A Brief Review Of The Last Blockbuster
Yep, that’s my own card. I was something of a gentleman myself back in the day. I, too, know the pain of looking for a new release, only to have the Blu-ray version available, and not the DVD. I didn’t use Blockbuster back when it was VHS. Instead, my mom or my pop would bring me to the local video rental place, where I was mostly interested in renting video games anyway.
There were a few places to rent videos besides Blockbuster while growing up, but Blockbuster was the last place I ended up going around 2008, since it was the closest and the only one still open. As an adult I didn’t care too much about visiting video rental stores, but as a kid it was almost as good as going to the movie theater.
If there’s one thing I will never forget about Blockbuster, it’s the time my wife and I met an employee who resembled a Berestain Bear. From then on we referred to the guy as Berestain and we always got a laugh out of it. I’m just going to throw this out there as well, that once I saw a guy in a crowd who looked exactly like Buzz Lightyear, no joke, I mean, the spitting image. So, back to our story, which isn’t a story, we saw a unique looking guy who made us chuckle, and we went on our business checking out random movies I don’t recall, although I do recall rows and rows of Weeds.
The Last Blockbuster looked like a nice, short, lighthearted documentary to relax away a few hours with, so I queued the flick up on its competitor.
There was nothing wrong about the documentary. It could have been about 20 or 30 minutes shorter. I appreciated the celebrities telling their stories and adding some life to the film (except for Jamie Kennedy, who came across as low energy and bored). The woman, whose name I already forget, who is single handedly piloting the final store, was magnificent. She was a real warrior, and I can’t imagine the stress of having to cannibalize old Blockbuster computers to keep the last existing ones running. That kind of thing felt apocalyptic, like there’s never going to be another chip board produced for your unit, so you have to keep it going as long as possible. When that woman dies, Blockbuster dies, and she doesn’t look like the type to make it far into old age, if you know what I mean.
I found myself surprised at how little I cared Blockbuster is gone (well, except for the one, but you know). Yeah, sure, Blockbuster was huge and it meant something to Generation X and older Millennials, but I think we don’t mind it because most of us do like and prefer what we have now with streaming services. I no longer have to physically leave my house, the quality is almost just as good, and I don’t need to own a DVD, Blu-ray, or VHS player. Heck, I have a TV that’s 30 feet away from the Wi-Fi and it can still stream HD with no lag. What I do miss, however, is the old Netflix DVD by mail, which I guess is still functioning, but I haven’t used it in over a decade (maybe I should once I get a DVD player again). I liked it because you could get virtually anything, no matter how obscure or classic. That’s one thing I like about physical rental services over streams, is when you develop a hankering for rare movies, you can get them. I do miss being able to browse movies like we browse books at bookstores or libraries. Sometimes you see something you didn’t realize existed. Then again, I can do this today with the DVDs at my local library, so the point is moot.
I was also surprised that I didn’t feel any nostalgia about Blockbuster. They tried very hard in the documentary to get you to feel nostalgic, from opening and closing the old VHS cases, describing the smell, panning the camera around the last Blockbuster store, and having literally everyone reminisce about the store and their experience. And still, I remained unmoved for some reason. Maybe it had to be like one of the guys described, where you didn’t care until you stepped into the store and then it all floods back and you miss it. Sadly, I also would have been unmoved had the last Blockbuster store shut down at the end of the film. It’s not like I can’t rent movies. I can go down to my local Redbox and see what’s there. I can rent online. I can go with DVD Netflix. I can go to the library. If all renting was gone everywhere, then yes, I’d be sad as hell at Blockbuster leaving, except I wouldn’t even know about this documentary because I’d have nowhere to hear about it or see it.
So, in conclusion, the documentary makes you think and remember a little, it makes you laugh and go “huh” some, and there’s an interesting, down-to-earth story about the miracle of one franchise staying alive with such a formerly-gigantic name. How weird would it be for some local nobody to be operating The Last Apple Store or The Last Wal-Mart? It is sad how time changes things, and the documentary ever-so-slightly grazes that idea. My old blockbuster location is now a wood-fired pizza joint. As for the local video stores I used to go to as a kid, one is a paint shop, the other is a parking lot. Thankfully, I can still see old movies and play old video games. And this is why I think ultimately this documentary will be little more than a brief blip in the universe.
