07-20-2018, 04:35 PM
It's the end of the line for Blockbuster Video.
For One Last Night, Make It a Blockbuster Night
Everything is 10 years behind in Alaska—including the way people see movies. In three stores across the coldest state in the union, Blockbuster captured the imagination of its residents long after the company ceased operations around the rest of the country. But now, the late fees are finally coming due, and the end of the Blockbuster era is upon us.
He was the manager at Blockbuster and looked forward to coming to work. He loved his job, in all of its obsolescence. The silver name tag fastened to the breast of his long-sleeve dress shirt, the blue-and-yellow sign in the shape of a giant movie ticket towering above the road. The faded white paint on the windows, BLOCKBUSTER T-SHIRTS AND MORE; the three overnight drop slots, one just inside the door, arrows pointing to the rectangular hole where a small white pillow muffled the plastic thump of the movies. The stains on the store’s peeling facade and the movie posters taped on the inside glass, Jumanji and the Maze Runner sequel being the latest, and the last. The COMING SOON marquee affixed to the board on the wall behind the desk, Black Panther on 5/15, a film the entire town was buzzing about, a new release that would never arrive. And everything else that would either be sold or thrown in the trash: the monogrammed Blockbuster rug; the B-horror movies and Disney movies and TV series that weren’t available on Netflix; the striped corporate counters that smelled like cleaning spray; the giant plush polar bear atop the Coca-Cola cooler; and even the long, blue awning outside that he had no idea what anyone would do with, the awning that had been as ubiquitous to the world as the sunlight was to the summertime in Soldotna, Alaska.
He lived in the country with the wild green river, with the Moose Crossing signs on the roads, where he’d spent much of his life, where he’d rented DVDs to customers for 10 years. He could barely remember a life without Blockbuster. Without laminated cards and late fees and being kind to rewind when he was a kid. Then growing up to be on the other side of the counter at one of the last stores in the world, raising his own three children by letting them hang out there and work on homework and help put movies away in the evening hours after he picked them up from school.
It was the beginning of the summer, the beginning of the tourist season, the salmon season. The land had thawed and turned green. He was 37, living with his parents, at the moment avoiding the reality of what he would have to do next. Justin Trickel unlocked the door before noon on May 13 and began Sunday with the burden of information that he was asked not to broadcast, something that customers would eventually find out in a Facebook post on the Blockbuster Alaska page later that night — that without ceremony, the store was closing for rental business after 23 years. A message from his boss the general manager — “Justin and his crew have done a phenomenal job and will be greatly missed” — thanked everyone on the Kenai peninsula for their years of support, and turned into an online cenotaph of crying emoji and those little floating hearts broken in two: “NO!!! This sucks. … My grandma goes here weekly. … Technology has taken over everything. … the internet is wayyyy to [sic] expensive. … I hate the rental places in IGA and the other store the DVDs are always scratched up! … This is absolutely heart breaking. … This was my favorite thing to do. …”
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/7/...-anchorage
One store left, in the great metropolitan area known as Bend, Oregon.
For One Last Night, Make It a Blockbuster Night
Everything is 10 years behind in Alaska—including the way people see movies. In three stores across the coldest state in the union, Blockbuster captured the imagination of its residents long after the company ceased operations around the rest of the country. But now, the late fees are finally coming due, and the end of the Blockbuster era is upon us.
He was the manager at Blockbuster and looked forward to coming to work. He loved his job, in all of its obsolescence. The silver name tag fastened to the breast of his long-sleeve dress shirt, the blue-and-yellow sign in the shape of a giant movie ticket towering above the road. The faded white paint on the windows, BLOCKBUSTER T-SHIRTS AND MORE; the three overnight drop slots, one just inside the door, arrows pointing to the rectangular hole where a small white pillow muffled the plastic thump of the movies. The stains on the store’s peeling facade and the movie posters taped on the inside glass, Jumanji and the Maze Runner sequel being the latest, and the last. The COMING SOON marquee affixed to the board on the wall behind the desk, Black Panther on 5/15, a film the entire town was buzzing about, a new release that would never arrive. And everything else that would either be sold or thrown in the trash: the monogrammed Blockbuster rug; the B-horror movies and Disney movies and TV series that weren’t available on Netflix; the striped corporate counters that smelled like cleaning spray; the giant plush polar bear atop the Coca-Cola cooler; and even the long, blue awning outside that he had no idea what anyone would do with, the awning that had been as ubiquitous to the world as the sunlight was to the summertime in Soldotna, Alaska.
He lived in the country with the wild green river, with the Moose Crossing signs on the roads, where he’d spent much of his life, where he’d rented DVDs to customers for 10 years. He could barely remember a life without Blockbuster. Without laminated cards and late fees and being kind to rewind when he was a kid. Then growing up to be on the other side of the counter at one of the last stores in the world, raising his own three children by letting them hang out there and work on homework and help put movies away in the evening hours after he picked them up from school.
It was the beginning of the summer, the beginning of the tourist season, the salmon season. The land had thawed and turned green. He was 37, living with his parents, at the moment avoiding the reality of what he would have to do next. Justin Trickel unlocked the door before noon on May 13 and began Sunday with the burden of information that he was asked not to broadcast, something that customers would eventually find out in a Facebook post on the Blockbuster Alaska page later that night — that without ceremony, the store was closing for rental business after 23 years. A message from his boss the general manager — “Justin and his crew have done a phenomenal job and will be greatly missed” — thanked everyone on the Kenai peninsula for their years of support, and turned into an online cenotaph of crying emoji and those little floating hearts broken in two: “NO!!! This sucks. … My grandma goes here weekly. … Technology has taken over everything. … the internet is wayyyy to [sic] expensive. … I hate the rental places in IGA and the other store the DVDs are always scratched up! … This is absolutely heart breaking. … This was my favorite thing to do. …”
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/7/...-anchorage
One store left, in the great metropolitan area known as Bend, Oregon.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.