I’m not a movie person.
I have a really hard time committing an hour and a half to my life to a set of characters that will no longer matter after those 90 minutes, with the obvious exception of the Harry Potter series.
There is, however, one thing that I vehemently wish never left us: Blockbuster.
The special romance of going to Blockbuster on a Friday evening is gone forever. I was never old enough to go with my betrothed and pick out a movie to watch on our couch and fall asleep while the DVD’s menu plays on repeat until someone begrudgingly makes the effort to turn off the TV. Sure, I had my go at picking out a DVD at Redbox, but standing in front of a gas station at 9 p.m. while the rest of your movie-viewing party is in your car has little to no excitement in it.
I get it — the convenience of Netflix has made any service that required you to drive to a store and interact with people archaic. Yet the “Netflix and Chill” culture we now live in has destroyed any sort of romance that once existed for a movie date back then. Now it’s more “this movie seems OK enough to play in the background as we make out uncomfortably for 20 minutes then not pay attention to the movie.”
And consider how much less meaningful scrolling through Netflix is. The person who scrolls is bad at scrolling and after a lazy five-minute perusing of Netflix’s catalogue, you put on The Office for the seventh time that week. At least with Blockbuster, you made a commitment to those 90 minutes.
While I long for the days of driving to a video store, I have hope that they’ll make a comeback. Like many fads of days past — denim, food trucks, high-waisted and cuffed pants, Twin Peaks — I have high hopes that Blockbuster has, at most, another decade before people decide that that kind of vintage is what we need to bring back. It’ll be back around before Applebee’s runs out of business, that I am sure of.
So next time you cozy up on the couch and decide to watch Jim Halpert make that face for the 1,000th time, just remember that if Blockbuster was still around, there would be a bit more romance to your lazy Friday night.
Chuck Greenlee is a junior studying communications studies at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you miss Blockbuster? Let Chuck know by tweeting him @chuck_greenlee.
