Blockbusters Video moved into a strip mall down the street from where I live. There was already a large independent video store in the strip mall across the street. Blockbusters gave it too much competition. The existing video stote survived, but only by shrinking to half the size and switching to “adult” videos only. Way to go, Blockbusters! The olf video store had a pretty good collection, including a great “Cult” section that Blockbusters, in its one-size-fits-all mentality, didn’t have.
Now the damned Blockbuster shut up shop, quickly and quietly. One day it’s there, next day it’s not.
There are other Blockbusters (where we could use our cards), but they’re miles and miles away in other towns. There’s a different chain down the road, but it’s a pretty good drive, too. Truth is, there isn’t another video store close by now. Thanks a lot, guys.
But there’s still something about being able to walk into a physical store, looking at physical boxes, and walking out same-day with a movie you want to see righ now. Or in the case of Blockbuster, some crap you’ve settled on.
It depends upon whether that store can rake enough cash together, after years in the XXX ghetto, whether its reutation has been irretrievably damaged by its years as a sleaze outlet, whether it can get back the half of the store that it had to drop when it downsized. Maybe it could get the Blockbuster’s space, but I doubt it. The otther tenants have moved out, so I suspect that block’s for demolition or something.
Of course, somebody else might decide to open a video store nearby. But I’m not holding my beath.
Years ago there was a nice independant video store near me. Good selection of foreign and indie films. Then a local chain (Videosmith) store opened up up the street. They were extremely competitive, and eventually drove all of the competition out of business. That’s a great example of the American Way, except what we were left with was a soulless warehouse with poor selection.
Then they started flagging. They tried to stay afloat by selling off their entire stock. Eventually they folded. We were left with nothing.
Several months later, Videosmith reopened, but with only the stock they had not sold off. This meant really bad movies from the early 80s.
And that, my friends, is how I came to see Turk 182.
I feel for you. I saw Turk 182 when it was brand new.
Blockbusters used to have a surprisingly avant garde collection at its Cenmtral Square operation in Cambridge, Mass. Then it abruptly shut it down and opened a new store a block away. The new store didn’t have the old collection of weird flicks, silent movies, and classic TV shows (“Secret Agent”) – just the usual homogenized white-bread collection of recent hits and old duds.
There are still good video collections around (especially in Cambridge), but nothing near me.
Blockbuster is the reason I found Netflix very early on.
The town I lived in at the time didn’t have any independant video stores. It was Blockbuster or nothing. The Blockbuster employed high-school kids who didn’t give a damn about the business. It was very typical to walk in on a Friday night, have a line a mile long to rent videos, and have one employee working while 4-5 others stood out front smoking cigarettes and socializing.
After a few months of this, I figured there had to be a better way, and lo and behold there was. I got my Netflix subscription and have never looked back. I do not at all miss a physical store with physical boxes. I guess I might if I’d ever lived close by a really great rental place, but I never have. It’s always been mouth-breathers and crappy selection for me.
That’s true enough. There is definitely something less viscerally satisfying about on-line purchases that you can’t enjoy immediately. On the other hand, I sometimes enjoy the anticipation of getting a big ol’ box of books and movies.
Me too. Except in the case of Netflix, I get all excited when I see that red envelope, but when I open it up, I often say “Police Academy V? Why the fuck did I order Police Academy V?” These days I only put stuff in my queue the same day I return something. That way I might actually get something I’m in the mood to see.
The selection at blockbuster seems to be in exactly the same state as FM radio these days, generic and bland. Why is it in this country we have to take something interesting and focus-group it to death until there’s no style or color left?
I’ve become a big fan of Netflix because it makes my movie selections more planned. My (and problably most people’s) blockbuster attack strategy was to go in thinking “I want something in the ‘action’ category tonight” and then wander around the 3 shelves of action movies until something caught my eye.
With Netflix, I usually have an exact movie I want in mind because someone mentioned it or I saw something about it somewhere. My movie nights are now honed to a razor sharp edge. If only the rest of my life was so organized.
I also like that Netflix has a lot of the DVD collections for various TV shows I like. I’ve worked through Andromeda, Firefly, and the first season of Farscape over the last few months and thats been a lot of fun.
We’ve got an excellent independent movie rental place just half a mile from my house - SpouseO and I walk there all the time to rent movies. There’s a Blockbuster, too, about the same distance in the other direction, but we’d much rather support the locals. They seem to be doing okay, even with the competition. I’d hate to see them close.
I’ve thought about Netflix, but I’d really rather support this local store. If it ever closes, perhaps I’ll rethink.
I miss my local independant video store. I moved, and haven’t made it to my new local store. I just remember walking in, going straight up to the counter and saying “Can I have Nosferatu?” and the clerk/owner takes three steps to his right, grabs the unlabeled box (the super slim boxes they use to save space), and hands it to me. Give him my account number and I’m out the door in under a minute with an 80+ year old movie that your average Blockbuster drone probably doesn’t even know exists.
At BB I’d probably spend 15 minutes searching the shelves for it before giving up. I’m truly baffled at how they stay dominate the market.
I remember when our Videosmith went out of business. They sold off the tapes for $3 each!! I got a bunch of good ones and lucky too, since Hollywood Video is the only game in town now.
On Autumn I walked into the Videosmith mentioned above, looked for a particular movie, and didn’t find it. So I asked the clerk. He asked me the name. I said “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” So he looked under “Great Pumpkin”, wondering why I had called him Charlie Brown.
Nope, they didn’t have it. I found it. Misshelved, but definitely there.
How a video clerk could not know about this movie is beyond me. When I was a video clerk we couldn’t keep that on the shelf for mor than 30 seconds. It was the single most rented Halloween movie we had.