Video Store Rumble: The Last Blockbuster vs. At The Video Store
The history of cinema is filled with instances of “twin films,” where two films with similar plots are released around the same time. Armageddon and Deep Impact, A Bug’s Life and Antz, Volcano and Dante’s Peak, the list goes on and on (two of my friends even do a podcast on this called Twinema Cinema).
This phenomenon even happens in the documentary world. Back in 2013, the VHS community was gifted with two excellent explorations of videocassette culture: Rewind This! and Adjust Your Tracking. While Rewind This! focused more on the history of VHS and VCRs, and Adjust Your Tracking dug into the VHS collecting community, both celebrated the cultural impact of the medium, and somehow they were released in the same year.
Seven years later, this happened again in 2020 with the simultaneous release of the documentaries At The Video Store (dir. James Westby) and The Last Blockbuster (dir. Taylor Morden), both of which explore the importance of video stores in the age of streaming. Just like with the VHS docs, the films aren’t identical, but they overlap in interesting ways, and work well in tandem to celebrate why physical media and the physical spaces that house them really do matter.
The Last Blockbuster has gotten a lot of attention lately, thanks to its debut on Netflix and, of course, the lasting nostalgia for Blockbuster Video. The film centers on the famous “last” Blockbuster Video in operation located in Bend, Oregon, while also exploring the meteoric rise and crushing fall of the video store behemoth.
The filmmaker managed to interview former Blockbuster CFO Tom Casey, who explains it was really the market crash of 2008 that killed the chain, not Netflix. But despite this clarification, the Internet loves the fact that a Blockbuster documentary has showed up on the streaming site they once had the chance to own, á la a criminal going back to the scene of the crime.
At the center of the film is Sandi Harding, the delightfully charming store manager who has been nicknamed “the Blockbuster mom” since she employs so many local teenagers. We follow her as she balances her daily duties at the store with her online fame helming the Last Blockbuster on Earth, a title that brings everything from late-night TV interviews to international tourists. She is the warm, friendly heart at the center of this documentary, bringing personal investment to this celebration of nostalgia.
Released to much less fanfare, but just as deserving of attention is Westby’s At The Video Store, which turns its eye to the mom & pop video stores across the country that survived Blockbuster and are still hanging on today. From Movie Madness in Portland to Video Americain in Baltimore, we meet several store owners who love their jobs, even as it gets harder and harder to stay open.
Indeed, many of the stores in the film, including Video Americain, closed before the film was even released. Thankfully, Movie Madness is still around, and has since survived the COVID-19 shutdown, the latest blow to video stores and other independent businesses. The many storeowners we meet in the film are wonderfully unique and friendly, but it would have been nice to learn as much about them as we learn about Sandi Harding.
The Last Blockbuster has tons of interviews with comedians like Doug Benson and Ron Funches who reminisce on their Blockbuster memories; however, these sound bites are more humorous than they are insightful. At The Video Store, on the other hand, is packed with incredible conversations with filmmaking icons like editor Thelma Shoonmaker, directors John Waters and Todd Haynes, and even actor Bill Hader. (To be fair, The Last Blockbuster does include Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman, who hilariously rips into the Blockbuster corporation for their censorship).
At The Video Store is clearly a labor of love for Westby, who shot and edited the film himself. The modest manufacturing of the project reflects the independent nature of the video stores he chronicles. The Last Blockbuster, conversely, is a much crisper, cleaner doc that mirrors the shiny glow of Blockbuster’s neon sign.
The films work best as complimentary works that together show the wide range of video store culture. While Blockbuster Video gets a lot of well-deserved criticism for being a corporate juggernaut that crushed the independent video store market, for many people, especially 90s kids, it was THE video store that was a huge part of their childhood. And if you were lucky enough to have a mom & pop video store growing up, or live near one of them today, At The Video Store celebrates the unique joy of these idiosyncratic hangouts, from dusty copies of out-of-print foreign films to the store cat wandering around your feet.
I was lucky enough to see “At The Video Store” at its Los Angeles premiere in February 2020 as part of the VHStival, a traveling VHS party from Alamo Drafthouse and Lunchmeat VHS creator Josh Schafer. Sadly, other cities weren’t so lucky, as the tour was cut short by the pandemic. The Last Blockbuster premiered at a drive-in screening as part of the BendFilm Festival, in the very same town as the store.
I would have loved to see The Last Blockbuster on the big screen, but sadly that’s true of a lot of films from last year. Though you can stream The Last Blockbuster on Netflix, and At The Video Store is available to rent on Vimeo (or Alamo On Demand), perhaps the best way to watch both of them is the 90s way: on VHS. Schafer’s Lunchmeat VHS website sells both films on tape, but unfortunately they are currently sold out. If you managed to snag a copy, well done.
Whether you’re a Blockbuster superfan or a diehard independent store supporter, both documentaries explore the indescribable pleasure of walking through aisles and aisles of movies, a sensation you just can’t get from a Redbox or a streaming site. Hopefully watching these 2 films will inspire people to seek out the video stores still around to recapture that sensation. I for one can’t wait to visit Bend’s Blockbuster as soon as I can.
