onilne piracy has apparently translated into sales for him. Wow.

Check out the Man From Earth site to get more info about this screenplay - conceived in the early 1960s by science fiction writer Jerome Bixby - about an immortal who has walked the Earth for 14,000 years.

Man From Earth stars John Billingsley (Star Trek), Ellen Crawford, William Katt, Annika Petersen, Richard Riehle, David Lee Smith (pictured above), Alexis Thorpe, and Tony Todd.

Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald has a film called The Tracey Fragments, that showed at the recent TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). And if you decide you don’t like it, you can show McDonald how to make a better one. He’s put all the raw footage of the film up on The Tracey Fragments website [via BlogTO], in torrent form, along with the script in PDF format. There are four different torrent file packages, each 4-5 gigabytes in size.

So much for preserving copyright.

That’s not at all. Do your re-editing, then enter the competition. The winner (Canadian entrants only) gets an Apple Final Cut Pro prize pack. Except you kind of need that to do the editing, don’t you?

It’s a great idea, and even if you’re not Canadian, you can download the footage and have some fun.

The film stars Ellen page as Tracey Berkowitz.

Note: Image of Ellen Page courtesy of The Tracey Fragments website.
Ellen Page as Tracey Berkowitz
photo by Matt O’Sullivan
© Tracey Fragments Inc.