What ever happened to all the video stores?
With the rise of Netflix, YouTube, Redbox, iTunes, “On Demand” cable services, and countless sites that offer torrents and streaming video, the movie rental stores across the land are certainly taking more than a hard hit.
Hollywood Video, Movie Gallery, and Blockbuster stores across the nation are shutting down, an unfortunate short-term change for the film culture. Movie Gallery, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy February 2, the second time the company has done this in three years. It is the second largest video rental company in the US, the first being Blockbuster, Inc., who has also shown a steep decline in revenue.
Quite frankly, I’m indifferent to this largely foreseeable change.
Our future entails more smaller, more efficient...well, everything. Even a video rental store can be reduced to a vending machine (Above: Redbox).
Don’t get me wrong, I love the new services that are available now. For example, the day I created my Netflix account was a very happy day in my life. With a few clicks from my room, I can have almost anything shipped to me. The selection is incredible and I’ve touched up on my film literacy primarily through the site (currently I am falling back in love with Wong Kar-wai, Nouvelle Vague, and a handful of Spaghetti Westerns).
However, as a defense argument for the rental stores, one of the most basic pleasures that you can take from film culture is physically going to the providing outlet and looking through the selection they have. I believe that renting movies is a part of American culture that isn’t dying, but certainly changing with the times. Compare it to the evolution of radio–it’s gone from the days where families gathered in the living room to hear radio shows being played out aurally to today where satellites provide static-free sound to reach the ears of passengers in a car.
It’s a shame that we have lost the joy of renting physical movies for our future generations. Renting movies was a large and important part of my childhood. With the evolving media, we find ourselves drifting apart interpersonally. Though these services make the whole process of renting movies more efficient, they do not possess that aura of excitement brought about by the experiences within the video stores.
