The Last Blockbuster coming to Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Angelo Colombus]

On February 2 Passion River will release on Blu-ray a documentary on the world's sole remaining Blockbuster in Bend, OR. Will check this one out and would make a good double feature with another documentary All Things Must Pass which talked about what killed retailer Tower Records.

Amazon.com: The Last Blockbuster: Kevin Smith, Lauren Lapkus, Adam Brody, Ione Skye, Doug Benson, Paul Scheer, Sandi Harding, Taylor Morden: Movies & TV

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Viewed the documentary on Netflix and it was good but thought it could have been a little more serious instead of some goofy interviews and more info on why the chain went into bankruptcy. The documentary on Tower Records was much better.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Was WAY too nice to Blockbuster in general- only Lloyd Kaufman told it like it was.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

I wished it talked more seriously on why Blockbuster failed so quickly. But i guess the title of the movie is The Last Blockbuster and the focus of the movie was about that last store and the folks who run it.

 

[MatthewA]

It's hard for me to feel sorry for them when they were responsible for a lot of independently-owned video stores going under. Now Netflix is dancing on all their graves.

Was WAY too nice to Blockbuster in general- only Lloyd Kaufman told it like it was.

I could tell you some stories about Troma, but very few of them revolve around him. But if he has an unflattering perspective of the company, then I don't blame him. I rarely rented there except as a court of last resort when no one else had what I wanted.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

It was at Blockbuster in the 1990's where it was the only place near by where i can rent and buy laserdiscs. The first laserdisc i ever played was a rental of Criterion release of Blade Runner.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

There was one Blockbuster I went to after I got my first laserdisc player that had a small selection of discs for rent. Then one day they disappeared because “they just weren’t renting”, so they went back to just crappy VHS for a few years until DVD came along. Unbelievable.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

There was one Blockbuster I went to after I got my first laserdisc player that had a small selection of discs for rent. Then one day they disappeared because “they just weren’t renting”, so they went back to just crappy VHS for a few years until DVD came along. Unbelievable.

I was lucky with my Blockbuster and they sold and rented lasers until the end of that format.

 

[MatthewA]

No such luck where I lived. Mine was VHS only. Luckily, there was a locally owned place that rented them.

 

[TravisR]

I was lucky with my Blockbuster and they sold and rented lasers until the end of that format.

No such luck where I lived. Mine was VHS only. Luckily, there was a locally owned place that rented them.

Yeah, no Blockbuster near me ever rented laserdiscs. I'm guessing it was a franchised store and the owner was a fan of LDs.

 

[MatthewA]

This is the first time I've even heard of any LDs at Blockbuster. By the time my hometown even got one, Beta was dead and buried and the local stores had stopped renting it.

 

[JoeStemme]

An okay video essay on the last remaining Blockbuster store open in the world. Director Taylor Morden focuses on the 'Blockbuster Mom' (Sandi Harding) who runs the store in Bend, Oregon. She seems like a decent woman who has the drive to keep the lights on despite the odds, including a giant corporate parent (Dish Network who could care less but still happily takes the woman's money as a 'licensing fee').
There's a little bit of history and background to the video store business and Blockbuster's history (cue old 90s TV commercials), but, the bulk of the Doc is taken up by interviews with Harding and some ex-Blockbuster employees and a motley crew of 'celebrities' like Kevin Smith, Ione Skye, Jaimie Kennedy etc.. Some of their recollections are fun and interesting, but, others just seem like so much blathering to fill up time. Even at 86 minutes it feels padded.
The one interviewee that is sour on the Blockbuster nostalgia is Troma Films' Lloyd Kaufman who is still upset that the chain didn't stock his videocassettes enough. Truth be told, I'm kind of with Kaufman. Don't get me wrong, I have fond memories of video stores, but, I always despised Blockbuster for their business practices in purposely driving out Mom & Pop stores. Other companies saw how they operated and followed that business plan. The irony here is that THE LAST BLOCKBUSTER is debuting on Netflix, which Blockbuster had a chance to purchase on the cheap only to see it become even bigger than they ever dreamed of.
Kudos to Harding for keeping the flame alive.

 

[The Drifter]

I recently TLB doc. earlier this week, and it was very interesting, compelling, and nostalgic.

I admittedly wasn't much of a movie fan in the VHS days - so, was much more into renting after I got my first DVD player back in 2003; access to the plethora of movies & TV shows on DVD made me both a movie & big TV show fan - when I hadn't been much of one earlier. So, I rented the most between roughly 2003/2004 - 2010.

However - after a while, it didn't make sense to bother renting anymore due to streaming getting faster & more popular. Also, DVD prices got less expensive so it wasn't really that cost effective to rent - when you could pay a little more $ & own the Disk outright.

And, though I am huge physical media fan first & foremost - I will honestly say I do not miss renting from video rental stores.

Re: BB specifically, I especially don't miss:

1) BB late fees. I hated having to deal with rushing to return the video by midnight of a specific day so I wouldn't get dinged with the late fees.

2) Scratched Disks. There were numerous times the rental DVD's were scratched & either skip/froze during certain segments, or didn't work at all. I have bad memories of complaining to the store & trying to get a refund, but not being able to. I even offered to show the manager the place where the DVD skipped/froze, but they didn't care.

3) Extremely limited selection of older films/TV shows. Sure, they had hundreds of copies of newer films/shows, but their selection of older stuff was typically abysmal/poor.

I strongly preferred Hollywood Video to BB due to their having a better selection of older films, as well the fact that their Disks were typically in much better shape than BB's (probably due to less people renting/viewing them).

However, the issue I had with all video rental stores was:

4) The hassle/time involved in going to the store & renting the disks, and then having to go back to return them.

And, re: this doc. - I fully appreciated the irony of watching a documentary about physical media & the Last standing Blockbuster video rental store....via a streaming service

That all being said, here's hoping the only Blockbuster left (Bend, Oregon) never closes. They obviously have a loyal customer base who will probably be renting for a many years to come.

 

[TonyD]

Viewed the documentary on Netflix and it was good but thought it could have been a little more serious instead of some goofy interviews and more info on why the chain went into bankruptcy. The documentary on Tower Records was much better.

This was my issue.
It was a silly puff piece about the last store using the name.
For what it was it was fine but I’d like to see a more in depth doc similar to the one about Tower records.

Some interviews with former employees and not a handful of actors who most people don’t even know who they are would have been great

COUld have done without Ron funches. He didn’t add anything.

Paul Scheer was the only actor who added anything interesting.

I was lucky to grow up in Philly during the beginning of the home movie era where we had at least a half dozen big places to rent movies.
We had Blockbuster
West Coast Video
Erol’s
For the niche movies and hard to find ones we had
Movies Unlimited.
MU was the best.
They had everything and if they didn’t they would get it.

Philly was also home to the Theater of the Living Arts.
It started a out as repertory theater started by Andre Gregory.
Eventually the company opened what may have been the First Video Store just called the TLA.
TLA carried a diverse selection of movies that the other big brand stores would not carry.

I worked at a Blockbuster for ten years from 2002 until they closed us in 2011.

I loved the job.
Got to watch any movie available and was able to talk to movie lovers every day.

We miss the event of going in to look through the shelves to see what we want to watch.
Talking to other people who were the regulars.
It was a great decade for me.

As for late fees.
Never understood why people complained about that.
What is the store supposed to do?
Let everyone rent a movie and keep it as long as they want with no additional fees?
Makes no sense.

Also that Loydd Kaufman fellow, I’ve seen him interviewed a few times and all he does is complain about how everyone ripped him off or made his business difficult.
Always comes across as a bellyacher and a jerk to me.

 

[MatthewA]

Suncoast was my go-to place for actually buying laserdiscs and VHS tapes in the pre-DVD days. My family didn't live near a Tower Records, so that was the best source for them near us.

There's a little bit of history and background to the video store business and Blockbuster's history (cue old 90s TV commercials), but, the bulk of the Doc is taken up by interviews with Harding and some ex-Blockbuster employees and a motley crew of 'celebrities' like Kevin Smith, Ione Skye, Jaimie Kennedy etc.. Some of their recollections are fun and interesting, but, others just seem like so much blathering to fill up time. Even at 86 minutes it feels padded.

The one celebrity whose voice would have livened this up is John Waters. One of my favorite things about Serial Mom is Chip's (Matthew Lillard) working in a locally owned video store. Blockbuster refused to carry anything over R, and I wonder whether they are one of the reasons why his most recent film, 2004's A Dirty Shame, had both R- and NC-17 rated versions.

Also that Loydd Kaufman fellow, I’ve seen him interviewed a few times and all he does is complain about how everyone ripped him off or made his business difficult.
Always comes across as a bellyacher and a jerk to me.

My one and only dealing with him was not unpleasant, but I heard the horror stories first hand from the six days I was a PA on the set of a film of theirs made in Buffalo, NY. The working conditions were awful — an abandoned church hostel with 60 people and one bathroom in the middle of summer — and there were more volunteers than jobs so it was almost like Survivor. I was briefly considered for a small part in the film when it was feared the actor from NYC would not make the shoot, but he did. When they let me go, they promised me a credit in the film, but when I finally brought myself to sit through it, and believe me, once is enough, it wasn't there. They lied to me. As for him getting ripped off, ask Trey Parker and Matt Stone about Cannibal!: The Musical if you want an earful. From what I've heard, he's the last person who should be complaining about that.