The last American video store
Without a space or a location, ‘the movies’ cease to exist. They become another niche interest with little to no cultural penetration. Awards-season movies, summer blockbusters, sleeper hits and all kinds of popular film phenomena cease to exist without theaters themselves. The last year has shown how much movie culture relies on the activity of going to the movies and the physical space itself. The Last Blockbuster is a documentary about the death of another space: video stores, albeit through the eyes of the last representatives of a corporation that destroyed vast swaths of mom & pop stores across America. Lloyd Kaufman, the co-founder of Troma Entertainment, an independent film distribution company, is an understandably hostile subject.
