A documentary on the last remaining Blockbuster Video, located in Bend, Oregon.... (Full plot summary below)
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A documentary on the last remaining Blockbuster Video, located in Bend, Oregon.
Leave your thoughts about The Last Blockbuster.
| Film ThreatAlan NgIt’s probably one of the best nostalgia documentaries to come out in years. It’s all feel-good and good-feels from start to finish and a surprise here and there. |
| The New York TimesGlenn KennyAs this pleasant but ultimately inconsequential movie’s narrative thins out, it emphasizes again and again that there is, as of now, only one operating Blockbuster store in the world. Luckily its proprietor is the warm and ingratiating Sandi Harding. |
| VarietyPeter DebrugeThe Last Blockbuster taps into analog lovers’ fond feelings for the monstrosity that gobbled up the little guys, then gave up, leaving not just movie fans but franchise owners like Sandi Harding to fend for themselves. Is the company’s demise really something to be mourned, or was its rise the real tragedy? |
| Movie NationRoger MooreThorough as it is in covering the history of the company and the retail phenomenon — my first newspaper feature story was visiting and grading all the videos in a small city where I worked, which led to my first hate mail and angry calls — Last Blockbuster plays like a TV feature story that goes on too long. |
| User ReviewJLuis_001I was born in 1990. For that reason, through my childhood and adolescence I've been experiencing most of the big technological changes that have occurred in the last 20 years. I had a walkman, a cd walkman, then iPods and not to mention countless different cell phones. Obviously the same thing happened with films. I had my VCR and I had a lot of VHS cassettes, after that the DVD, and so on. So of course I visited Blockbuster several times. And I have a lot of good memories of that, but frankly it's just that, memories. They say current generations have it all easier, and just a click away, and it's true, but you know what? I don't miss it. At all. I'm still a fervent believer in the physical format. In anything. Movies, music and books. I had a Kindle and never used it. But the commodity of what streaming means, and especially the Internet, has opened doors for us that we would never have thought of. Especially when it comes to cinema, and how it has been ensured that we can consume films from all over the world with such ease. So this documentary is just nostalgia, the good kind, I don't deny it, but it's still just nostalgia. And basically everyone involved repeats the same thing until the end. It was really good for a moment, but as in everything, you have to move on. |
| User ReviewfilmnerdwifeThe Last Blockbuster fell flat of my expectations. Rather than a documentary about the video rental era, it was nostalgia gone wrong. This documentary was a 90 minute filler of comedians and musicians telling bad jokes and doing corny bits. It was not heart felt, it was not funny and I definitely didn't learn much. All of the film's interesting points were quickly brushed aside so Doug Benson could tell another lame joke. The documentary briefly touched on revenue sharing, the Lehman Brothers, and Lloyd Kaufman. These shining moments should have been expounded on and I think there was a more interesting story to tell. Blockbuster was a giant corporation that forced independent video stores out of business, they sanitized and censored what movies were available for rental, and film makers like Lloyd Kaufman couldn't get their films into a Blockbuster. And then in a turn of poetic justice, Blockbuster crashed and burned mostly due to having too much debt during the 2008 recession. This debt was serviced by the Lehman Brothers, who we all know, bit the big one during the recession. Amidst these odds, one plucky store makes it to the end... in a world of streaming excess. Now this is the story that should have been told. In summary, the last Blockbuster was a painful slog through bad puns, jokes, and gimmicks by a bunch of washed up comedians who haven't been relevant since Blockbuster was in its heyday. If you are looking for a rush of nostalgia...watch the I love decades series instead. |
