The last Blockbuster in the lower 48
April 6, 2018 5:13 AM   Subscribe

About three hours southeast of Portland, I found a piece of American history in this Central Oregon ski-and-beer town of around 90,000 people.

Bend attracts tourists year ’round to Mount Bachelor and Boneyard Beer, but the area has also enjoyed some notoriety as home to a slowly dwindling cluster of Blockbuster Video stores.

That number is down to one. Last month Sandi Harding, general manager of the Blockbuster operation in Bend, made the decision to close down a storefront about 30 minutes north of Bend, in the town of Redmond, Ore., that wasn’t generating enough revenue to justify its existence.

Two other Blockbuster outposts have closed in recent months: one store closer to Portland in Sandy, Ore., and one in Edinburg, Tx., which isn’t that far from the Mexican border. Now only seven Blockbuster Video stores remain: six in Alaska — and one in Bend.
posted by aka burlap (60 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Whoah.

My kids get CDs with music on them (like kids songs) at daycare, and I am always baffled. Who the heck has a CD player any more? I guess people could play DVDs in an Xbox or something, but why?
posted by Literaryhero at 5:15 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


TIL there's a New York City Sub Shop in Bend, OR.
posted by chavenet at 5:34 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Well, those Redbox things seem to be in every grocery store - someone is still renting DVDs (although I think they do games, also).
posted by thelonius at 5:43 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


My kids get CDs with music on them (like kids songs) at daycare, and I am always baffled. Who the heck has a CD player any more?

Well, my kids do. They like to pick up cheap top-40 compilations from charity shops. My youngest also has a decent collection of story CDs, including a really nice Roald Dahl set. We could rip them all to MP3 or pay again to download them (assuming they're available), but with CD players costing £25, why bother with the extra effort and expense?
posted by pipeski at 5:44 AM on April 6, 2018 [7 favorites]


I play CDs all the time, and even I don't still feel a need to have brick-and-mortar video stores in my life.

Let me go a little further. I own three working and frequently used tape decks, one in my office, one in my living room, and one in my car, and I don't still feel a need to have brick-and-mortar video stores in my life.
posted by escabeche at 5:52 AM on April 6, 2018 [7 favorites]


My kids get CDs with music on them (like kids songs) at daycare, and I am always baffled. Who the heck has a CD player any more?

We get these with our toddler music classes and we play them in the car. Do people really not have CD players at all in cars anymore?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:53 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


New York City Sub Shop in Bend, OR.

I unabashedly stalk restaurants on the internet and their menu is... disappointing...
posted by mikelieman at 5:57 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


New cars do not come with CD players, no.
posted by thelonius at 5:57 AM on April 6, 2018


but premium movies — especially old classics — are really hard to find.

THIS.

There are also movies that never made it to DVD. My daughter and I scout thrift stores looking at old VHS tapes.

The “On demand” movie selection kinda sucks and a loooooot of the weird cool shit I like isn’t available to rent or stream online.
posted by Annika Cicada at 5:58 AM on April 6, 2018 [18 favorites]


Who the heck has a CD player any more?

Anyone with hundreds of DVDS who is either too lazy to burn or simply doesn't care enough to bother.

And I still rent Netflix DVDS, because my streaming stinks, and because Netflix Rental has a vastly better catalog than Netflix Stream and Amazon Prime put together, especially older movies.
posted by Beholder at 5:58 AM on April 6, 2018 [12 favorites]


We get these with our toddler music classes and we play them in the car. Do people really not have CD players at all in cars anymore?

My vehicle has a CD player, but I've literally never used it in the four or so years I've owned it. I listen to the radio in town and stream music or audiobooks on long trips. In fact, I just the other week boxed up all of our CDs and put them in the back of a closet because we have no way to listen to them in the house and they were just taking up space.

I saw either this store or the former one in Redmond on my last trip through there, and it was a weird moment of realizing that the chain (or franchise these days) still exists at all. I see the Redbox kiosks everywhere, so there is obviously a market.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:59 AM on April 6, 2018


I have a 2017 that does have a CD player. I have used it once.

It’s interesting because while reading the article, the thing that struck me was the selection of that Blockbuster. Netflix will always have restrictions on what’s available, especially when it comes to older titles. I wonder if video stores (in very small numbers) can continue to survive by focusing on the things one can’t stream.

Incidentally, this is a reason I still use Redbox: cheap, convenient, newer titles.
posted by hijinx at 6:02 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Who the heck has a CD player any more?

most laptops still have one
posted by pyramid termite at 6:07 AM on April 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


Well, those Redbox things seem to be in every grocery store

The first time I saw one in a Duane Reade one my mind immediately conflated it with redtube and I was like wow this is, uh.... unexpected.
posted by poffin boffin at 6:13 AM on April 6, 2018 [6 favorites]


(don't search that at work)
posted by poffin boffin at 6:14 AM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


We use redbox quite a bit. It's cheaper than any a la carte streaming service like on-demand and it's faster than waiting for Netflix/Amazon to get the movie. When you consider how many locations they have (so it's easy to return the movie), it's not hard to see the appeal.

Side note: PS4's are very good blu-ray players.
posted by oddman at 6:16 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have quite a few CDs still in the shrinkwrap that were given as presents from people who assumed that I had someway to play them.
posted by octothorpe at 6:19 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


I’ve got a 2016-model car. It has a CD player. I haven’t used it (also 2 usb jacks, and Bluetooth, and line-in). My previous car was a 2002 model. It had a 6-CD changer and a cassette player!
posted by adamrice at 6:22 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


Who the heck has a CD player any more?

*raises hand* I have a whole stereo system I got for $40 secondhand ten years ago from a couple who were converting everything they owned to MP3 to "save space". I don't know whether the iPod they have still works, but I know their old CD player still does.

And I still rent Netflix DVDS, because my streaming stinks, and because Netflix Rental has a vastly better catalog than Netflix Stream and Amazon Prime put together, especially older movies.

Seconded. Netflix's DVD service is how I am getting 98% of the movies for my movie blog. I just dropped a red envelope back into the post box today, they should have it tomorrow, I'll have the next film on my list by Monday or Tuesday. It works beautifully. (Well - except for my queue being so long that it actually takes a full minute to load that page on my computer.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:24 AM on April 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


Driving between Ottawa and Toronto on Highway 7 you will see at least 3 Video 99s in the small towns you pass through. I guess it's because of a lack of fast internet but it is really jarring to see in a "what year is this?" way. A testament to the uneven distribution of the future.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:45 AM on April 6, 2018 [5 favorites]


Who the heck has a CD player any more?

Me. Along with approx 3000 CDs that I'm also glad I own.
posted by davebush at 6:45 AM on April 6, 2018 [12 favorites]


Yah, I definitely miss good video stores. The selection doesn't compare at all. Of course streaming is a lot more convenient in many ways, but I know that my movie consumption has gotten a lot less... interesting since the transition to streaming.

I also miss browsing video stores (i.e. Queen and Suspect) and talking to the people who work there. It's funny. I love having my huge music collection on my hard drive, along with my ebook collection and ereader, but its the video stores I miss. I wonder how much you can learn about someone who's 30+ by what they miss the most: Music stores, book stores, or video stores.
posted by Alex404 at 6:52 AM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


There are still Family Video stores in many towns in northern Michigan. It's because not everyone is young and tech-savvy, not everyone has great internet (either because it's not available or because they can't afford it), and as many others here have said, streaming options often suck even if you are willing/able to navigate having five different services. My 73-year-old parents are going to get a Roku and subscriptions to Filmstruck, Hulu, Netflix, and whatever else? Yeah right.

And it's not just the old or tech-deficient. There's a video store here in Chicago called Odd Obsession that has thousands of DVDs that you just can't see in any other way--foreign releases, obscure non-mainstream films, etc. It's mostly frequented by young people. There's this assumption that everything ever made must be available on the internet, but it's not even close to true.
posted by goatdog at 6:56 AM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


Who the heck has a CD player any more?

I have two. Also 2 DVD players. Also a record player.

I would think it's been pretty well established on MetaFilter by now that one individual's experience/lifestyle is not universal.
posted by JanetLand at 7:04 AM on April 6, 2018 [13 favorites]


Incidentally, this is a reason I still use Redbox: cheap, convenient, newer titles.

Yeah, it feels like I see “hahaha who uses physical media anymore?” pretty often, but I can rent a new movie on Redbox for $2 or stream it for $6. Since I pass four dozen Redboxes everyday anyway, I’ll go ahead and grab the blu ray for the 66% discount. It’s basically “every weekend we’ll add four bucks to your bank account if you tap a screen in a store you were going to, anyway.” I’ll take that deal.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:04 AM on April 6, 2018 [5 favorites]


I just borrow DVDs from the library. Huge selection, absolutely free, longer borrowing times than Redbox or whatever. Hard to go wrong.
posted by Slinga at 7:07 AM on April 6, 2018 [12 favorites]


There are still family video stores in northern MN too. About 5 years ago I worked at a small library in northern MN - very much a tourist town - and my staff begged me not to get rid of the VHS collection. (THE VHS COLLECTION!!!!!). I was like, it's 20-freaking-12!! Why do we need VHS???

The answer is that a lot of folks who have cabins up on the North Shore and inland don't bother to upgrade their cabin tech that often. It is the land of Tube Televisions and yes, VCRs. People don't come to the North Shore to sit around and watch TV...unless it's raining. Then there is a rush on the library and its antiquated VHS collection.
posted by Elly Vortex at 7:14 AM on April 6, 2018 [7 favorites]


Two weeks ago I finally got rid of my VCR (hadn't been plugged in for 10 years), CD changer and a non-bluray DVD player, along with a stack of CDs that hadn't been used in many years. I suspect it will be another 10 years before I ditch DVDs entirely but streaming and/or downloaded media is so much more convenient.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 7:19 AM on April 6, 2018


Does the Blockbuster in Oregon still charge late fees? If so, someone should burn it. burn it with fire for all who suffered.

Two CD players, couple thousand CDs, and about a thousand LPs. And yes, there's a high end stereo system in the living room. I put on Houses of the Holy yesterday before the Twins/Pirates game and Bonham sounded like the God of Thunder (because he is).

Netflix DVD indeed has a much bigger selection than Netflix streaming. I love streaming movies but for stuff that we will watch again and again, say Fury Road, Now Voyager, or Thor Ragnorak, we get the DVD.

I tried streaming in the car from a iPhone to a Blu receiver and it sounded like someone cut off the bass and shrunk the room. We went back to CDs. When we turn the cars over next year, I'll pay extra to get CD players. I can't abide mediocre sound.
posted by Ber at 7:19 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


I guess I'm really the odd man out. I have never been inside a Blockbuster, nor have I ever rented a Tape or DVD.
The only movies/DVDs I own are John Waters movies and operas. I don't know why I never got into video like others did.

Who the heck has a CD player any more?
I do. I have hundreds of CDs (mostly classical/opera) that I play all the time.
posted by james33 at 7:20 AM on April 6, 2018


I work in an academic library. We have a collection of VHS we can't get rid of because some very important titles never made the jump to digital or streaming. We also have some CD's, cassettes, and DVD's. No vinyl or Blu-ray, because no one's that crazy! We even have a few books that have floppy discs with them. Obsolete media still has it's uses
posted by evilDoug at 7:25 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's tough for me to pinpoint exactly why this brings back so much nostalgia for me.

I guess in more than a few ways blockbuster was a connection to culture that many small towns didn't have. I'd like to pretend I was a more cultured youngster, but I really just wanted to read the back of every super nintendo game that was available to rent.

and sometimes crack open the cases and read the little instruction pamphlets. I used to love those little things.
posted by Dillionaire at 7:27 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


~Who the heck has a CD player any more?

Let's see...I have two CD players, two DVD players, my iMac has a disc player, and my wife's car has a CD player. There's also that big, honkin' stereo system downstairs that CDs sound insanely gorgeous on (and is not on my home network, nor will it ever be)

~Anyone with hundreds of DVDS who is either too lazy to burn or simply doesn't care enough to bother.

I really object to the characterization that anyone who doesn't burn their DVDs is lazy. That's a highly negative, geek-centric judgement. Most people just don't see any need. Most people don't give a shit about having a home entertainment server chock-full of ripped movies. It's a non-issue for them. "Care enough to bother" is also a somewhat back-handed sort of judgement, in that "bother to" implies that burning DVDs is what one, of course, should do.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:31 AM on April 6, 2018 [15 favorites]


Can you not play audio CDs in a ps4 or similar? I haven't tried that yet despite having shoved every other kind of disc media into my ps4, like a toddler enthusiastically exploring its own nose.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:34 AM on April 6, 2018 [5 favorites]


I really object to the characterization that anyone who doesn't burn their DVDs is lazy. That's a highly negative, geek-centric judgement. Most people just don't see any need. Most people don't give a shit about having a home entertainment server chock-full of ripped movies. It's a non-issue for them. "Care enough to bother" is also a somewhat back-handed sort of judgement, in that "bother to" implies that burning DVDs is what one, of course, should do.

Indeed. It's also REALLY time consuming (mainly for the computer, but for the human, too). Why put all that time into ripping DVDs of movies you only watch periodically. It's far faster to just put the DVD in a DVD player.
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:45 AM on April 6, 2018 [10 favorites]


Literally the only downsides of CDs and DVDs and BlueRays is that they take up physical space to store and can get damaged. They are immune to internet outages! And, like, there are lots and lots and lots of people in rural (and semi-rural) areas who just can't get good internet, full stop. My SIL lives in mid-Michigan and got laughed at when she asked the cable people if they would ever run wire to her house. Even satellite doesn't work because the house is in a valley and doesn't have the right line of sight.

And, yeah, the whole tech bro dismissal of people who don't conform to uber-nerd digitize-everything mindset is tiresome and wrongheaded.

I, too, miss video stores, because I am a social person and enjoy talking to people.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:23 AM on April 6, 2018 [9 favorites]


most laptops still have one

Not so much anymore. Internal optical drives are getting hard to find, at least in lower-end laptops. Even full size ones. Hell, my laptop is a mid-range gaming model and it didn't come with an optical drive.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:24 AM on April 6, 2018


One thing about CDs is that there are some albums, and individual songs on albums, that aren't available digitally. Prince's albums, for example, weren't available on iTunes for quite some time (I think that they may not have been released on iTunes until after his death), maybe because he'd made a deal with some streaming service. I've also seen greatest hits albums by some artists where about half the songs were marked "album only", possibly because a co-writer hadn't authorized their release on the iTunes platform. And I don't want to rely on streaming services for availability of music, since I want my music whenever it occurs to me to want to listen to a particular song or album, not when I happen to be in the available-WiFi bubble that some people now apparently spend their entire lives in. So, sometimes I get the CD and rip it to iTunes. Also, I do still get Blu-Ray discs for movies that I will probably want to watch more than once, and don't want to be interrupted by a pause in internet connectivity.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:34 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


The recent 'quotable movies' FPP made me want to rewatch Withnail and I, and alas it's no longer streamable. I put my CDs and the few DVDs I own in storage several years ago, but the dwindling selection of proper films on Netflix is making me consider owning a DVD player again and just buying Criterion when I feel like watching.

At least in Portland there's still Movie Madness and Videorama.
posted by a halcyon day at 8:41 AM on April 6, 2018


I still love CDs, enjoy hunting through the used CD racks at Half-Price Books and Goodwill, and bought an external optical drive for my laptop. My car doesn't have a USB port so it's either CDs or the FM transmitter for my phone, which is a bit fiddly and not the best quality.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:44 AM on April 6, 2018


You can get 200-CD Changers on eBay for around $75. 300-CD changers aren't much more expensive.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:53 AM on April 6, 2018


I also still have a Netflix DVD plan. It's $10 a month for 1-disc at a time with blu-ray. I end up watching 4-5 movies a month this way, so it's a much better deal per movie than renting from Apple/Amazon/Google and resolution is better. Also, the Netflix DVD site still uses the old "stars" based rating system that doesn't recommend complete garbage to me. My go-to move is when I see something in the theater that looks good (but not good enough to actually go and watch), I just save it to my queue, and 6-8 months later it shows up in my mailbox.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 8:54 AM on April 6, 2018


If you'd told me in 1998 that in twenty years I'd feel nostalgia for Blockbuster (and Barnes and Noble), instead of feeling angry on behalf of local video (and book) shops. . . I wouldn't have believed you. But, here we are.
posted by eotvos at 8:55 AM on April 6, 2018 [6 favorites]


Indeed. It's also REALLY time consuming (mainly for the computer, but for the human, too). Why put all that time into ripping DVDs of movies you only watch periodically.
The technology also mostly still sucks in my opinion, although there may be some great paid version I'm unaware of. You generally have input all the cataloguing info (title, etc, ) manually (there's more of on a DVD than a CD) and use a different program to add images because most of the on-screen library displays are terrible, and you possibly have to burn it into a bunch of different formats because not every device supports MP4. And you generally lose all the submenus, special items if you burn to MP4.

And the fighting the various copy protections.... hope you don't like Sony movies.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:55 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Can you not play audio CDs in a ps4 or similar?

Earlier PlayStations supported audio CDs but this was dropped with the PS4, a shame.
posted by porn in the woods at 9:04 AM on April 6, 2018


JanetLand: I would think it's been pretty well established on MetaFilter by now that one individual's experience/lifestyle is not universal.

Metafilter: Your Favorite Experience/Lifestyle Sucks
posted by dr_dank at 9:19 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


The recent 'quotable movies' FPP made me want to rewatch Withnail and I, and alas it's no longer streamable.

It's on Filmstruck, I just watched it a few days ago.
posted by octothorpe at 9:43 AM on April 6, 2018


Oh hey my sister-in-law lives in Bend. It's a great town if you like craft beer, the outdoors, and white people who migrated from California during the recession.

God, now I want a glass of Deschutes Black Butte Porter...

I have probably fifty or so CDs piled up around me on my desk, another wholebunch in my car (I drive an '06 which luckily also has an aux so I can stream stuff off my phone too) and a cabinet full of them at home. I have a nice stereo in the living room that is also connected to my turntable, and my wife's boombox from high school in our kitchen.

There are a lot of albums I have that don't exist online or aren't available anymore. And sure, I'd love to back them all up digitally, but I mean, do YOU have a spare month or so to do that? And my eyes can't fall randomly on some album I haven't listened to in years sitting on the shelf if all my music is sitting on some hard drive (which could fail and then what do you do?).

"Why don't you just rip all your CDs and DVDs" is the most "why don't you just get all your nutrients from Soylent"-ass tech bro argument I've seen here in a minute.
posted by Maaik at 10:00 AM on April 6, 2018 [10 favorites]


In my imagination, the cassette and CD player is a component that fits into every model, and somehow it's economical to buy enough to last a decade and beyond. They blow out the inventory in base models when the technology is no longer useful in marketing. I had a 2006 Toyota with a cassette/CD player.
posted by Brocktoon at 10:25 AM on April 6, 2018


If you'd told me in 1998 that in twenty years I'd feel nostalgia for Blockbuster (and Barnes and Noble), instead of feeling angry on behalf of local video (and book) shops. . . I wouldn't have believed you. But, here we are.

I was just thinking this. Part of the reason I don’t mourn the passing of Blockbuster is that I remember getting our rentals from the Book Case in my little home town, and the from the local furniture store on Main Street, which converted its front room to a video rental store, and then part of the show room, until renting VHS tapes was its biggest revenue stream.

Then Blockbuster bought the lot beside them and told the owner that he could either manage the new Blockbuster or try to compete against it. Maybe that’s too negative. Maybe they were trying to do a nice thing by offering the local video store guy a management position. But he went from being the independent proprietor of a local business to another anonymous cog in the Blockbuster machine, wearing khakis and a blue shirt and sending the profits out to headquarters.

That’s been, what, more than 30 years ago? I didn’t even really know the guy that well and I’m still pissed about it.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:27 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


I was living in San Francisco in 2006 and I frequented my local video store, The Film Yard, on the regular. My friends had just gotten me into Battlestar Galactica and I had finished Season 2 and needed to rent Season 2.5. I ran down to the video store only to find that they were closed. As I stood in front of the door bemoaning my fate, one of the women who worked there came up and asked me what I needed. I told her, and she re-opened the store to get me the video, but the POS systems were offline, so she couldn't process my payment. I agreed to come back the next day with the $4.50 or whatever. I went home, watched some BSG, went to bed, got up and paid for my video. What's more, I remember that whole interaction.

Another time grumpybearbride and I were looking for something weird to rent and asked the guy behind the counter for advice. He was tall, heavy-set, bald with a goatee and wearing a black trenchcoat. Before giving us a recommendation - it was some Japanese film about a guy who falls in love with a sex robot, and someone gets murdered or something - he went on a very long and detailed tangent about what a great game Hitman was, how it was super realistic and gave the player lots of options to succeed or fail, how you could watch an opera singer perform for a long time before deciding to off them. His speech was way more memorable than the movie. He also creeped us out.

That's what I miss about video stores.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:10 AM on April 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


Team Sparkles goes to Vulcan Video here in Austin because hell yeah they have the most awesome weird shit for rent.

Streaming is starting to feel so cheap to me. I like being able to walk into a store and chat about movies. As opposed to mindlessly scrolling through amazon’s generic mall of video garbage or trying to figure out if the thing on Hulu is worth a damn or not. Which don’t get me wrong I like man in the high castle and game of thrones and blackish and unbreakable kimmy Schmidt, there’s a place for all of it, but there’s also a place for a video store in this world.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:37 AM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


also miss browsing video stores (i.e. Queen and Suspect)

Queen is still around. Eyesore is still around and Bay St. Video is still around. Suspect got pushed out when they redeveloped Honest Eds though he does do horror events where he sells stuff.

Physical media may no longer be sexy but there's loads of stuff streaming services don't carry. A good video store can fill the cracks. As an example one of my employees was reading about Joan Crawford and wanted to watch some of her films. She had a really hard time finding more than the most famous ones on Netflix in Canada. Video stores also fill the cracks in small communities because, at least in Canada, there's still loads of places that have terrible internet that make streaming hard or not worth the effort.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:08 PM on April 6, 2018


Blockbuster didn't lose my business because I stopped watching DVDs. Blockbuster lost my business because I hated them and their predatory lending practices.
posted by ckape at 12:11 PM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


I met my husband and our best friend while working at a Blockbuster Video in the late '80s. Hubby and I still have a "Be Kind, Please Rewind" magnet and my husband's name tag in the infamous BBV blue and yellow. We reminisce regularly with our best friend about the good old days when we would get a bunch of free rentals (best employee perk ever) after midnight closing time then go back to someone's apartment to drink and watch movies until sun up or we passed out.

And for a fun, sweet movie about a video store, check out "Be Kind Rewind". (Photo in the article.)
posted by narancia at 12:12 PM on April 6, 2018


Queen is still around. Eyesore is still around and Bay St. Video is still around.

Good to hear. I haven't lived in Toronto for a number of years now, and haven't been to a video store for exactly as long. I read about the closing of Queen (on Queen) and Suspect, and sort of assumed that the shuttering of Queen video meant all the locations were bowing out. Good to hear that's not the case.

Also Bay St. video! Yah, that one's great too.
posted by Alex404 at 12:26 PM on April 6, 2018


I think there is only one Queen video and he's on Bloor St W. I believe. Eyesore is run by one of the old staff from Suspect and fills that niche.

I was surprised to see a video store in Reykjavik when I was there a couple years ago.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:34 PM on April 6, 2018


Just seeing the Blockbuster video sign brought back the experience of being in there. Of drifting between the New Releases and the Comedy and the tiny Foreign section. Of couples arguing over their choices. And for some reason people farted a lot in Blockbusters. Like a lot.
posted by Kafkaesque at 12:43 PM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


It actually makes me kind of sad when people don't even seem to realize how much stuff they don't have access to if they are streaming-only. Not just creepy Japanese anime porn, even. Significant works of significant foreign directors (it changes from month to month, but there always seems to be at least one Melville film unavailable). Or lesser but still worthy American films; IIRC, until Game of Thrones hit it big you couldn't stream The Station Agent. As so often, the initial promise of the Internet ("everything ever made available!") has given way to a depressingly ill-thought-out commercial reality.
posted by praemunire at 1:24 PM on April 6, 2018 [8 favorites]


Netflix has let all of their classic movies turn to dust. This is no secret. Their streaming options (and Amazon's) are limited, to put it kindly. Those of us who yearn to see the classic movies we read about are shit out of luck. (Yeah, there are a few options, including inter-library lending, and some bespoke options like Filmstruck, but I miss the days when I could rent anything on Netflix, and earlier, *sob* at Blockbuster.)
posted by kozad at 8:18 PM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


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