In Memorandum: Blockbuster Video

Do you remember your first trip to Blockbuster Video to rent a movie?

Well truthfully neither do I (I’m getting old I cant help it), though I can imagine my first memory of going there than most people though, and I’ll never forget it only because it was probably the one single moment that set the course for the rest of my life.

I was four. My dad took me to rent a movie for us to watch while my mother and sister were away for the weekend. Instead of allowing me to torture him with some crappy kid movie he instead found something he thought I would enjoy. It was Star Wars, and from then on I was hooked on movies.

Over the years I would continue to go back, looking for the next great movie I would love, scourging the shelves for whatever caught my interest for better or worse to try and discover what hidden treasures laid in those shelves waiting to be seen (I usually got a little guidance from my Dad as well).

As the years went by I didn’t go as much as I wanted to, but loved every trip I took there for what I learned, and as I got older the trips evolved as well.

In high school I met a group of friends that began a tradition, nearly every weekend going to one of the local Blockbusters and finding the worst movies we could find. That introduced us to such schlock gems as Killer Klowns fro Outer Space, Mr. Jingles, the films of Uwe Boll, and perhaps king among them Gingerdead Man (a movie so bad the checkout clerk wanted to double check to see if we were renting the right movie).

Blockbuster gave me so many memories as a kid, and it probably bestowed memories on all of us, whether we realize it or not.

Sadly, those days have past. While I for one still love a good trip to Blockbuster, I also recognize that technology has made it an incovienence to make such trips. Nowadays we have Netflix, which will deliver movies right to us via mail or even streaming them right to us in an instant. That’s not even bringing On Demand or torrenting movies into the fold.

Now Blockbuster is almost gone, in a state of bankruptcy and closing the doors to its stores left and right, now a just a means for movie scavengers (myself included) to pick on the corpse and get a load of movies on the cheap.

With what little time we have left, lets reflect on the joys and memories that Blockbuster video has left us and an entire generation of movie fans, and if at al possible, hit up the old place for one last rental before its gone for good.