The Last Blockbuster (2020)

The Last Blockbuster review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

It was a bittersweet moment for the Blockbuster Video of Oregon when hearing the news that the Alaska store had closed. With its passing, the Oregon store became the final Blockbuster location in the world. Such notoriety made the place an instant nostalgia hotspot, where many ventured forth to relive an era of personal service and video curation. Those days of renting videotapes still hold a warm place in the hearts of many who have nostalgic tingles of Friday night aisle browsing. Thankfully, though, The Last Blockbuster is a bit more than just a flowery depiction of the store, taking off the rose-colored glasses just a bit to see some of the truth behind the chain’s rise and fall.

We get a few different perspectives from such a film. We hear from the last store’s manager, cautious yet proud of her work for the community that continues to employ young people who don’t know what a floppy disk is but will have to use one for rebooting the store computers. We get the gushing of fans who speak with stars in their eyes of a time when the best thing in the world on a Friday night was to go to the video store. We also get voices from those who worked within the corporate world of Blockbuster to speak more openly about the business and how its fall was more than just Netflix came and ruined everything. Finally, there are interviews with filmmakers and actors who relay much of their experiences.

Having worked in a video store myself, this film brought back a lot of old memories, both from the current store and stories told by others. The film follows the manager through her daily routine of checking the drop-off box and stacking shelves with DVDs she purchased at Target. Yes, back in the day video store chains would get massive shipments of videos from the distributors themselves, but we weren’t above buying up a retail copy to place on the shelves either. A lot of nostalgic stories from former-employees are hilariously reflective about pulling pranks with dropbox and thinking certain customers look like certain actors.

Thankfully, The Last Blockbuster doesn’t just run through all the stories and video clips I’ve heard and seen. Those well versed in the stores won’t be let down by a documentary that does far more than rehash the familiar. The stories of the former corporate employees are filled with both insightful honesty as well as strong opinions about the stores themselves. Most of them just don’t see the appeal of why people would keep going to the last Blockbuster but, then again, they’re only looking at it from a business perspective. That being said, director Lloyd Kaufman has no problem calling Blockbuster a crappy franchise for not filling their stores with his Troma movies.

The film is still a bit of a flowery depiction in that a lot of the more controversial aspects are not as highlighted. The talk of Blockbuster buying up independent stores is graced but never fully analyzed for the damage it caused in making video stores more of an industry centered around one franchise. There are still a handful of indie video stores that operate today but they’re faltering and the damage done by Blockbuster’s failures can’t be overstated enough.

For remaining squarely focused on the chain, however, the film still works well for trying to look back on the history of Blockbuster and the fate of its last store. There’s a fondness for the past yet critical consideration for the mistakes that were made. There’s a sense of wonderment about trying to recall the thrill of it all but it’s never relegated to mere gushing and referencing that every Blockbuster customer knows by heart. Today, video stores remain more of a throwback and niche place that struggles to compete in an era when people are more likely to stay in for movies than venture out to rent them. The Last Blockbuster reminds us of how powerful the human connection can be when it comes to movies and how soon we forget in an age of more algorithmic recommendations than personal curation.