What was browsing for movies to watch feel like?

Browsing the horror section was great. I'd spend literally hours just looking at the box art.

based and literallymepilled

We actually respected critics’ opinions back then. So we would look for the one that came with the highest recommendations.
Also it was comfy. Better than Netflix

what did they do to all their media once they went under?

>can never rent anything remotely popular because its gone
wow i really pine for the glory days of brick and mortar movie stores. have you fags even been inside a blockbuster. do you even lift?

Kek fucking millinieal faggot absolutely BTFO. Poor kids who never experienced the greatness of Blockbuster

Felt good man, if you had a halfway decent store of course

>my local Xtra-Vision had a 'Rent 5 films for €15 for a week' offer
>would just blitz through their indie/world cinema section

Also the smell of carpet, VHS box plastic and popcorn was always ultra-comfy. I would still use a store if they existed anymore because it beats lacklustre streaming sites and having to trawl for torrents

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A lot of the new releases were already checked out. The middle aisle were the old movies. If you rented a New Release you could rent one of the older movies for free. The thing is that you had to return New Releases within 2 days and older movies in 5.

>be kid growing up see the adult selection room which is just hidden by a curtain
never got to go in there man

People always bring up popcorn smell, but I've never been in a Blockbuster that had a popcorn machine in it.

This. It was like looking at the Halloween aisle year-round.

Annoying. People always took things I wanted

Just seeing all the variety was awesome. Even if you didn't buy anything, it was great to go from section to section.

Now you really only get that feeling from thrift shops with big movie sections.

We didn't have Blockbusters in Ireland, it was Xtra-Vision or Chartbusters

My city still has a very busy video store

MY friend had this dream and now he works at a niche cinema and rental store. The clientele is a bit older but he talks movies all he wants and smashes prime art ho pussy on the regular

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Oh okay.

Imagine if you were outside all day working hard, then its finally quitting time and you're hungry so you go and get a nice juicy burger. Now imagine you eat that same burger for every single meal, every single snack, and every day is cheat day.

Well la-de-dah

Wanna know how I know you’re from a pathetic little town? I had a blockbuster round the corner.

kek zoomer btfo

God I wish that were me

i'm still trying to find the horror movie that started with a rape scene in a car I watched as a kid, made me diamonds. i think it had a skull on the cover but that doesn't exactly narrow it down.

I lived in Tralee for a bit so you're not far off. Had the fucking mouldy tanning booths down the back too

It was fun as a kid. There were always a bajillion movies to choose from, and as someone else pointed out, all of the box art was like walking through a weird art museum. The older you got, however, the less fun it became. I worked at a video store as a teenager right before they all started closing. New releases were usually gone by the time I came in in the afternoon on Tuesdays, and you'd get constant phone calls Friday through Sunday wanting to know if a movie was in/could you hold it for me if it was. By then, I'd DL whatever I wanted to see. The one I worked at closed less than a year after I quit.

Fond memories from when I was a kid, but as an adult, I'm glad they're gone. Nostalgia is nice so long as you keep it in perspective.

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>tfw you will never work in a VHS store in the early 90's

Why even live?

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Like choosing wine or beer.

Sucked ass. Modern world is shit because the people and content is crappy, technology and content delivery is way better these days.

My parents always rushed me. But i miss the NEW section and the sale bins. You can basically do the same shit at Wal Mart nowadays, minus the cool snacks.

It was a nice, but to be honest I prefer the convenience of modern high speed internet. It was a memorable sensory experience though, my preferred place was a chain of video stores that's local to my province, and I have nice memories of it, the air conditioning, the smell of popcorn always reminds me of it because they had a machine at the counter so the whole place smelled of that, and just spending an hour looking at VHS/DVD covers deciding what to pick. It was a different time.

Blockbuster was always shit, but city slicker normies didnt have much of a choice.

I worked in a small family owned movie store from 1997-1999. It was the comfiest job I ever had. Modern technology has made the video store obselete, and that is for the most part a good thing. Consumers can make descisions on their own and not consider what movie is rented out. But that little shop was my kingdom. And I loved it.

Go and see yourself?

Old fag here, worked in a video store after college, because money. It was one of the easiest jobs in the world, and because we weren't a corporate chain, we could get away with a lot more. Everyone was different - some people would ask us for recommendations, other's would choose a movie because of the cover (with hilarious results), most people would hit the new release rack and that's it. Occasionally we'd get someone who'd just wander around for an hour, we'd just ignore them and do our thing.
I remember the freaks.
>One dude would come in and insist on alphabetizing all of the movies. He was trying to do ALL of the movies, but the owner told him to stick to genre, because we got tired of cleaning up after him.
>We had a couple of autists who would turn movies around on the shelf, because they didn't like them. We had one assberger hide cases of movies he didn't like, behind a display.
>We didn't have an adult section, the other store did. We had a playroom for kids - the owner was originally going to make it an adult room, but it was too small. So every damn day, we'd have some dude come creeping in, and would spend 20 minutes shuffling around the store, getting closer to the kid room, and then, when the store was almost empty and the coast would clear, he'd dart in, and....then he'd sidle up to one of us male workers and whisper "Uhhhhhh....where is the...ahem....uh....adult section?" Our joy in life was to answer loudly "YES, SIR, THE OTHER STORE HAS PLENTY OF ADULT TITLES, DO YOU NEED DIRECTIONS?" - cue creeper sprinting out the door with red face. Fun timbes.
>Woman generally had no fucks to give, they'd come right up to the counter and ask where the porn was.
>People are fucking gross. We'd have stuff come back covered in god knows what.
>We had wierdos splicing shit into VHS tapes. Not porn, political shit.

>not just going to the video shop with a few of your mates back in the 80's to waste an hour just looking at the box art without the intention of even hiring a video

>We had wierdos splicing shit into VHS tapes. Not porn, political shit.
proto /pol/

>Modern world is shit because the people and content is crappy, technology and content delivery is way better these days.
This.

>>actually pretending to have lived in the era and not be a zoomer on a taiwanese origami discussion board
kek

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Landfill in New Mexico.

The best part was, we were expected to watch all of the new movies, to recommend them, so we got first crack at new releases - a lot of times we'd get them before the release date, so we'd see them before that. And, THE person to kiss ass to was the distribution guy. He could hook you up with preview copies weeks before movies came out. I got tons of cool shit from our dude.
I saw EVERYTHING. It got to the point all of us had seen everything we wanted to, and because we got free rentals, we dove DEEP. While working, it got to the point we'd choose movies to play in the store for their soundtrack.
Did I mention free movie posters? I still have some, in a tube, somewhere. I never took the standups, and we were supposed to let customers ask first. The Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade standup display caused weeks of drama because so many people wanted it. The owner kept it himself, it got so bad.
We had low theft, because the actual tapes were kept in the back. Nobody bothered to steal boxes. We had a lot of damage.
The replacement costs were real, the distributors charged a fuckton for big hit movies on release, that's why our owner would order 5, and once the price dropped a week later, would order more.
Rewind fees, fuck you, pay me. WE got to rewind your shit, and it was a pain in the fucking ass.
Easiest job in the world. The hardest part was restocking shelves, once that was done, we sat behind the counter and gabbed. Everyone that worked there was cool as fuck, and got along. The owner was rarely there. Nice area, so the customers were just suburbanites, lots of families. Too bad the pay was shit, or I would have stayed longer. But easiest money in the world.

Hollywood Video > Blockbuster

Boomer bait by boomer larping as zoomer

House on the Edge of the Park?

I had a Hollywood Video in my neighborhood growing up. I was in there every goddamn day, and I swore I rented every game they had at least once.

You guys are apparently all retarded or zoomers LARPing as adults, because yes Blockbuster literally would haves like 15-20 copies of the same movie if it was popular enough. I remember Anchorman having like 10 feet of shelving dedicated to it. Any given Blockbuster would have way less selection than a streaming service, so idk what your point is.

4 for $20 used Blu-ray deal was absolutely fucking kino.

I went to college specifically to get a degree in video rental sciences and the same year I get my degree, the industry crumbles..

I worked at a videostore for a year before it closed down. To date it was the best dayjob I ever worked. Never too busy, the customers that did frequent were always moviebuffs and I'd exchange suggestions with them and shit. Still feel sorry I never saw a couple of them again

I still have dreams about one particular qt who in hindsight was hitting on me and even suggested to watch Synecdoche New York together. I never followed up on it and Ive hated myself ever since

The pay sucked, anyway

Peak comfy with a surprisingly good vidya selection at good prices. There used to be a 4 for £20 offer on buying vidya. Got some of my favourites there. Browsing for films was good too. As a kid it felt like every dvd on the planet was there.
Whenever I go past where the blockbuster used to be I get so nostalgic. Take me back Yea Forumsros...

part of the fun of blockbuster was seeing the same box art take up 10 feet of shelves
it's the sort of thing kids find interesting when their eyes aren't glued to a fucking screen all day, maybe

it was actually exciting

"what will they have in stock"
"what movie is out now"
"can I look at the porno french movie without mom noticing?"

"the video store girl has big titties. Delicious"

"holy fuck! they've marked up the chips and m&m's by 300%. I hope they know what they're doing because they could alienate their customers"

"I've already watched that. I downloaded it on direct connect."

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anyone else used to try to snek into the section where they had all the XXX tapes? :o)

It was pretty cool. Kind of like turning on netflix and going to a category and picking something just because the thumbnail looks cool. I lived in a small town that just had a mom and pop movie store, I remember being so damn hyped about Godzilla (1998) coming out but the store only had 3 copies. Went back there everyday for a week and a half before I finally got one.

A movie gallery eventually opened up and put the other store out of business.

It was the height of comfy, a little oasis of like-minded people who just wanted a little escape from their daily lives, and wonderful place to people watch and occasionally interact with the random grill.

>browsing the aisles
>making a mental note as to movies you might want to watch in the future
>nothing else strikes your fancy so you pick one of them up
>turns out to be the best movie you have seen in a long time
>all the while just waiting patiently for you

We have it super good now, but there was something to be said for being part of the club. Also 90s.

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I usually bought VHS and CDs for collection sake and because i wanted to rewatch the same film multiple times. And major part of them were pirates since i lived in Belarus and sometimes you could find a cartoon or anime after the “True Lies”, in my case in was Guyver

My towns still got a movie rental store, feels good that i can give my money to my town instead of kikes on the other hand online is more convenient.

my local video store closed in 2016, the same year I had cancer at 26 years old. they use to let me rent whatever wanted for free. I miss them alot,I went there for 15years. one day I showed up and they were gone.

That hurt to read man. I've experience similar situations too.

Not great but not horrible.

>not calling ahead of time to see if they got it and if so put it on hold for you

>What was browsing for movies to watch feel like?
pretty gay

>tfw VHS tapes are the first thing I think about when being in a video rental store, not DVD's

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>be me in the late 90s
>Bored
>Dad drives me to Blockbuster
>Check out new release section, action section, etc.
>pick movies
>check out the snacks and drinks you want while waiting on line.
>Pick out popcorn and soda
>Buy videos and junk

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I have nothing but good Blockbuster feels.
>would drive multiple times to Blockbuster with gf to rent shitty movies to watch and have sex too
>would go to used section with buddies to buy shitty used anime movies to enjoy
Just good times all around.

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They always had my favorite candy on sale to.

There's just something about physically walking down an aisle full of movies you've never known. Being able to hold the box, read the back of the box... fuck lads, I miss it.

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all the good shit was sold out and nothing looked good. that's why renting games was better.