College life is expensive. But as students, we do have some ways to escape academia and loan collectors. We have movies. Ever felt like sitting down and blasting through Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name trilogy in the critical hours before a midterm? Video rentals give us this power.

At present, there are three major video rental joints in the greater Triangle area, which usually are little more than a few minutes away. However, be it month-to-month or your entire term as a member of one such place, the deals and offers vary.

As far as accessible, current offers go, North American Video on Western Boulevard has a standing offer of renting three movies at once and getting a fourth free, as well as being able to rent five older releases on one receipt for $9. Hollywood Video offers you any three older release movies out at a time for $15. Blockbuster has a similar offer, where it’s any two movies for $15 and any three for $18.

In the area of base, flat free rental prices, North American, Blockbuster and Hollywood Video charge from $4.30 to 4.60 for new releases. However Hollywood’s rental period is highest, at five days for a new film, but Blockbuster counters well with an additional seven-day grace period after the initial rental date has expired.

Now, I realize it’s hard to return that third rental of Garden State to the store, but all three establishments make the process fairly easy on the consumer. Hollywood essentially charges you another rental fee when the time period has expired, instead of simply labeling the rental as LATE and eventually charging you MSRP for what was once a simple rental. Blockbuster’s standby policy is to charge you for the film, but only after a month, and that’s already after offering a grace period of an additional seven days to each rental, though there is a $2 restocking fee in between the grace period and the month’s end. North American charges $2 each day past the rental period, as opposed to a further rental period.

Also, if you have some desire to watch Blue Crush, I mean, Walk the Line, at your leisure, all of the aforementioned stores offer pre-owned DVDs for purchase. Blockbuster has four pre-owned DVDs, if they’re $9.99 or less, for $20, and Hollywood Video is offering a similar sale on its stock. North American tends to take 50 percent off its in-stock titles after a few months, so it is usually wise to keep an eye on its price points as well.

For the sitting-still-and-enjoying-a-movie challenged, each store offers video game rentals at around $7 to 9 a week, and most stores have now converted to current-generation game selections for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii systems and Blockbuster is offering two previous-generation video game rentals a week for $10 and for current generation games the price is $12.

All the stores listed have reasonably wide selections (though it is advised to shop around each store if you want a comprehensive look) and free memberships. And though Netflix may offer us a somewhat more comprehensive selection, it lacks the simple ability for us to walk out of our dorms to a rental place and just pick something up on a whim. In this age of video rentals, it’s convenience versus convenience.