considering a chromebook - questions?

[~]

i spilled pop on my laptop yesterday, and it's been turned off since. i'm going to take it in to a place this weekend and see what they can do, but if they can't do anything about it, i will need a new laptop. i'm a freshman in college, majoring in biology so i don't need anything fancy, and i'm usually always connected to the internet. i do have a few questions about a chromebook though.
can it play movies? i do use netflix, so streaming would be good, but i also have a stash of dvds that i love. i know it doesn't have a drive, but if i buy a usb one, would it work?
can i use itunes on it? again, big user with music.
i heard you can't use microsoft word or openoffice on it, just google docs. is this true?
the most i would use it for is writing papers, research, social media, youtube, and watching movies. any advice would be great. and if not a chromebook, does anyone have any suggestions? something under $400 would be great, seeing as i'm not working right now.

thank you!

[Wesley Files]

If the movies are a big deal, then ultimately, I think the Chromebook won't be the best option for your needs. But we can still go over the topics you discussed in more detail so you can decide for yourself.

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant, any streaming service I know of works fine. However, it does not support external CD/DVD/BD drives. If you have the movies downloaded, it plays most video formats though.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/ch...MiHvO0ie8J

iTunes does not work. This can make adding media to Apple devices (iPod, iPad, iPhone) a learning process. You can upload videos and pictures from your Camera Roll automatically with the Google+ app (iPod nanos can't use this app), so you can download and use them on your Chromebook (and any computer) through its Google+ Photos app. Google Play has a simple process for uploading your iTunes library to Google Play, where they can be streamed to your Chromebook (or any computer) for free while you're online. This process needs to be done on the same computer as iTunes and the music is on.
https://play.google.com/about/music/unlock/
After you do this, you can stream or download your music to your iPod/iPad/iPhone to play through the Google Play Music app.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-p...97987?mt=8

Google Docs is the only full featured word processor that will work offline at the moment, but if you're online, you can use many Microsoft applications for free through SkyDrive, including Word.
http://skydrive.live.com
Thanks to RollApp, you can access OpenOffice and LibreOffice for free while online. I'm much less familiar with this one, but I tried out OpenOffice Writer on my Samsung Chromebook, and it seems to run quite smoothly.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detai...modoiannan

I'm actually fairly unfamiliar with computer specs and what they mean for performance while running Windows 8, so unfortunately I don't feel knowledgeable enough to offer suggestions.