It’s 2005 I am 18 I have just gotten my license and now I have gotten my Blockbuster card. Nothing I had achieved up to this point matters at all. For the first time in my life I had the ability to go wherever I wanted and watch whatever I wanted to watch. DvD’s were finally mainstream and I had gotten a laptop with a DvD player. Now my preferences was to watch films on the main TV with surround sound, but I was back to living with my parents and like I didn’t want to deal with their prying judgmental eyes.
Blockbuster Video was like home for me. I discovered R rated films (grew up in a christian cult) for the first time, sex scenes, gay scenes, love scenes, kissing scenes, action scenes, horror scenes etc. No one could tell me what I could or couldn’t watch and the best part is it was cheap. For a few dollars I could rent multiple movies and as long as I returned them on time I could pick up even more for even cheaper.
Nothing today compares to the selection and discoverability of a Video Rental Store. Many Blockbusters even had larger selections than a lot of your streaming services. Streaming is convenient I won’t deny that, but you almost have to know what you want to find it. The magic of a Blockbuster is all you had to do was walk around and you where bound to find a movie you never even heard of before and soon you where renting it along with a bag of popcorn and a Pepsi and where transported to a place you’ve never been before.
There is a lot about those years of my early 20’s I don’t miss at all, but I will forever miss the Video Store. Anyhow here is a lovely video with the late Brittany Murphy as she takes MTV on a tour of a Blockbuster Video Store in the lovely New York City.
