Free Blockbuster libraries offer alternative to streaming
Streaming services have transformed the way we view film and television, leaving us isolated on our couches, subject to the suggestions of an algorithm. But a small group of film buffs with a fondness for physical media are hoping to lure people back into the real world — one abandoned newspaper box at a time.
The Free Blockbuster project began in 2019, when Brian Morrison, a film and television producer in Los Angeles and a former Blockbuster employee, painted the company’s blue-and-yellow logo onto an old box and filled it with DVDS. For many, the brand evokes memories of the trip to the video store with friends or family members to browse the shelves and to pick up a film and a bag of popcorn.
“There’s a nostalgia attached to it that is resonant for a whole generation,” he said of the nearly obsolete Blockbuster chain, which operated thousands of video rental stores worldwide at its peak in the early 2000s. “It means something to a lot of people.”
The Free Blockbuster movement slowly gained traction, and eventually more than 200 other community boxes had opened from Louisiana to Canada and even Britain — though it is unclear how many of them remain operational.
“We are social animals; we want to go out into the world and engage with each other,” said Morrison, who keeps a lending library outside his home. He often refills it with DVDS and VHS tapes of TV series, horror movies and, on occasion, signed independent films, and said that it had encouraged interaction with his neighbors.
Andrew Kevin Walker, a Los Angeles-based screenwriter, said he had visited secondhand stores especially to seek out films to leave in the boxes, including two sealed James Bond box sets and a copy of “Cobra,” a 1986 film written by Sylvester Stallone.
“It’s an opportunity for people to really share their love of cinema, whether it be their favorite guilty pleasure or their favorite movie of all time,” he said.
Viewers with streaming fatigue say they are tired of chasing content that moves around an ever-expanding array of platforms or even disappears altogether, and some long for the physical media that was dominant until streaming took over.
“I think it’s great that folks are doing this, keeping the spirit of DVDS alive, circulating film in and exchanging them,” said Joe Pichirallo, a film producer and professor at New York University.
Shortly after Free Blockbuster was launched, a lawyer for DISH Network, which now owns the Blockbuster brand, sent Morrison a letter asking him to stop using the company’s logo and name.
A DISH spokesperson did not respond to questions about the letter but said in an email that the company was “aware” of the Free Blockbuster initiative. “DISH continues to explore and evaluate different opportunities that would best fit the iconic brand,” she said.
Blockbuster opened in Dallas in 1985 and by 2004 had grown to more than 9,000 stores around the world. In 2000, the company turned down an offer to buy Netflix, now worth about $265 billion, for 20% of that cost. A decade later, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Last year, Netflix ended its DVD service, and Best Buy recently announced that it would stop selling discs.
“Consumers have found it much more convenient to watch something where, when and whenever they want,” Pichirallo said.
Award-winning filmmaker Ava Duvernay called the Free Blockbuster movement vital and refreshing.
“It is something that I very much embrace,” she said in a phone interview.
When it comes to art, “nothing beats holding it in your hand,” Duvernay said. “That tactile intimacy of touch is something that sounds kind of flighty and unimportant, but touch is a sense. It is a part of the experience of consuming and experiencing art.”
Duvernay lamented the loss of the director’s cuts and commentary that often came with DVDS but are now largely absent from films on streaming services.
“That’s how I actually learned to make content,” she said. “I picked up a camera when I was 32. I listened to directors talk about their films to the picture.”
As Free Blockbusters have opened across the country, the last Blockbuster, in Bend, Ore., continues to rent out films on DVD and Blu-ray. Sandi Harding, who has managed the store for the past two decades, doesn’t see them in competition: The more people who engage with the Blockbuster brand and physical media, the better, she said.
The store, which became the last in the world after franchises in Alaska and Australia closed, now largely draws summer tourists, in addition to some regular customers, said Harding, noting that about 80% of the store’s income now comes from merchandise and the remainder from film rentals. But it became increasingly challenging to scope out new releases on DVD and Bluray online, or at local department stores, she said.
“I don’t think it’ll ever go back to where it was before. But I think it’s kind of like vinyl records,” which have resurged, she said.
A dehumidifier installed in the room pulls natural moisture out of the air and funnels it on top of the burlap. From there, gravity takes over. The water seeps through the fabric and drips onto the panel below, taking the black graphite with it. The process creates something like a monochromatic Jackson Pollock painting, lots of random dribbles and drops.
Porras-kim has repeated this same work at several previous exhibitions and hanging on the walls of the gallery are pieces she created with this same process during shows in Spain, California and Mexico. This enables MCA visitors to simultaneously observe the new piece being created while examining what the final product will look like from previous installations.
There is something very satisfying about being so intimately involved in the process, to be observers of the action as much as viewers of completed works. And it gets right to the heart of Porras-kim’s overall efforts as an artist. They are ongoing, complete and incomplete at the same time, and fascinating.