Why I decided to return to my local video store
I’ve been thinking lately about how much time we spend trying to save time. Streaming has made it possible to watch anything instantly, but I often find that I spend longer deciding what to stream. So I started going backwards: back to a slower, more deliberate way of watching movies. The kind that requires you to leave the house, make a choice, and live with it for a week. It’s laborious and time-consuming, but that’s the important thing.
Earlier this year, I was tasked with hosting a Q&A with independent director Alex Ross Perry, whose two new documentaries were screening as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival. One was a metatextual tale of the ambivalent, anti-corporate group Pavement, the other a filmic essay on the video store’s brief, pivotal existence.
After watching the second one, video paradiseI felt a deep sense of nostalgia for the hours I spent wandering the shelves of my hometown Blockbuster, searching for something that would cause the least amount of argument between my sisters and I, and continuing to support the temporary teenage identity I had rented for me at the time. Craft and I started drawing my eyes with black kohl pencil.
I moved to Melbourne to study film at university. My first share house was in Richmond, where I outfitted my bedroom with IKEA’s cheapest bed and milk crate shelves. Living five minutes away from the video store for $110 a week would completely expand my horizons. Picture Search was a cramped maze of tall, rickety wooden shelves overflowing with every movie I could imagine. Like the Platonic ideal of the independent video store, it remains Melbourne’s last bastion of movie rental, a relic from the pre-streaming era.
This was 2009; A full six years before Stan and Netflix launched in Australia. As it began to compete for market share with every other player in the streaming space, my DVD player’s streaming time became less and less until it was finally unplugged completely.
Streaming really tricks us into thinking we have endless options. Of course, if we’re all paying $15 each for a half-dozen services that divide and divide the market, should we be able to find anything we might want to watch? We all know how ridiculous this idea is.
Credit: Robin Cowcher
A few months ago I decided to give up. I couldn’t stand the thought of paying hundreds of dollars a year for the possibility of enjoying a movie or two. This wasn’t possible when my list of movies I always wanted to see but never got the chance was growing year by year.
inspirational video paradise, I went back to Image Search. In addition to the $12 I paid for four Alex Ross Perry movies (most of which are unavailable on streaming) that I rented to prepare for my Q&A with him, I had an outstanding late fee from the last time I was there. I’m impressed that no interest has accrued in 12 years.
