Growing up just outside Berkeley, we lived around the corner from a Blockbuster and rented quite a lot of movies. My mom would have preferred that I use that as the landmark for our neighborhood. Instead, I told everyone we lived by the Hotsy Totsy club (the words on the sign formed an “X”).
vivid memories of strolling through a blockbuster as like an 8 year old and letting my imagination run away with me figuring out what this movie was about
One of my first jobs was at a Blockbuster. (Khaki and blue oxfords give me ptsd flashbacks to this day.) Stocking the horror shelves was always a joyous agony.
The job itself I actually liked a fair bit. (Still a big movie/game nerd to this day) District management (in the Louisville KY area anyway) was a hot damn mess.
I know the cover though i've never seen the film. My introduction to Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell was walking by the box for Army of Darkness once and noticing the fork, going wrf. And thinking I have could sell it to my parents as a comedy if they saw and objected.
The video stores may be lost to us, but we still have record stores. I took a gaggle of teens to their first one this spring with a mandate of 'purchase physical media'. It was a grand adventure and we left not just with our purchased bounty but a gifted edm CD made by the clerk who sold the wares.
I worked at a video store for 8 years. It was a great job. Getting to know customers, their preferences, and being able to recommend movies they will enjoy was very satisfying. I genuinely loved that job.
Arguably this is a far more functional interface than whatever Netflix has that uses data-science to hide all the good movies from you because you watched a cartoon once*.
Serendipitous discovery has been purged from algorithmic systems. I miss coverflow style interfaces that mimicked flicking through LPs or DVDs in a rack.
We could rarely afford to go when I was little but our Blockbuster did free rentals for "A" report cards and those visits were so special. I would take forever to pick between different movies so I could get the most value out of it.
Back in those days, our favorite holiday gift for guests and acquaintances was a niche paperback book titled something like, "The 101 Best Videos You Haven't Seen." It was such a great pre/early internet resource. Also saved a lot of time not wandering about the video store aisles aimlessly.
iirc, I would not have watched Koyaanisqatsi, Strangers in Good Company, or Repo Man (as well as a bunch of other films) if not for that book. Ohhh, I think I need to do a search for it, even though it's super outdated.
I remember getting my hands on an old "golden movie retriever's movie reviews," which was just an absolute DOORSTOP of a book with thousands of movies + short summaries and ratings listed in it. I'd read that thing religiously, looking for cool shit to try and find to rent.
