The Last Blockbuster is a 2020 documentary that’s finally arrived (somewhat ironically) on Netflix streaming. It’s about twenty minutes of interesting information about Blockbuster, twenty minutes about the literal Last Blockbuster store (in Bend, Oregon), and the rest is just one ongoing nostalgia bomb. Tons of interviews with People of a Certain Age remembering their times renting movies (Doug Benson, Kevin Smith, Paul Scheer, Jamie Kennedy, Run Funches, Brian Psoehn, etc.).
As an informative documentary, it’s a little lacking because of that. As a nostalgia bomb, it works. Not sure if it works for anyone without those fond memories of renting movies though.
I do though… I had not a few moments of fond reminiscence of making the weekly trip on release date to grab all the new rentals before the rest of the hoi poloi could. And it reminded me of the little camera store that also rented movies before a dedicated rental store opened… before Blockbuster swooped in and shut ’em down. Then fond memories of those Netflix mailers (8 at a time, baby!)… and then the weird ironies of watching a documentary about Blockbuster via Netflix streaming.
So, yeah, the nostalgia bomb worked. But it didn’t make me any less aware of how much padding the doc had. But that’s largely ok, I suppose. Fair play. Not sure how much hard hitting info there is in a Blockbuster doc (though hearing more from the Troma guy and why he hated Blockbsuter would have been nice).
Score: 79