On an otherwise unremarkable Los Angeles street corner hangs a well-known blue and yellow logo, forcing passersby to do a double-take.
The image of a ripped ticket stub belongs to ye olde Blockbuster Video, the once ubiquitous US rental chain destroyed by Netflix. However the Blockbuster on Melrose Avenue isn’t actually a store in any respect – it’s a pop-up speakeasy.
Upon entering, patrons receive drink tokens equivalent to the Blockbuster membership cards of yore. Avril Lavigne, Juvenile, Matchbox Twenty and other bards of antiquity blast from the speakers. Visitors wander the shop video cases displayed on the shelves, all from the peak of the chain’s success: Titanic, Mallrats, Twister.
The pop-up was developed largely by Derek Berry of Bucket Listers entertainment, who describes himself as an aficionado of “nostalgia in popular culture”.
Blockbuster “is having a really nostalgic moment”, riding a wave of 90s throwbacks, from JNCO jeans to Dunkaroos – the cookies that include icing for dipping, says Berry, 40. “It’s like you’ve gotten a cool parent and also you don’t know it until you’re much older.”
That enthusiasm has been constructing lately. The pop-up was packed on a Wednesday night; tickets are for two-hour windows. In 2018, John Oliver got here up with a plan to rescue a location in Anchorage, Alaska: he bought Russell Crowe’s jockstrap at auction and sent it to the shop to placed on display.
Sadly, it closed anyway – however the jockstrap made its strategy to the last Blockbuster, in Bend, Oregon. The shop has been featured within the Latest York Times, Washington Post, NBC News and beyond. Media accounts describe fans traveling from so far as Spain to pay homage, as a once commonplace site has grow to be a tourist attraction: in 1989, the Post reported, a latest Blockbuster was opening every 17 hours. In 2010, the corporate filed for bankruptcy, and the next yr it was bought by the Dish Network, which closed most stores.
“I just desired to relive my childhood,” a fan who drove from southern California told the Times. “I desired to see if it looked the identical.” The shop sells Blockbuster-themed merchandise starting from sunglasses to baby clothes and was the topic of an affectionate 2020 documentary, The Last Blockbuster, following the adventures of the shop’s general manager, Sandi Harding, and featuring tributes from Kevin Smith and Adam Brody.
On the LA pop-up, each empty video case along the partitions lists the ingredients of a cocktail named for the film, and patrons bring their chosen movie to the checkout counter to exchange it for the drink. The Clueless features Pop Rocks and Gushers; the Avatar incorporates blue Curaçao; The Big Lebowski is a version of a white Russian.
The shop is peppered with other artefacts of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries – a Nintendo, Pogs, sugary drinks in those barrel-shaped plastic things. On the back is a bit labeled “adults only”, offering fully grown children of the 90s the chance to breach a once forbidden room. (Seems it’s a patio for casual drinking; perhaps it at all times was?)
Nothing makes you’re feeling old like strangers cosplaying an era you remember. But what’s it about Blockbuster that summons such particular nostalgia – enough that individuals are lining as much as pay a $29 cover charge?
The resurgence is presumably a results of the chain’s lifespan – it was founded in 1985 and survived the primary decade of this century – dates that align closely with the births of the oldest millennials and the youngest members of Gen Z. Those generations accounted for virtually everyone on the pop-up on Wednesday night.
However the chain also appears like an especially potent symbol of a bygone era, perhaps since it was among the many highest-profile businesses to be undermined by a tech startup before “disruption” became a cliche.
Its rapid flatlining brought the top of an American ritual. Forget the movie: the trip to the video store was an experience in itself, featuring an investigation into the present offerings, an amassing of snacks and a reliably life-affirming interaction with bored teenagers on the checkout counter.
A visit to Blockbuster wasn’t a revelatory experience on the time, however it did mark a transparent contrast with our current moment – most of all since it required a commitment: the movie you bought was the movie you’d watch. No scrolling endlessly through the choices before hurling the Roku distant on the wall. In a world burdened by alternative, there’s something reassuring concerning the simplicity of a limited selection.
And so the friendly ghost of Blockbuster continues to haunt us. In a weird moment of cognitive dissonance, last month saw the launch of a sitcom concerning the store, starring Melissa Fumero and Randall Park.
It’s streaming on Netflix.
